Exemplar-based compounds: The case of Chinese. (September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco; Mauri, Caterina
• Is Part Of: Language sciences. Volume 81(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Subjects: Co-compounding -- Classifiers -- Chinese -- Ad hoc categories -- Naming -- Exemplification; Linguistics -- Periodicals; Language and languages -- Periodicals; Linguistique -- Périodiques; Langage et langues -- Périodiques; Language and languages; Linguistics; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 405
• DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2019.06.002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0388-0001

Abstract

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate a specific naming strategy, which is based on compounding and exemplification, examining data from Chinese. We will focus on what we will label 'exemplar-based compounds', i.e. compounds consisting of at least one lexeme denoting an exemplar of the category referred to by the whole compound. We propose that 'exemplar-based' compounds in Chinese be divided into two macro-types: (1) [exemplar 1 -exemplar 2 ] category, in which the exemplars may or may not exhaustively list the members of the category denoted by the compound (e.g. dāoqiāng 'sword-spear, sword and spear > 'swords, spears and similar things = weapons'); (2) [exemplar-class] category, in which the first constituent exemplifies the class denoted by the second one; this type includes compounds in which the second constituent is a classifier (e.g. niǎozhī 'bird', chuánzhī 'ship', with zhī 'clf '). After a detailed discussion of exemplar-driven category naming and of compounding and classifiers in Chinese, we will present the results of a corpus-based study, based on data of Premodern and Modern Chinese. We will show how the exemplar-driven abstraction characterising these constructions evolved into systematic reference to a category and to its individual items, revealing a change from a procedural category construction to a naming concept label. Highlights: Exemplar-based compounds are fairly common in the Chinese lexicon. There are two macro-types of exemplar-based compounds in Chinese, which we examined in a diachronic perspective. Exemplar-based compounds in Chinese often evolved from generic reference to categories to labels for individual entities. Non-synonymic exemplar-based compounds often retain a generic, abstract semantics, and are mainly used to name categories. Category construction by exemplification may result in a label for the category itself, thus acquiring a naming function.