The Study Of Asymmetry Of Antonym "Zao-Wan"

When we taught foreigners Chinese, we should tell them that the use of antonyms was not completely symmetrical. However we must find out the asymmetry of antonym. This study focused on the asymmetry of antonym"Zao-Wan".First of all, we conducted a comprehensive inspection of"Zao"and"Wan"in the modern Chinese and found there was existing asymmetries in the following: the frequency of"Zao"was higher than"Wan","Zao"suffered restrictions on the grammatical structure were less than"Wan";"Zao"was more inclined to use independently, and"Wan"as morpheme had a higher frequency ; Compared"Zao"to"Wan","Zao"had adverb's meaning item,"Wan"had two formation of high-capacity, and "Zao" had no item correspond with the meaning and so on. In the synchronic level, we could explain some of asymmetries in Markedness theory, which"Zao"was unmarked item, and"Wan"was marked item. We could explain some of asymmetries from the pragmatic and semantic perspectives; However, the above theories could not fully explain the two words of asymmetry. To fully clarify the reasons for the asymmetry of the two words, we must inspect the development in diachronic level.In the diachronic level, we not only inspected representative works of the Ancient Chinese, Middle Chinese and Modern Chinese, but also made qualitative and quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis made us understand the origin and development of"Zao"as adverb's meaning item, but also more or less cleared the roughly time that each meaning item of"Zao"and"Wan"appeared. Through quantitative analysis of the representative works, we could understand the usage of the two words in every stage: we know that the function of "Zao" as adverb's item meaning was increasing trend, however the function of "Wan" as noun's item meaning was increasing trend, these trends directly impacted on the distribution of the two words in modern Chinese. We carried out this idea: any change and development of the meaning were not isolated and subjected to the impact of big language environment of that period, or the impact of development and change of in the same or similar semantic field.There were indeed asymmetries in the Modern Chinese antonyms"Zao– Wan", some of the phenomena we could explain in the synchronic level, but some of them must look for reasons from the diachronic development. In the research of word's development, we must consider the relationship with other words.