Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Characters · Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Characters Phd Day, Leuven 28.09.2018 Promotors: Prof. dr. Dirk Geeraerts Dr. Weiwei

Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Characters

Phd Day, Leuven 28.09.2018

Promotors: Prof. dr. Dirk Geeraerts Dr. Weiwei Zhang

Danqing Huang

RU Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics

Overview


1. About the topic

2. Chinese and Chinese Characters– Four levels– Semantic functions Categorization of lexical meanings Distinction of meaning clusters

3. Research questions Semasiological pespective Onomasiological perspective

4. Materials

Overview


1. About the topic



4. Materials

About the Topic


l Chinese radicals – Ideographic parts of Chinese characters – Semantic elements– Indicate the broad semantic category to which a word

belongs

l Research purpose– To investigate diachronic semantic change of radicals in

Chinese characters

Overview


1. About the topic



4. Materials

Chinese and Chinese Characters

Word

Character



Radical

Stroke


Overview


1. About the topic



4. Materials


1. Radicals, as categorization of lexical meanings

– 540 semantic radicals in ShuoWenJieZi (《说文解字》"Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters")

– 540 concepts, i.e. FIRE, WATER, GRASS, etc.– Characters which share the same radical are semantically

linked one way or another to the meaning of that radical.

– To some extent, it seems that meanings of characters are categorized by radicals.



lFor example: Categorization in GRASS radical “艹”


Overview


1. About the topic

2. Chinese and Chinese Characters– Four levels– Semantic functions Categorization of lexical meanings Distinction of meaning clusters– Research questions Semasiological pespective Onomasiological perspective

3. Materials


2. Radicals, as distinction of meaning clusters

– A word is not always the minimum free form in Chinese.– In Classic Chinese, a word is one character.– Polysemy and homonymy are wide-spread.– Semantic and graphemic reorganization (i.e. paronym

words)



l Paronym words (or paronym characters)

– It describes the phenomenon that radicals play a role in distinguishing meaning clusters which occur either through homonymic merger or polysemous extension in diachronic changes.

– Sharing same or similar phonetic clues and relating to each other in meanings.

– Semantic and graphemic (radicals) reorganization.



l Two types of paronym words

– Homonymic merger (phonetic borrowing)– Polysemous extension



l Homonymic merger or phonetic borrowing


Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Homonymic merger (phonetic borrowing)


Stage 2: Radicalization

Stage 1: Homonymic merger

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Homonymic merger (phonetic borrowing): subtype A 舍 [she]

“house”


Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Homonymic merger (phonetic borrowing): subtype A 舍 [she]

“house”



Stage 2-A: Radicalization on the new meaning.

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Homonymic merger (phonetic borrowing): subtype B 然 [ran]

“burn”


Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Homonymic merger (phonetic borrowing): subtype B 然 [ran]

“burn”



Stage 2-B: Radicalization on the original meaning.

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Polysemous extension


Stage 1: Semantic extension

Stage 2: Polysemy

Stage 3: Radicalization

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Polysemous extension: subtype A 坐 [zuo] “sit”



Stage 2: Polysemy

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Polysemy by semantic extension: subtype A 坐 [zuo] “sit”


Stage 2: Polysemy

Stage 3-A: Radicalization on the new meaning.

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Polysemous extension: subtype B 禽 [qin] “capture”



Stage 2: Polysemy

Chinese and Chinese Charactersl Polysemous extension: subtype B 禽 [qin] “capture”


Stage 2: Polysemy

Stage 3-B: Radicalization on the original meaning.

Overview


1. About the topic



4. Materials

Research Questions


1. Semasiological pespective

l “艹”GRASS radical– From GRASS to PLANT: semantic extension– Internal semantic change and variation

– As a way of categorization, are there any diachronic structures of the meanings of the radicals?

– If so, what are the possible diachronic changes that radicals go through?

Research Questions


2. Onomasiological perspective

l Semantic and graphemic (radicals) reorganization in paronyms.

– Which factors decide which semantic form takes the new radical? That is, which factors decide the direction of radicalization?

– Are there any cases in which the radicalization does not happen, where the word just stays polysemous? If so, are there any criteria or regularities which decide when or whether the radical is added or not ?

Overview


1. About the topic



4. Materials

Materials

• Data: Corpus of Historical Chinese (CHC)

– Size:700 million Chinese Characters– Time periods: the 11th Century B.C. - the early 20th century– Genres: fiction, poems, academic prose, religious scriptures,

to historical works, etc.


for further information:[email protected]


Documents

Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Characters · Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Characters Phd Day, Leuven 28.09.2018 Promotors: Prof. dr. Dirk Geeraerts Dr. Weiwei