A Construction Morphology Study Of The Reduplication Patterns AB And AABB In Mandarin Chinese

Reduplication is a productive morphological operation in Chinese.Its form usually corresponds to certain grammatical or semantic function.The combination of form and meaning corresponds to Goldberg's concept of construction.This research selects two reduplication patterns AA and AABB in Mandarin Chinese,aiming to solve the following problems from the perspective of construction morphology and cognitive linguistics:Previous researches have made thorough descriptions of the semantics of AA reduplications,but seldom explore the underlying cognitive mechanism.AA reduplications of different categories may differ in semantic functions.Are there any connections between these semantic functions?Structurally,AA reduplication resembles coordinate compound in Chinese and affixation in English.Can they be viewed as the variants of the same morphological construction?The two constituents of many AABB reduplications are semantically relevant.Can such semantic relevance be explained from a constructional approach?This research obtains linguistic data from Dictionary of Modern Chinese(the 7~thh edition)and Great Dictionary of Chinese Idiom(the latest edition)and utilizes the methods of induction and comparison in analysis.The reduplicative entries in the form of AA and AABB are collected and classified.Then we will make a description of their formal and semantic aspects from the perspective of construction morphology.AA reduplications with different semantic functions are illustrated through image schema,and are compared with coordinate compound and affixation.For AABB reduplication,we explore the morphological operations it undergoes before taking shape and its constructionalization process.Major findings of this research include:Of the three semantic functions of AA reduplications—“descriptive”,“universality or succession”and“diminutive”,“descriptive”is the prototypical one.Its relationship with the other two semantic functions can be illustrated through image schema transformations.The emergence of AA reduplication is related to our imitation of natural sounds.AA reduplication,coordinate compound and affixation are three distinct morphological constructions with different cognitive bases.AABB reduplication is redefined as a unified construction of reduplication and coordinate compounding.It originates from the combination of AA and BB.Under the coercive effect of reduplication and coordinate compounding,the two constituents of AABB reduplication may lose their original categories and semantic properties.This thesis makes an analysis of Chinese word formation from a constructional approach and serves as a complement to the cognitive research on Chinese reduplication.