The Principles of the Formal Construction of the Lexical-Semantic Field in Modern Chinese

Abstract

The article presents an attempt to formally construct a lexical-semantic field for the Chinese language, taking into account the fact that the concept of such a field presupposes a certain classification system of the vocabulary, which is divided into large and small groups ordered in relation to each other. Due to the presence in the Chinese language of a large number of copulative complexes, paradigmatic relations of semantic proximity are expressed in syntagmatic relations of juxtaposition, which allowed the authors of the article to construct semantic fields based on the data of normative dictionaries and vocabulary lists. This article presents formal methods for constructing a semantic field for the modern Chinese language, a semantic method for fixing the language. It is based on a graphical representation of combinations of symbols (synographic images) and their explanations in dictionaries and wordlists of the modern Chinese language. As typical examples, the sphere of designations of emotions and verbs with the meanings of purchase and sale was chosen. The article defines the features of the structure of the lexical-semantic field of the verbs of sale and purchase, reveals the lexical units that are included in the core, near and far periphery. The material presented in the article indicates that in the case of the Chinese language, a similar method of constructing a lexical-semantic field can be applied both to tokens with an abstract meaning and to tokens with a specific meaning.