A Corpus-Based Study of the Usage of Chinese Core Separable Words in the Use of Language

Abstract

The core separable words are typical words in modern Chinese. Based on previous studies, the article identifies nine core separable words, and uses the BCC corpus, CCL corpus and “HSK dynamic composition corpus” to investigate the usage and learning situation of the core separable words by native Chinese speakers and non-native Chinese speakers. We find that, for native speakers, the core separable words are still mainly not separated, which is the main usage pattern today; in terms of separated usage, the article summarizes the different types of core words insertion forms. From the perspective of Chinese as second language learners, it is necessary to examine the separable words as a special lexical phenomenon in Chinese to analyze, which is also an important element of contemporary International Chinese Language Education (ICLE). By dealing with and analyzing Chinese learner interlanguage corpus, our study indicates that the learners have a weak grasp of separable forms, as shown by the fact that they are mostly simple and short insertion components, learners’ ability to use complex discrete forms is also low, and the types of errors are more concentrated, etc. By examining the use of Chinese core separable words by native speakers and Chinese as second language speakers, we can not only reveal the current usage of core separable words, but also help promote ontology research and the ICLE of separable words.