语形视角下的《现汉》非四字成语探析——兼论成语的原型特征

Abstract

This study aims to identify the prototypical features of chengyu (Chinese idioms) and to delineate their boundaries from closely related categories such as suyu. Taking 98 non-four-character chengyu listed in the seventh edition of the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian (Modern Chinese Dictionary) as the research corpus, the paper conducts a detailed examination of their morphophonological forms. The findings show that double four-character patterns constitute the majority of non-four-character chengyu, followed by monomorphic five- and six-syllable forms. Among disyllabic chengyu, symmetrical structures are predominant, exhibiting symmetry not only in character count but also in syntactic organization and semantic correspondence. Monomorphic non-four-character chengyu display prosodic patterns more akin to sentences than to lexical items, and many five-syllable idioms have corresponding four-character variants. In terms of semantics, non-four-character chengyu show a significantly higher tendency toward dual-layered meanings. Therefore, this paper argues that, in addition to the most essential feature—the “four-syllable form,” other aspects such as structural symmetry, semantic duality, formal stylistic register, and origin from classical allusions also constitute the prototypical characteristics of chengyu (Chinese idioms).