The Study Of "Noun-quantifier" Compound Words Of Contemporary Chinese Language

The study of "noun-quantifier" compound words have attracted more and more attention from the academic world. However, the results lack consistence, because we are uncertain which words are "noun-quantifier" compound words. The differences of research subjects must lead to the differences of research results. Therefore, this paper firstly ascertained the standards of judgement of "noun-quantifier" compound words thinking from a synchronic and a diachronic viewpoint. Then, we found out eleven formal "noun-quantifier" compound words and several informal "noun-quantifier" compound words on the basis of these standards. The formal ones are chuanzhi, jianzhi, qiangzhi, zhizhang, pizhang, bupi, mapi, cheliang, yinliang, huafu and meijin. The following researches on them are about origins and traits, the causes of emergence and development, and the trend and laws of their development. Based on the previous research, the souce of "noun-quantifier" compound words are classified into three types:direct bonding, cross-layer combination, and creation based on similarity. At the same time, the general reasons of their emergence and development are into four points:the grammatical tradition of ancient Chinese, psychological balanced mechanism and phronetal mechanism of imitation and creation, and the development from monosyllable to double syllable. Besides, the paper further explores the development trends and rules of "noun-quantifier" compound words. There will be more and more "noun-quantifier" compound words until the measure morphemes become affix. In addition, Four major characteristics of them are summarized. First, they can show collective concept, Individual meaning and concrete concept. Second, it can be a "num-quantifier-noun" phrase after the reverse of the noun morpheme and the measure morpheme. Third, the two morphemes are limited to a certain range. Last, they mostly used as written language. This paper tried to take a quantitative analysis of "noun-quantifier" compound words and solved some questions about them. We found out the grammatical motivation of them is inheritance of ancient Chinese grammar, and the reason of the unbalance of their development is that they develop following certain rules such as closeness and inheritance. In addition, we first put forward the deep mechanism of "noun-quantifier" compound words such as psychological mechanism of balance and phronetal mechanism of imitation and creation.