Full text loading...
USD
-
The morphology of Chinese disyllabic verbs
- Source: International Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Volume 5, Issue 1, Jan 2018, p. 94 - 124
-
- 10 Aug 2018
Abstract
Abstract
With a close examination of the characteristics of Chinese monosyllables, i.e., the base morphemes that form the disyllabic verbs, this article discusses the morphological traits these characteristics bring to disyllabic compound verbs. The two distinctive characteristics of the Chinese monosyllables, namely, being morphologically independent and highly polysemous, give rise to unusual phenomena in disyllabic verbs, most representatively the headedness of coordinative compound verbs. The Chinese language not only has various possible forms of headedness, but also allows the same compound verbs to be both endocentric and exocentric.
© John Benjamins Publishing Company