浅谈“蛋”的类词缀化现象

Abstract

In this study, an attempt was made to investigate the morphological characteristics and semantic characteristics of the ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ form of word families in which the word ‘dan(蛋)’ was used as quasi-affixes, and to examine whether ‘dan(蛋)’ in modern Chinese has enough functions as a quasi-suffix in the process. According to the analysis results of 49 ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ words detected from BCC Corpus, in ‘X’ of ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ noun morpheme, adjective morpheme, and verb morpheme can appear, and ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ can be divided in terms of morphology into 5 types, including 1) monosyllable noun+‘dan(蛋)’; 2) monosyllable adjective+‘dan(蛋)’; 3) monosyllable verb+‘dan(蛋)’; 4) two-syllable noun+‘dan(蛋)’; and 5) two-syllable adjective+‘dan(蛋)’. In the case of four-syllable ‘X-dan(X蛋)’, they are the words created by adding adjectives with prefix functions such as ‘xiao(小), da(大), chou(臭), lao(老), and si(死)’ to the form of 4) and 5) at the front. In terms of word class, ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ can be divided into noun(89.8%) and verb(10.2%), and when they are compared with other ‘X-quasi suffix’ forms of words, there are many usages that are used as a verb. That is to say, other ‘X-quasi suffix’ forms of words are rarely used as verb. On the other hand, in order to examine the semantic characteristics, we have examined the original meaning, derivative meaning, and analogy meaning of ‘dan(蛋)’ by utilizing authoritative dictionaries and five kinds of dictionaries of Chinese characters. We have also examined two other phenomena related to the use of ‘X-dan(X蛋)’. X-dan(X蛋), which was originally used to mean humiliation in a derogative sense, is used to represent familiarity or closeness when it is used in the form of ‘xiao(小)+X-dan(X蛋)’, with ‘xiao(小)’ attached at the front. And ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ came to be used to represent a positive meaning. These phenomena signify a semantic generalization of the meaning of ‘dan(蛋)’ from its original meaning that denotes ‘eggs of animals such as bird, turtle, and snake’ to its derivatives such as ‘non-human’ and ‘young’. From what has been described above, we can see that the lexicalization of ‘dan(蛋)’ to quasi-suffixes is already pronounced, and it is expected that new ‘X-dan(X蛋)’ words will be created in the future as well. However, the extent to which these words have vitality is closely related to the cultural and psychological aspects of the language users, as can be verified by the diachronic search result presented in this study.