語意具體性及華語名詞複合詞之構詞研究

Concreteness and the Formation of Noun-Noun Compounds in Mandarin Chinese

本文主要探討複合詞詞義具體程度是否影響複合詞構詞方式。我們主張具體詞義的複合詞時，傾向使用「語意關聯」的構詞方式。而抽象詞義的複合詞時，則會使用「特徵映照」的構詞方式。我們利用量詞字典收集名詞複合詞，針對這些名詞，請受試者判斷複合詞的具體程度。另外，我們也分析了這些名詞複合詞的構詞方式，把複合詞分類成「語意關聯」、「特徵映照」及其他類。研究結果顯示具體語意複合詞，使用「語意關聯」的構詞方式比「特徵映照」構詞方式頻率高。然而，在抽象語意複合詞，使用「特徵映照」構詞方式的頻率則與使用「語意關聯」構詞方式的頻率一樣多。我們研究結果符合我們的假設：複合詞語意具體程度限制了複合詞內部構詞結構。本研究可以提供華語教師了解華語複合詞構詞結構與詞義的互動關係，進而使用這些語言知識於課堂教學，使得外籍學生更容易及成功學習新穎或創新的華語複合詞。

The goal of this study is to investigate the concreteness in meanings affect the formation of compounds in Mandarin Chinese. We propose that when the compounds are concrete, they are likely formed by the semantic-relation method; instead, when the compounds are abstract, they are likely structured by the attributive-mapping method. We used a classifier dictionary to collect 225 noun-noun compounds in Mandarin Chinese and these compounds were rated by participants for the level of concreteness. Furthermore, we analyzed the formation of these compounds, categorizing them into three kinds: the thematic-relation method, the attributive-mapping method, and others. The results show that when the compounds were concrete, the frequency of compounds using the thematic-relation method was higher than the one of compounds using the attributive-mapping formation. On the other hand, when the compounds were abstract, the compounds using the attributive-mapping method occurred as often as those using the thematic-relation one. To conclude, this study suggests that the concreteness is a constraint in determining the formation methods of compounds in Mandarin Chinese. It is hoped that our research can provide practical implications for CSL teachers and learners of Chinese as a Second Language in teaching and learning novel and creative compounds in Mandarin Chinese.