Word Class Layering In Analytic Languages From The Perspective Of Theory Of Norms And Exploitations

Word class categorization has long been a dilemma in grammatical research,and it is even treated as the God particles of language in the36thAnnual Conferenceof the German Linguistic Society in March2014. Although lexicographers havereached agreements on the criteria of POS labeling in theory considering that wordclass should be decided by the grammatical function, there still remain differentviewpoints in practical word class classification. Classic word class categorizationtheory is established on synthetic languages which are full of inflections, and analyticlanguages are characterized by multi-functionality which may be heterosemy ortemporary use, there still remain disagreements on how to judge this kind of usage.Word class categorization of analytic languages is the “Goldbach conjecture”linguistic field which has puzzled lexicographers for hundreds of years.In order to tackle this problem, this paper is intended to explain how to judgemulti-functionality with the two-level word class categorization put forward by WangRenqiang on the basis of Theory of Norms and Exploitations and Usage-BasedTheory. Considering that words in analytic languages tend to be multifunctional, thisthesis will make an empirical study of English and Chinese basic color words toshow and verify two level word class categorization in analytic languages withreliable data from large corpora and authoritative dictionaries. There exists atwo-level word classification for each word, word class in langue will change withfrequent usage of that in parole, and exploitations can be conventionalized as normswith time and frequent usage. Dictionaries include meaning potentials instead ofmeanings, and corpus based usage pattern survey is necessary when analyzing theunmarked propositional speech act and further judge whether it is conventionalized.Only those word classes which are conventionalized can be included in dictionaries.According to this thesis POS labeling of basic color words in CCD6is quite differentfrom the unmarked conventionalized propositional speech act in CNC, while POS labeling in OALD8is similar with that in COCA.On the basis of two-level word class categorization by Wang Renqiang(2014),this paper will analyze multi-functionality of English and Chinese basic color wordsso as to further the study of Chinese word classes and the study of word classlabeling in Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries.