| Reduplication is quite a common phenomenon in human languages, especially in those that lack inflections, such as isolating languages. Humboldt (1767-1835) offered his explanation:"phonetic reduplication could add subtle color to expressions. It doesn’t simply strengthen the expression, but a vivid description of a repeatedly appeared object. Therefore, reduplication words are mostly adjectives. The reason is that adjectives are used to describe an object’s attributes or state and attributes and state are different from a single object. It’s like a geometric plane, could be seen everywhere in a space." However, even in isolating languages families, different languages would have different reduplication mechanisms while sharing something in common, which is the main reason that this paper is focusing on the comparative studies of Chinese and Vietnamese reduplications.Reduplication is a morphological phenomenon, including the grammatical process of inflection and derivation, the formation of new words from existing words. This dissertation regards reduplication as a morphological mechanism. If it produces lexical meaning, this reduplication will subject to derivational reduplication; if it produces only the grammatical meaning, it will subject to inflectional reduplication. Regarding reduplication as a mechanism is based on the idea that it is a productive system, which in turn exemplifying the interaction of inflectional reduplication and derivational reduplication.This dissertation explores the differences and similarities between the adjective reduplications in Chinese and Vietnamese via comparing their inflectional and derivational mechanisms from an integrated prospective of typology, morphology, and cognitive linguistics. This research works under a reduplication typology frame, which is constructed on the basis of examining more than30different languages, and inducted from which the status of isolating languages reduplication; adopts the cognitive linguistics theory to explain the cognitive motivation of reduplication’s construction and the momentum of similarities in the perspective of typology.There are8Chapters as following: Chapter1is Introduction, including the reasons of choosing this subject, research significance, research review, research theory, and research method and corpus resources. It analyzes the insufficiency of recent research on adjective reduplication by examining the existed research papers, and establishes this dissertation’s goal and makes a choice of research method. In the theory part, it analyzes reduplication phenomenon in various languages and builds the reduplication research frame on the basis of iconicity theory.Chapter2discusses the universality of derivational reduplication in typology. It first explains the cognitive motivation in derivational reduplication by examining phonetic-semantic iconicity and sound symbolism. It holds that the cognitive similarities are the impetus of the similarities of derivational reduplication. It then further explores its universality by analyzing the constructing features of onomatopoeic and mimetic reduplication words in Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and English.Chapter3discusses the universality of inflectional reduplication in typology. It explains the cognitive motivation in inflectional reduplication following the rule of "complicated forms indicate complicated meaning" in iconicity. The cognitive similarities are the impetus of inflectional reduplication. According to the research of more than30languages, it is found that inflectional reduplication usually has the following grammatical meanings:1. Number. Reduplication of nouns indicates plurals or general reference;2. Aspect. Reduplication of verbs indicates repetition, progress (such as continuousness, enhancement, dispersion, complete and so on), slightness, short time, and attempt;3. Attributes and State. Reduplication of adjectives indicates the increase and decrease of the degree of attributes and state, and their visualized meaning as well. Under the same semantic category, by comparing the constructing features and morphological inflection rules of Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Karok, the university of inflectional reduplication is fully discussed.Chapter4makes comparison between Vietnamese and Chinese adjective reduplication. It first illustrates the word formation in Vietnamese and Chinese, the construction features of reduplication, and ways of reduplication; then was followed by the comparison of the constructing origins of AA-reduplication (non-root) in these two languages, their grammatical function, and their phonetics and semantics. In semantic aspect, it compares the semantic similarities and differences in indicating "continuousness","high degrees", and "sound symbolization" of AA-reduplication (non-root) in Vietnamese and Chinese.Chapter5is an analysis of ABB reduplication in Vietnamese and Chinese exploring its construction, sound and meaning. It also discusses Chinese unique reduplication (AABB non-root), and Vietnamese unique reduplication (monosyllabic partial reduplication).Chapter6is an examination of AA reduplication (with root) through the comparison with polysyllabic reduplication words from the aspects of construction of AA reduplication (with root) of Vietnamese and Chinese, and their phonetics and semantics, it also illustrates the features of AAA reduplication, which is unique in Vietnamese.Chapter7offers a further discussion of reduplication in typology. Based on chapter2and3, on the universality of reduplication of typology and chapter4,5and6, on the comparison of Vietnamese and Chinese adjective reduplication, it analyzes different reduplication categories of isolating languages, in order to seek differences in similarities, and find similarities among differences. Therefore, a comparatively complete typological frame could be established.Last part is the conclusion of this dissertation, summarizing its findings, creativities, limitations and prospect. |
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