The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey

by Po-Ching; Yip

• ISBN13: 9780415429542
• ISBN10: 0415429544
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2007-03-06
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Chinese Lexicon is a detailed study of the words and word combinations used in modern Chinese. Yip Po-Ching defines the general properties of a language's lexicon, or vocabulary, prior to a thorough discussion of the organizational features of the Chinese lexicon. Comparisons are made between Chinese and English, highlighting the similarities and differences between the two lexicons. This fascinating work examines the relationships between word and meanings, and demonstrates the ability of language to combine continuity and change. It surpasses the scope of a dictionary and reveals the systematic nature of vocabulary. Features include: a wealth of language examples clear comparisons between Chinese and English Chinese characters and pinyin romanization throughout a comprehensive index. The Chinese Lexicon surpasses the scope of a dictionary and reveals the systematic nature of vocabulary. It will prove an invaluable resource for allstudents and teachers of Chinese.

Author Biography

Yip Po-Ching is a former lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
Lexicon in General	p. 1
The Chinese Lexicon in Brief	p. 15
The Phonological Make-up of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 20
The Syllabic Structure	p. 20
The Consonants	p. 21
The Vowels	p. 22
Initials and Finals	p. 24
Pinyin Orthography	p. 25
Tones and Tone Sandhi	p. 26
Word Stress	p. 28
Erisation and Sound Assimilation	p. 30
Dialectal Interference	p. 31
Syllables versus Words	p. 31
The Graphetic Composition of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 35
The Basic Monostrokes	p. 35
The Stylised Patterns	p. 37
Traditional Ways of Character Formation	p. 39
New Formative Devices in Simplified Characters	p. 42
The Radicals	p. 43
The Phonetics	p. 49
Picto-phonetic Arrangement	p. 52
Picto-phonetic Variants	p. 54
Characters Old and New	p. 55
Stroke Sequence in Handwritten Characters	p. 55
The Question of Homophony	p. 56
Morphological Features of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 57
Affixes for Human Nouns	p. 59
Affixes for Non-human Nouns	p. 68
Verbal Affixes	p. 74
Adjectival Affixes	p. 76
Adverbial Affixes	p. 77
Numerical Prefixes	p. 79
Pronominal Suffix [Characters not reproducible] men for Plural	p. 80
Prepositional Suffixes	p. 80
Conjunctional Suffixes	p. 81
Negative Prefixes	p. 81
Infixes	p. 84
Parafixes	p. 85
Supramorphological Processes	p. 86
Syntactic Features of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 90
Juxtapositional Type	p. 93
Modificational Type	p. 122
Governmental Type	p. 135
Predicational Type	p. 157
Complemental Type	p. 168
Phonaesthetic Features of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 177
Sound Imageries	p. 180
Tone Imageries	p. 204
Interjections	p. 212
The Phonaesthetic Network	p. 213
Rhetorical Features of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 219
Metaphorical Comparison	p. 219
Masquerading Expression	p. 244
Aesthetic Forms of Speech	p. 249
The Rhetorical Scheme of the Lexicon	p. 257
Sense Relations of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 265
Hyponymy	p. 265
Polysemy	p. 272
Synonymy	p. 276
Antonymy	p. 284
Meaning Structure in the Mononyms	p. 292
Cultural and Socio-Political Features of the Chinese Lexicon	p. 296
China's Historical Past	p. 296
Chinese Views of the World	p. 300
Chinese Ways of Life	p. 304
Dominant Fields of Cultural and Scientific Interest	p. 312
Neologisms	p. 322
Loanwords in the Chinese Lexicon	p. 327
A Brief History of Borrowing	p. 327
Diverse Strategies of Borrowing	p. 333
Concluding Remarks	p. 346
Intra- and Inter-lexical Strategies of the Chinese and English Lexicons	p. 348
Phonetic	p. 348
Phonaesthetic	p. 350
Morphological	p. 353
Syntactic	p. 355
Semantic	p. 357
Graphetic	p. 360
Collocational	p. 363
Stylistic	p. 364
Cultural	p. 366
Bibliography	p. 369
Index	p. 381
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