A Study On Symmetry And Asymmetry Of "Leng/Re"

It is a common phenomenon that symmetry and asymmetry in linguistics. The antonyms of symmetry and asymmetry phenomena has gained extensive attention of scholars and related areas have also made more fruitful results, especially the study of single tone antonyms. But the former research was mainly focused on "da/xiao" group and "hao/huai" group, so attention to "leng/re" group is relatively insufficient. This paper selects "leng/re" as research object, and studies the symmetry and asymmetry in lexicon,syntax,historic evolution of meaning. In the study, the reasons of asymmetry phenomena is also analyzed. The article includes six chapters:Chapter one is introduction. This chapter mainly explains the reason of selecting the topic and research status, significance, methods ,the source of corpus.Chapter two analyzes "leng/re" in lexical level. By comparatively analyzing separation of meanings, the quantity of word formation, word formation form, frequency of availability of "leng/re",we can find that "leng/re" have symmetry and asymmetry in lexical level.Chapter three investigates the symmetry and asymmetry of "leng/re" in syntactic level. This chapter based on corpus, mainly analyzes the symmetry and asymmetry of"leng/re" which combine with nouns, verbs, adverbs and as a component in the sentence.By observing and analyzing corpus,"leng/re" is symmetrical on the whole when they combine with nouns, verbs and adverbs. But they also have asymmetrical phenomenon.The reason why "leng/re" is asymmetrical in syntactic level that related to whether antonym have markedness or not and relative markedness pattern. As a component in the sentence, this paper investigates the symmetry asymmetry of "leng/re",structure of adverbs or auxiliary word combing with "leng/re" and eclipsed form.Chapter four analyzes the historic evolution of meaning of "leng/re". This chapter start with historic perspective, from the basic meaning of "leng/re" to explore the relation of their basic meaning with extended meaning, extended meaning with extended meaning.Then to summary the symmetry of "leng/re" in the evolution process and the asymmetry in time of appearance, extended meaning, extended extend, sentiment and so on.Chapter five explores the reason that "leng/re" have asymmetry,mainly based on internal and external causes of language.Chapter six is conclusion. This chapter mainly summarize the paper, point out the deficiencies and the remaining questions.