An Investigation Into The Phonetic Forms And Grammatical Structures Of The Three-Syllable Words And Phrases In Modern Chinese Dictionary

Based on three-syllable words and phrases in Modern Chinese Dictionary (5th edition), this paper investigates their phonetic forms and grammatical structures, the relationship between their phonetic forms and grammatical structures, between their grammatical features and word parts, as well as between their phonetic forms, grammatical structures and their paths of origination. The results show that:(i)There exhibit similarities and differences between the phonetic forms of three-syllable words and fixed expressions in the aspects of their rhythm, light tone as well as intonation. To be specific, three rhythm structures, that is,'1+2','2+1'and'1+1+1'can be found in both three-syllable words and fixed expressions; but there are more'2+1'structures(73.71%) than'1+2'strucutes (25.77%) in three–syllable words, more'1+2'structures(88.45%) than'2+1'structures(9.00%) in fixed expressions; besides, for both three-syllable words and fixed expressions, light tones usually appear at the last syllable of the two-syllable structures, fourth tone syllables are the most frequently found followed by the first tone, however, for three-syllable words, light tone can appear at the first syllable of the two-syllable'1+2'structures and one-syllable'2+1'structures but not for the fixed expressions, first tone syllable are the least frequently found in three-syllable words whereas for the fixed expressions, second tone syllable are the least.(ii)There are similarities and distinctions between grammatical structures between three-syllable words and fixed expressions in that their grammatical structures are basically the same though in three-syllable words, head-final structures account for the majority(89.45%) while in fixed expressions head-initials take the role(81.28%), among the head-final structures most structures are'attributive + head'structures(96.37%) for three-syllable words and'adverbial + head'structures for the fixed expressions(75.00%), among the head-initial structures,'verb + complement' structures(88.31%) take the majority for the three-syllable words and'verb + object'(98.19%)does for the fixed expressions.(iii)The phonetic forms and the grammatical structures show corresponding features in three-syllable word. In their rhythm structures, the number of'2+1'structures (73.71%) is larger than that of'1+2'structures, in their grammatical structures, there are far more head-final structures (89.45%) than other ones;(iv)The relationship between the attributes of three-syllable words with concentric structures and grammatical features of their head varies to the difference of the grammatical features of the head.(v)There exists difference between the rhythm, grammatical structures and their paths of origination of three-syllable verbs. In their rhythm, the'1+2'structures originated by means of lexicalization take the precedence while there are no significant difference between'1+2'and'2+1'structures originated by word formation, and in their grammatical structures, most structures originated by means of lexicalization are head-initial structures(76.60%), and those originated by word formation are mostly head-final structures(61.73%).