A Comparative Study On "Heart"-Related Compounds Among English,Japanese,Chinese And Korean

This paper aims to find the features and the rules of the word-formation of "heart" among English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean; the semantic similarities and differences of "heart"-related compounds among these four languages; and the reasons that cause their similarities and differences.Based on the related theories such as lexicology, semantics and cognitive linguistics as well as the research findings, the main approaches this paper uses are comparative study, combination of description and explanation, componential analysis. In terms of these approaches, this paper makes a multi-faced study of the word-formation features of "heart" as well as the semantic meaning of "heart"-related compounds. Firstly, this paper defines "heart" in each language, and summarizes the related definitions of compounding, which is to provide fundamental theories for this paper. Secondly, this paper makes a detailed contrastive analysis for the word-formation features of "heart"-related compounds. This paper classifies two kinds of the word-formation features of "hearf"-related compounds, the one is "hearf"with different part of speech, and the other is "hearf"with the words that express its function and quality. This paper makes a contrastive study for these two word-formation features among languages, summarizes the similarities and differences of them and explaines the reason. Finally, this paper analyzes the dictionary items of "heart" among four languages, and makes a detailed componential analysis. The detailed explanation and classification of the semantic meaning of "heart"-related compounds is also made in this paper, and compare the semantic constraints among interlingual and intralingual, analyze the similarities and the differences of semantic meaning and explaines the reason. Thus, the word-formation features, the similarities and the differences of semantic meaning and the reason are the outcome of this paper, as follows:(1) According to the contrastive analysis of the word-formationl features of "hearf"-related compounds among four languages, this paper found out that there is no compound structure with "heart+Adjective" in Korean; there are no compounds that "heart" with the words that express the meaning of "container" in English; there are no compounds that "heart" with the words that express the meaning of "sense" in Japanese; there are no compounds that "heart" with the words that express the meaning of "shape" in Japanese and Korean. (2) According to the contrastive analysis of the form and the meaning of the compounds that "heart" with the words that express the meaning of its function and quality among four languages, this paper summarized the relationship between form and meaning among languages; found out each language has its own understanding, comprehending and interpreting to each word, which is the main reason to make the differences. And also found out that the function of heart affects the word-formation of "heart", and the word-formation of "heart" highlights the function of heart.(3) According to the contrastive analysis of the semantic meaning of "hearf"-related compounds among four languages, this paper classified common semantic meaning, uncommon semantic meaning as well as unique semantic meaning in detail. As for common meaning, explained by physiological, psychological, ethical phenomenon, language feature; and as for uncommon meaning, it is mainly because of language feature, including the strength of word-formation ability and the productivity of word etc.