The Study, Based On The Meaning Of The Morpheme Word Formation

In previous study on word formation, scholars usually consider a morpheme as a whole one. But as to a polysemic morpheme, it must have different characters when forming words on different sememes. In this thesis, the research of word formation is based on sememes, so a polysemic morpheme is divided into several parts according to different meanings, and every part is defined as a Sememic Morpheme. In this way, the 43 morphemes are divided into 360 Sememic Morphemes. Then the 10008 words formed by the morphemes can be classified according to the sememes of the studied morphemes. The thesis describes the word-formation of different types of Sememic Morphemes; analyses the relationships between the characters of word-formation and the characters of the Sememic Morphemes; then explains the characters of word-formation of different Sememic Morphemes.Besides the introduction, the main body of the thesis includes three part. 1. Chapter 2 discusses the distribution of different types of Sememic Morphemes in words and the relation between the distribution and the characters of the Sememic Morphemes. In this part, Sememic Morphemes are classfied according to Original meaning and extensional meaning. Then the distribution of the two types of Sememic Morphemes is described and reasons are worked out. Three aspects of Sememic Morphemes influence its distribution: the range of the reference meaning; the grammatical category; the phonetic feature.2.Chapter 3 discusses the word-formation ability of the Sememic Morphemes and related factors. Usually, Sememic Morphemes with original meanings have strong ability to form words, and those with extensional meanings have different abilities. It is found after further study that the ability to form words has something to do with these factors, (l)the range of the reference meaning; (2)the grammatical category; (3)the frequency of the Sememic Morphemes those can be freely used; (4)the extending way of Sememic Morphemes with extensional meaning; (5) whether the Sememic Morpheme have any synonyms.3.Chapter 4 mainly contrasts the meanings of the Sememic Morphemes when they are single (in the dictionary) and in words, and then gives some advices to the compilation of modern Chinese dictionary. The meanings of Sememic Morphemes usually are the same with those in the dictionary, but sometimes may be different, even can't be decomposed. So the dictionary had better attach much importance to the words formed by a certain morpheme when explain the morpheme, including variantmeaning, newly produced meanings and meanings existing in ancient Chinese.Study of the morphemes focusing on sememe has great significance to the study of Chinese and the application of Chinese. As to the research of Chinese, a new point of view is provided, and the point of view is microcosmic. Also the study focusing on sememe can set up a pattern for further study of verbal morphemes and adjective morphemes. As to the study of application, the study in this thesis is helpful to at least three aspects: the compilation of Chinese dictionary; the identification of words that are not logged in computer; enlarging the vocabulary through morpheme methods in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language.