Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T20:58:09.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Characters as Basic Lexical Units and Monosyllabicity in Chinese

from Part Two - Morpho-lexical Issues in Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

By
Chu-Ren Huang ,
Hongjun Wang  and
I-Hsuan Chen
Edited by
Chu-Ren Huang ,
Yen-Hwei Lin ,
I-Hsuan Chen  and
Yu-Yin Hsu
Chu-Ren Huang
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Get access

Summary

This chapter revisits the character-based approach to Chinese grammar and the ongoing debate about how to define the concept of a word in Chinese. The authors provide a variety of evidence, including distributional generalizations in corpus and Chinese word-level and phrase-level rules, such as Mandarin alphabetic words, replaceable idioms, and abbreviations, to argue that character and monosyllabicity plays an indispensable role in Chinese linguistics. It is shown that although words do serve as basic units in Chinese grammar, yet some important generalizations of Chinese grammar cannot be achieved without also employing the concept of characters. The examples provided in the chapter show that some morphosyntactic constraints can be better accommodated by treating characters as basic units in addition to words. In conclusion, the authors return to an integrated account of character as both an orthographic and linguistic unit in Chinese. This integrated account captures fully and more precisely Chinese syntactic and word formation behaviors that had been challenging to word-based accounts.

Keywords

wordhoodlexical interfacesform–meaning pairrelevance of orthographyunit of language processing
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 74 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellassen, Joël, and Zhang, Pengpeng. 1989. Méthode d’initiation à la langue et à l’écriture chinoises. Initiation to Chinese language and writing 汉语语言文字启蒙. Paris: La Compagnie.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1926. A set of postulates for the science of language. Language 2(3):153–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1965. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. Language and symbolic systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Keh-jiann, Huang, Chu-Ren, Chang, Li-ping, and Hsu, Hui-Li. 1996. Sinica Corpus: Design methodology for balanced corpora. In Proceedings of the 11th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, 167–176.Google Scholar
Chen, Qinghua, Guo, Jinzhong, and Liu, Yufan. 2012. A statistical study on Chinese word and character usage in literatures from the Tang Dynasty to the present. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 19(3):232–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chou, Ya-Min, and Huang, Chu-Ren. 2010. Hantology: Conceptual system discovery based on orthographic convention. In Ontology and the lexicon: A natural language processing perspective, ed. Huang, Chu-Ren, Calzolari, Nicoletta, Gangemi, Aldo, Lenci, Alessandro, Oltramari, Alessandro, and Prévot, Laurent, 122–143. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ding, Hongwei, Zhang, Yuanyuan, Liu, Hongchao, and Huang, Chu-Ren. 2017. A preliminary phonetic investigation of alphabetic words in Mandarin Chinese. In Proceedings of Interspeech 2017, Stockholm, 3028–3032.Google Scholar
Ding, Jing. 2018. A lexical semantic study of Chinese opposites. Frontiers in Chinese linguistics 1. Singapore: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dong, Sicong, and Huang, Chu-Ren 董思聪, 黄居仁. 2020. A comparative study on haplology of Putonghua and Taiwan Mandarin and its standardisation 两岸同音删略现象对比研究. Chinese Linguistics 汉语学报 2020(1):14–24.Google Scholar
Dong, Sicong, and Wong, Sam Yin. 2020. Haplology and lexical entries: A study based on cross-linguistic data from Sinitic languages. Lexicography 7(1):59–77.Google Scholar
Di Sciullo, Anna Maria, and Williams, Edwin. 1987. On the definition of word (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph, Vol. 14). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Feng, Shengli. 2002. Prosodic syntax and morphology in Chinese. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Francopoulo, Gil. (ed.) 2013. LMF lexical markup framework. London: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Hou, Renkui, Huang, Chu-Ren, Do, Hue San, and Liu, Hongchao. 2017. A study on correlation between Chinese sentence and constituting clauses based on the Menzerath–Altmann Law. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 24(4):350–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hou, Renkui, Huang, Chu-Ren, and Liu, Hongchao. 2019. A study on Chinese register characteristics based on regression analysis and text clustering. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 15(1):1–37. https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2016-0062.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Changning, and Zhao, Hai. 2007. Chinese word segmentation: A decade review. Journal of Chinese Information Processing 21(3):8–20.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren. 1990. A unification-based LFG analysis of lexical discontinuity. Linguistics. 28(2):263–307.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren. 2009. Semantics as an orthography-relevant level for Mandarin Chinese. Paper presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics, July 2–4, Paris.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, and Ahrens, Kathleen. 2003. Individuals, kinds and events: classifier coercion of nouns. Language Sciences 25(4):353–373.