The constructionalization of antonymous compounds

Abstract

AbstractIn modern Chinese, the adverbchi-zaois regarded as an adjective-adjective compound, with morphemeschi‘late’ andzao‘early’ as extreme poles in a gradable temporality. The formation ofchi-zaoas an antonymous compound has not received much attention from a diachronic construction grammar perspective. This study reports on the historical change ofchi-zaoas evidence showing the interplay of antonymous compounds and constructionalization in modern Chinese. Based on corpus analysis, I found that the formation ofchi-zaoas a lexical construction inherits from previous changes but emerges instantaneously in Pre-Modern Chinese, where its form has been condensed and its meaning has been bleached to indicate subjectivity. Three arguments shed light on the model of constructionalization: (1) constructionalization at the compound level can be associated with three motivations: subjectivity, frequency, and metaphor; and (2) the operation of constructionalization is at work not only at the sentential and phrasal level but also at the morphological level of compound word formation in Chinese; (3) rhetoric as an output of language use plays a part in the development of constructionalization in relation to antonymous compounds.