A Study Of The Four Character Idioms With An Embedment And Antithesis

There are a large number of four character idioms in modern Chinese,such as"甜言蜜语","声东击西"and"狂风暴雨",which have aroused widespread concern in the academic community,but many scholars have different definitions of them.On the basis of previous studies,this article believes that the four-character idiom formed by embedding two monosyllabic morphemes(i.e.,embedded components)in an interlaced form into a very closely structured component composed of morphemes with the same,opposite,or related relationships,which can be converted into a twosyllable word(i.e.,the antithesis component),is the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis.According to this definition,a total of 2980 pairs of Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis have been exhaustively collected in the Dictionary of Chinese Idioms(New Edition).In order to comprehensively master the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis,first of all,according to the semantic relationship characteristics of antithetical words,they are divided into synonymous antithesis,antonymous antithesis,and analogical antithesis,and the grammatical structure and semantic composition of the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis are analyzed.The study found that the symmetrical characteristics of the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis are distinct,with the proportion of combined structures accounting for 97.15%.The second level of word formation is mainly in the form of "VO+VO".In terms of semantics,different categories of Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis have their own typical interpretation methods.Among them,the linear combination is represented by antonymous antithesis,the staggered combination is represented by synonymous antithesis,and the compound composition is represented by analogical antithesis.Secondly,the pure surface description is not sufficient to thoroughly explain the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis.Therefore,based on the actual situation of Chinese,this paper explores the reasons for the formation of the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis with the use of cognitive theory.The Four character Idiom with an embedment and antithesis consists of two modules,and its formal symmetry is closely related to the symmetrical thinking deeply rooted in the hearts of the Chinese nation.The generation of members who change morphemes in large numbers but have the same format cannot be separated from the promotion of the analogy mechanism of language.At the semantic level,due to the double layer character of idiom’s ideograph,the actual semantics of many pairs of embedded fourcharacter idioms cannot be obtained through the combination of their literal components.Drawing on the unified framework of metaphor,metonymy,and conceptual integration proposed by Professor Zhang Hui,it is believed that the conceptual integration of the semantic meaning of the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis with component motivation initially occurs within each module,and the conceptual integration of its semantics initially occurs within each module,and the two literal components belonging to different modules are reflected into other conceptual domains through the three metaphorical mechanisms of structural metaphor,positional metaphor,and ontological metaphor,or through metonymy between parts of things and the whole,between event parts and the whole,between main features and categories,and between category members and categories,creating new psychological spaces,The integration of various psychological spaces forms a network system,from which idiom semantics arise.The actual semantic generation of the Four character Idioms with an embedment and antithesis with overall motivation is similar to this,except that the metaphorical or metonymic mechanisms operate at different times,and the time of their implicit metonymic operation usually occurs after the integration of various literal components.In other words,single or multiple literal components cannot directly derive the semantics of idioms,and overall implicit metonymy is required.