The Semantic Comparison Of Sino-Vietnamese Words And Chinese Origins

Vietnam and China's political,economic and cultural exchanges have a long history,one of these exchanges' results is language contact.The Sino-Vietnamese is the result of Vietnamese and Chinese's language contact,and its vocabulary is called Sino-Vietnamese words-that portion of the Vietnamese vocabulary which is of Chinese origin or makes use of morphemes of Chinese origin.This thesis has three chapters besides of preface and conclusion.The preface concerns mainly the reason,method and process of the research.In addition,the preface summerizes and analyzes the present situation of the research of Sino-Vietnamese.Chapter one introduces the theory of language contact,borrowing of vocabulary,sematic change,which provide the theoretical base for the research.Chapter two discusses the definition of Sino-Vietnamese words and related concepts,the formation process of Sino-Vietnamese words and their semantic change.Firstly,this thesis demarcates Sino-Vietnamese words and related concepts such as the Sino-Vietnamese,SinoVietnamese syllables and Sino-Vietnamese morphemes.Secondly,about the formation process of Sino-Vietnamese words,based on different opinions of Wang Li,Nguyen Tai Can,Lin Ming Hua,Nghiem Thuy Hang and Nguyen Dinh Hien,which are believed that Sino-Vietnamese words were imported into Vietnam from the time of sixth to ninth or tenth century,this thesis considers that the time when Sino-Vietnamese words were formed is Chinese's most powerful Sui and Tang Dynasties(581-907).Being a portion of the Vietnamese vocabulary,after more than two thousand years of language practice process,to a certain extent,the meaning of SinoVietnamese words have occured semantic change and been assimilated by Vietnamese.The general rule of sematic change of denotative meaning of Sino-Vietnamese words is the same as that in other language,includes widening of meaning,narrowing of meaning and branching.Chapter three categorized the Sino-Vietnamese words starting with A to K collected from "Vietnamese Dictionary" into two main groups according to the existence of their corresponding words and expression within the Chinese Lexicon.The first group is the one that has the corresponding words and expression within the Chinese Lexicon.According to the semantic comparison of Sino-Vietnamese words and their Chinese corresponding words,words in the first group can be divided into three small groups,the first type is ones that their meaning is similar to their Chinese corresponding words' one;the second type is ones that their meaning is similar and at the same time different from their Chinese corresponding words' one;the last type is ones that their meaning is basically different from their Chinese corresponding words' one.The second group is the one that does not have the corresponding words and expression within the Chinese Lexicon.This group can be classified as Sino-Vietnamese words formed by two or more morphemes of Chinese origin,Sino-Vietnamese words that are inverse morpheme forms of Chinese corresponding words,Sino-Vietnamese words that have only ancient Chinese corresponding words,Sino-Vietnamese words that are shortened or condensed phrases or expressions in Chinese.The concluding part summarizes the main arguments of each chapter,at the same time,points out the shortcomings of this thesis.