The Diachronic Study On Symmetry And Asymmetry Of "Shang And Xia"

"Shang and xia",a pair of frequently-used antonym in modern chinese, is the subject matter of many researches among which, mostly are synchronic with a few hitting upon the diachronic level. This being the case, the present study intends to make a tentative description of the symmetry and asymmetry relation of"shang and xia".On the basis of the corpus, this paper investigates the combination of"shang and xia"as locatives with nouns and that of"shang and xia"as verbs with verbs. Besides, the diachronic development of"shang"and"xia"is examined respectively, ensued by the diachronic study of symmetry and asymmetry of"shang and xia"according to the analytical result of corpus and statistic data.The analytical result shows that, there is discrepancy between the frequency of the use of"shang"and"xia"in different historical periods and that in modern Chinese. The symmetry and asymmetry of"shang"and"xia"has complex changes because of the difference of the number senses. Asymmetry is entailed in symmetry, and develops into symmetry, finally forming"shang"and"xia"in modern Chinese.