The opaqueness of chinese compounds : in search of conceptual motivations underlying traditional exocentric compounds and contemporary neologisms in Chinese.

Abstract

AIM The aim of this study is to investigate the opacity of Chinese compounds in search of conceptual motivations for traditional exocentric compounds and contemporary neologisms in Chinese. METHODOLOGY This research may be characterised as an empirical investigation within the quantitative paradigm. The study contains three tasks. The design of Task 1 and Task 2 replicates the experiment concerning the classification of compound transparency which Libben, Gibson, Yoon and Sandra (2003) used to test English compounds. Task 3 is a kind of word association task that is designed following a suggestion by Gleason and Ratner (1998: 215). A sample of 95 Chinese native speakers for Task 1 & Task 2 is used. A sample of 50 Chinese native speakers for Task 3 is used. None of them has participated in either Task 1 or Task 2. FINDINGS The findings are presented with regard to the two types of compounds investigated in the study: ‘semantically free’ compounds and neologisms. In summary, ‘semantically free’ compounds may process through their constituents in the mental lexicon. Meanwhile, for some certain reasons ‘semantically free’ compounds may be recognized from the mental lexicon as whole. In the research, it found that the frequency effect is stronger than the effect of ‘semantic transparency’ in ‘semantically free’ compounds, it could mean that lexico-semantic distance (semantic freedom) is much smaller in Chinese exocentric compounds than anticipated by Scalise and Guevara (2006). Neologisms may process through their constituents in the mental lexicon. The effect of semantic transparency may be stronger than the frequency effect in neologisms when compounds are semantically transparent and their constituents’ meanings are similarity. KEY CONCEPTS Exocentric compounds, endocentric compounds, ‘semantically free’ compounds, neologisms, opaqueness, semantic transparency, frequency effect, word-superiority effect.