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Article published In:
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 9:1 (2022) ► pp.78–107

The derivative structure of Mandarin disyllabic verbs

| Beloit College
With detailed examinations of the four characters that are known to be the most commonly used verb suffixes (huà, dé/de, yú and yĭ) and their correlative implementations in Mandarin disyllabic verbs, this article discusses the traits of the derivative structure that are formed with a content morpheme and a suffix. The observations show that not all of the disyllabic words where these characters are the second morpheme are derivative verbs. On the other hand, being the derivational components of the disyllabic verbs, these suffixes all have their individual qualities that lead to their non-uniformed morphological representations.
Keywords: disyllabic/derivative verb, content/function morpheme, word-forming suffix, polysemous, suffixation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Essential sectors of a derivative structure
    • 2.1The polysemous nature of Chinese characters
    • 2.2The (first) content morpheme
    • 2.3The (second) suffix morpheme
    • 2.4The disyllabic verb
  • 3.Disyllabic verbs with the second morpheme huà 化
    • 3.1The character huà
    • 3.2The structures of [N + huà]V and [Adj. + huà]V
    • 3.3The structure of [V + huà]V
    • 3.4A brief summary
  • 4.The character 得
    • 4.1Disyllabic verbs with the second morpheme dé
    • 4.2Disyllabic verbs with the second morpheme de
  • 5.Disyllabic verbs with the second morpheme yú 于
    • 5.1The structure of [Adj.+ yú]V
    • 5.2The structure of [V + yú]V
  • 6.Disyllabic verbs with the second morpheme yĭ 以
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 7 June 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.20022.rob
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