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, Ahrens, Kathleen, Becker, Tania, Llamas, Regina, Tam, King-fai, and Meisterernst, Barbara. 2019. Chinese language arts: The role of language and linguistic devices in literary and artistic expressions. In The Routledge handbook of Chinese applied linguistics, ed. Huang, Chu-Ren, Jing-Schmidt, Zhuo, and Meisterernst, Barbara, 237–255. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, Ahrens, Kathleen, and Chen, Keh-Jiann. 1998. A data-driven approach to the mental lexicon: Two studies on Chinese corpus linguistics. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology 69:151–180.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, and Chang, Ru-Yng. 2004. Categorical ambiguity and information content: A corpus-based study of Chinese. Journal of Chinese Language and Computing (Special Issue: Corpora, Language Use, and Grammar) 14(2):157–165.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, Chen, Chao-Jan, and Shen, Claude C. C.. 2002. The nature of categorical ambiguity and its implications for language processing: A corpus-based study of Mandarin Chinese. In Sentence processing in East Asian languages, ed. Nakayama, Mineharu, 53–83. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, Chen, Keh-Jiann, Lai, Ching-hsiung 黄居仁, 陈克健, 赖庆雄. 1997. Mandarin daily news dictionary of measure words 国语日报量词典. Taipei: Mandarin Daily Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, and Hsieh, Shu-Kai. 2015. Chinese lexical semantics: From radicals to event structure. In The Oxford handbook on Chinese linguistics, ed. Wang, William S.-Y. and Sun, Chaofen, 290–305. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, Hsieh, Shu-Kai, and Chen, Keh-Jiann. 2017. Mandarin Chinese words and parts of speech: A corpus-based study. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, and Liu, Hongchao 黄居仁, 刘洪超. 2017. Corpus-based automatic extraction and analysis of Mandarin alphabetic words 基于语料库的汉语字母词自动抽取与分析. Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition) 云南师范大学学报(哲学社会科学版) 2017(3):10–21.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, and Xue, Nianwen. 2012. Words without boundaries: Computational approaches to Chinese word segmentation. Language and Linguistics Compass 6(8):494–505.Google Scholar
Le, Quan Ha, Sicilia-Garcia, E. I., Ming, Ji, and Smith, F. J.. 2003. Extension of Zipf’s law to word and character n-grams for English and Chinese. Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing 8(1):77–102.Google Scholar
Lee, Jun-Ren, and Huang, Chu-Ren. 2022. Phonological awareness, orthography, and learning to read Chinese. In The Cambridge handbook of Chinese linguistics, ed. Huang, Chu-Ren, Lin, Yen-Hwei, Chen, I-Hsuan, and Hsu, Yu-Yin, 3–22. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Libben, Gary. 1998. Semantic transparency in the processing of compounds: Consequences for representation, processing, and impairment. Brain and Language 61(1):30–44.Google Scholar
Lu, Qin. 2019. Computer and Chinese writing system. In The Routledge handbook of Chinese applied linguistics, ed. Huang, Chu-Ren, Jing-Schmidt, Zhuo, and Meisterernst, Barbara, 461–482. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mok, L. W. 2009. Word-superiority effect as a function of semantic transparency of Chinese bimorphemic compound words. Language and cognitive processes 24(7–8):1039–1081.Google Scholar
Myers, James. 2019. The grammar of Chinese characters: Productive knowledge of formal patterns in an orthographic system. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shtrikman, Shmuel. 1994. Some comments on Zipf’s law for the Chinese language. Journal of Information Science 20(2):142–143.Google Scholar
Sproat, Richard William. 2000. A computational theory of writing systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sproat, Richard, and Shih, Chilin. 1996. A corpus-based analysis of Mandarin nominal root compound. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 5(1):49–71.Google Scholar
Wang, Hungchun 王洪君. 2007. Character-based approach and teaching Chinese as a second language 字本位”与汉语二语教学. Journal of Chinese Language Teaching 汉语教学学刊 3:58–71.Google Scholar
Wang, Hungchun 王洪君. 2008. Linguistic levels and the levels of the theory of taking Zi as the Chinese basic unit 语言的层面与 “字本位” 的不同层面. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies 语言教学与研究 2008(3):1–11.Google Scholar
Wang, Shichang, Huang, Chu-Ren, Yao, Yao, and Chan, Angel. 2019. The effect of morphological structure on semantic transparency ratings. Language and Linguistics 20(2):225–255.Google Scholar
Wong, Sam Yin, Chen, I-Hsuan, and Huang, Chu-Ren. 2018. Facilitating and blocking conditions of haplology: a comparative study of Hong Kong Cantonese and Taiwan Mandarin. In Proceedings of the 32nd Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, Hong Kong, 729–736.Google Scholar
Xiang, Rong, Wan, Mingyu, Su, Qi, Huang, Chu-Ren, and Lu, Qin. 2020. Sina Mandarin alphabetical words: A web-driven code-mixing lexical resource. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 10th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing, Suzhou, 833–842.Google Scholar
Xu, Tongqiang 徐通锵. 2005. Zi as the basic structural unit and linguistic studies “字本位” 和语言研究. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies 语言教学与研究 2005(6):1–11.Google Scholar
Xu, Tongqiang. 徐通锵. 2008. Introduction to “character-based” grammar of Chinese. 汉语字本位语法导论. Jinan: Shandong Education Press.Google Scholar
Yip, Moira. 1995. Identity avoidance in phonology and morphology. Rutgers Optimality Archive (82):1–29f.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×