Modern Chinese Scorpion-like Derivative Research

Chinese is a language which lacks morphological changes. Root compounds account for the majority of Chinese word-formation, in which case, researches about compounds are much more than that of derivatives. In recent years, as new concepts and new phenomenons flourish in every respect of the society, a type of depictive derivatives shows a tendency of rapid growth.The depictive derivatives are widely used in the daily communication.This type of words is on the premise of the relevant circumstances.It is based on a specific context and on the basis of association psychology.It has flexible performance means,which enriched the traditional Chinese way of expression.So far,the researches of depictive derivatives are only sporadic in some papers.The depictive derivatives is one type of derivatives which depict character, meaning and composition. It is composed of some meaningful content words and the class of affix which has descriptive nature.This article mainly takes four types of depictive derivatives as examples:"X zhuang, pattern, form,shape".According to the number of syllables of " X ",the depictive derivatives can be divided into three types:single syllable, double syllables and polysyllables. It is the most common way to combine the double syllables with affix such as"zhuang. patter, form,shape " to constitute derivatives.The polysyllables often include the components of idioms.According to the structure of the "X" of depictive derivatives,the double syllable components can be divided into five types:subject-verb type,joint type,verb-object type, attributive type and complement type.According to the function of "X" of depictive derivatives,they are can be divided into three types:the nominal.the adjective and the verbal.Among these types,some nouns which describe appearance and temperament of people or the names of people or objects which are representative and well-known can all serve as "X".A small number of abstract nouns and collective nouns can not act as "X".The descriptive "X" which depicts the characters'facial expressions, the appearance of things, motion state and which states the fact is more common.Among the verbal" X ",the descriptive verbs which includes depictive elements itself is very special.From the perspective of syntactic function of depictive derivatives, acting as attributive and objective composition is the most typical situation of the four types of depictive derivatives.At the same time,they all have their own syntactic functions.From the perspective of depictive function of depictive derivatives, on the basis of the metaphor theory of cognitive semantics, they derivate two great functions:depict people and objects;depict content and abstract.The depictive function of depictive derivatives has three prominent functions in our daily communication:First.lt can accurately depict the characteristics of things;Second, it can vividly depict characters;Third,it can foil atmosphere and strengthen the artistic appeal. On the basis of synchronic description of the composition and the main functions of depictive derivatives.the paper investigates its evolution from the perspective of diachronic, which can make the function of the modern Chinese depictive derivatives more fully explained.