On Noun-classifier Compounds From Morphological And Stylistic Perspecitives

Words like "chuan zhi, mi li, fang jian" etc. have long drawn the intensive attention of scholars in field. They constitute a special category of compound nouns in Mandarin Chinese, known as "Noun-Classifier Compounds (henceforth NC compounds)". Originally they are distinguished from others because of the inversive distributions with a noun component put ahead and a classifier component backward, while a classifier-noun distribution has become a tendency in language usage. Introducing a statistical analysis and a comparative approach as its methodology, this thesis attempts to start from an analysis on the inner components of this NC compounds separately in order to describe and, therefore, appeal the potential characteristics of the noun components as well as the classifier components. Subsequently it will focus on the external stylistic aspect of this category, in pursuit of a detailed observation of the stylistic distributions of the NC compounds. An analysis from inside and outside the NC compounds will better present the characteristics and complex properties of this category.The main body of this thesis can be divided into four parts. Firstly, in consideration of the diverse definitions and criteria of classifications of NC compounds by former scholars, the author tries to make a comprehensive generalization of these concepts and then point out the objects this research will mainly focus on. Based on a tentative classification of the NC compounds, some findings are revealed subsequently. The classifiers, especially in NC compounds, mostly show a phenotypic property. With a statistical analysis on the distribution of the classifiers the influence of the phenotypic property will be discovered, which will affect the number of the targeted NC compounds and their morphological productivity. Furthermore, the author attempts to adopt the theory of animacy into this research by making a classification on the noun components. After a basic statistical analysis, it is proved that animacy has played an important role in the combination of NC compounds. In addition, from an external perspective of the stylistic distributions of these compounds, another characteristic is achieved that NC compounds mostly appear in an environment with a high logical degree. Therefore, by combining with some diachronic researches, the author points out that the property of the stylistic distributions of NC compounds bears some relationships with their origins and, meanwhile, makes a tentative speculation on the stylistic development of NC compounds.