Research On The Qualia Structure Of Trisyllable Attributive-Head Compound Words

Based on the 7th edition of “Modern Chinese Dictionary”,and supplemented by the other two dictionaries: the 3rd edition of “Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary”and the “Dictionary of Three-syllable Words in Modern Chinese”,took all the threesyllable attributive-head compound words as the research object and established three-syllable attributive-head compounds database.According to the theory of qualia structure,combined with the internal semantic relations of Chinese attributive-head compound words,a descriptive framework consisting of six qualia roles: formal,constitutive,agentive,telic,conventionalized and content is proposed.Based on the database,this descriptive framework is used as a semantic analysis tool to describe the qualia structure of three-syllable Chinese compound words of [2+1] and [1+2] under the categories of N+N,V+N and A+N in detail.The general characteristic of the distribution of the qualia roles in three-syllable attributive-head compound words is: formal>telic> content> agentive > constitutive >conventionalized.Specifically,there are differences in the ranking of distribution proportion of qualia roles in “N+N”,“V+N” and “A+N” three-syllable Chinese compound words: the ranking of “N+N” three-syllable Chinese compound words is formal>content>constitutive>telic> agentive>conventionalized;the ranking of “V+N”three-syllable Chinese compound words is telic>content>agentive>formal>conventionalized >constitutive;the ranking of “A+N” three-syllable Chinese compound words is formal >conventionalized>content>agentive > telic > constitutive.In “N+N”,the distribution of six types of qualia roles is relatively balanced;The centralization trend of telic roles in “V+N” is remarkable;The centralization of formal roles in “A+N” has an obvious advantage.There are also differences in the distribution of qualia roles in attributive-head compound words of [2+1] and [1+2].The number of [2+1] attributive-head compounds is far more than that of [1+2] in terms of constitutive role,agentive role,telic role and content role.The number advantage of [2+1] in formal role and conventionalized role are not as obvious as that of the above four types of qualia roles.The distribution gap of telic role is the largest between [2+1] and [1+2]: the proportion of telic roles is the highest in [2+1] but the lowest in [1+2].Different qualia roles also have their own dominant pairs of morphemes combination pattern and prosodic combination mode of three-syllable attributive-head compound words: formal role tends to adopt N-double and A-single;constitutive,conventionalized role and content role tend to adopt N-double;agentive role tends to use V-double and N-double;telic role tends to use V-double.