Reconstruction of Uncertain Historical Evolution of the Polysyllablization of Chinese Lexis

Polysyllablization, closely related to phonetics, semantics, and syntactics, is one of the fundamental trends in the development of Chinese lexis. However, with lots of uncertainties in the historical evolution of Chinese language, the quantitative modeling and reconstruction of polysyllablization remain open questions. Based on the Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Words, a mapping from the words to their time of occurrence is built. With the inverse mapping on random samples, the newly produced words with different numbers of syllables in different time periods are obtained. Finally the total quadratic variation minimization model is adopted to estimate the trend of polysyllablization. As a novel exploration in the computational linguistics, the results agree with the stage division of historical Chinese and answer some difficult questions related to polysyllablization in a quantitative manner

Lability of Verbs and the Change-of-State Construction in Chinese.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

Ideology of Literature Studies in High School Colloquiums in Neoliberal China

This study focuses on exploring the ideological influences in literature studies in neoliberal China. The exploration of ideological impacts will be discussed through looking at the theoretical discourse and empirical discourse. The theoretical discourse which will be developed in this study based on the theory of ideology and the theory of neoliberalism. There will be many other theoretical themes discussed in study, but all of them are going to serve the discourse about ideology and neoliberalism. The discourse about the theory of ideology and theory of neoliberalism intends to provide the background and theoretical framework for the empirical discourse. The empirical discourse is concentrated in the literature materials which come from the high school colloquiums in China. Those materials will be provided in different themes, in order to extend the discussions about the existed ideologies in literature studies. Through the empirical discourse about literature studies, study will be able to show various types of different ideological themes and how they work within the context of neoliberal China after economic reform in 1978. Once all sorts of ideological themes in literature studies are depicted, this study will pay attention to the philosophical themes in order to discuss how the philosophical themes influence the society and individuals in their everyday lives. Those philosophical discussions will be derived from the empirical discourse which is concentrated in literature studies

The Near-Synonymous Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese: Etymology, Modern Usage, And Possible Problems in L2 Classroom

Many Chinese classifiers are nearly synonymic – they can be used with the same head nouns without changing the meaning of the sentence, in other words, such classifiers can be used interchangeably or almost interchangeably. This poses a challenge for Chinese language learners, especially those who lack such a grammatical category in their own native language. Another complication arises from the ambiguous English translations of many classifiers. In this paper we investigate the collocation behavior of near-synonymous Chinese classifiers, focusing on their semantic nuances and interchangeability. Analyzing 6 pairs of classifiers — 栋 and 幢, 匹 and 头, 批 and 派, 颗 and 粒, 辆 and 台, and 根 and 支— drawn from the HSK exam glossary, the dataset for this study encompasses 1200 samples (100 per each variable) and 416 distinct head nouns. Through a corpus-based approach we analyze collocation behavior of each classifier on its own and as a part of the pair. The results showcase that not all pairs exhibit complete interchangeability. The collocation behavior of 批 and 派 differ significantly, where 批 primarily quantifies batches with a \u27first\u27 connotation, while 派 is used more in artistic expressions. The interchangeability of 栋 and 幢 varies with context. 幢 emerges as the least fre¬¬quent morpheme in the corpus, emphasizing its specific contextual usage. While both are used in address lines, 栋 predominantly quantifies standalone buildings, whereas 幢 is more aligned with larger architectural complexes. The analysis of 匹 and 头 highlights their distinctiveness, with 匹 counting horses and wolves and 头 being more versatile with various animals. 颗 and 粒 appear partially interchangeable, particularly with 珠-related head nouns and items associated with plants, fruits, and trees. The research also underscores that 辆 is primarily linked to car-related nouns, while 台 is used more versatile as a classifier for machines and electronic devices, including computers, printers, phones, cameras. 根 and 支 only overlap in the head noun 笔, and their roles diverge, with 根 being a versatile classifier and 支 also appearing as part of medical terms

Cultural Factors in Semantic Extension : a Typological Perspective on Chinese Polysemy

This article offers a typological approach to Chinese polysemy. Cultural factors are verified to have profound effects on propelling semantic extension mechanism, through analyzing multiple instances in Chinese and English. Chinese polysemy reveals abundant inherent individual characteristics, however in respect of semantic extension, it relates to many universals as well that are comprehensible to a large extent