Mandarin Compound Research Articles

Sound symbolic associations: evidence from visual, tactile, and interpersonal iconic perception of Mandarin rimes

Sound symbolism refers to the non-arbitrary relationship between phonemes and specific perceptual attributes. Few studies have focused on the sound symbolic associations between Mandarin phonemes and multiple perceptual dimensions, including social attitudes. The main purpose of the current study is to identify the acoustic cues crucial to perceptual judgment on the visual, tactile, and interpersonal dimensions based on the Mandarin rimes. The study found that in addition to the first and second formants, formant transitions and nasal codas were crucial in characterizing sound symbolic associations. Machine learning models also showed that critical acoustic parameters could successfully classify the different perceived attributes of rimes. The study further examined the mechanisms underlying forming a sound symbolic association. Through mediation analyses, the light/heavy dimension proved to have a suppression effect on the politeness and friendliness perception of Mandarin compound rimes (diphthongs and diphthongs with nasal codas /n/ or /ŋ/). This finding suggested that the two potential mechanisms of sound symbolism (i.e., language pattern account and shared-property account) could coexist and interact with each other.

Adjective–noun compounds in Mandarin: a study on productivity

AbstractIn structuralist linguistics, compounds are argued not to constitute morphological categories, due to the absence of systematic form-meaning correspondences. This study investigates subsets of compounds for which systematic form-meaning correspondences are present: adjective–noun compounds in Mandarin. We show that there are substantial differences in the productivity of these compounds. One set of productivity measures (the count of types, the count of hapax legomena, and the estimated count of unseen types) reflect compounds’ profitability. By contrast, the category-conditioned degree of productivity is found to correlate with the internal semantic transparency of the words belonging to a morphological category. Greater semantic transparency, gauged by distributional semantics, predicts greater category-conditioned productivity. This dovetails well with the hypothesis that semantic transparency is a prerequisite for a word formation process to be productive.

The Acquisition of Resultative Verb Compounds in Mandarin Chinese

Resultative verb compounds (RVCs) in Mandarin appear in a V1-V2 sequence and have three major subtypes—result-state, directional and completive RVCs with different degrees of compositionality depending on the extent to which the compound's meaning can be derived from the meanings of the component verbs. The derivation of the RVC has been analyzed as a lexical or syntactic process. Previous acquisition studies show that the RVC's compositionality and event structure are not fully acquired before the age of three. Findings conflict on whether the acquisition process revealed by early RVCs is usage-based or rule-based. We examined longitudinal data from two Mandarin-speaking children and administered a novel verb experiment on 32 children. The lexicalist approach to RVC formation is a better account for our data than the syntactic approach. Our data lend support to rule-based learning of RVCs. Children master the event structure of RVCs and its interaction with aspect gradually. The headedness of the RVC in relation to event structure depends on its type: V2 is more salient than V1 for the result-state RVC, while V1 is more salient than V2 for the directional RVC.

Translation Technique Analysis of Mandarin Compound Sentence in Novel Huózhe 《活着》

The purpose of this research was to describe the translation technique from novel Huózhe 《活着》 written by Yúhuá (余华) and novel to Live (Hidup) by Agustinus Wibowo. The collected data were Mandarin compound sentences taken from novel Huózhe 《活着》 and the translation sentences from novel to Live (Hidup). Here, this research used qualitative descriptive method and provided by field work method. The techniques included content analysis, focus group discussion, and questioner. The researchers also provided the triangulation method, and used Spradley’s theory to analyze the data. This research used Molina & Albir’s theory to study translation technique. The study showed the result of any kind translation techniques which used by the translator in the translation novel. This research only analyzed Mandarin compound sentence and its translation result in the target text. Based on this result, there are sixteen translation techniques that found, i.e established equivalence 831 (71,39%) data, variation 93 (7,99%) data, transposition 61 (5,24%) data, modulation 52 (4,47%) data, natural borrowing 46 (3,95%) data, explicitation 26 (2,23%) data, implicitation 20 (1,72%) data, discursive creation 9 (0,77%) data, addition 7 (0,60%) data, paraphrase 5 (0,43%) data, reduction 4 (0,34%) data, annotation 3 (0,26%) data, literal 3 (0,26%) data, generalization 2 (0,17%) data, adaptation 1 (0,09%) data, and particularization 1 (0,09%) data. Established equivalence is the dominant translation technique used to translate Mandarin compound sentence in novel Huózhe 《活着》.It is used because the translator can keep the messages of the various term in Mandarin compound sentence. The techniques that are applied to translate Mandarin compound sentence in novel Huózhe 《活着》can be used as a consideration to translate Mandarin compound sentence into Indonesia.

The Acquisition of Resultative Verb Compounds in Mandarin Chinese

Resultative verb compounds (RVCs) in Mandarin appear in a V1-V2 sequence and have three major subtypes—result-state, directional and completive RVCs with different degrees of compositionality depending on the extent to which the compound’s meaning can be derived from the meanings of the component verbs. The derivation of the RVC has been analyzed as a lexical or syntactic process. Previous acquisition studies show that the RVC’s compositionality and event structure are not fully acquired before the age of three. Findings conflict on whether the acquisition process revealed by early RVCs is usage-based or rule-based. We examined longitudinal data from two Mandarin-speaking children and administered a novel verb experiment on 32 children. The lexicalist approach to RVC formation is a better account for our data than the syntactic approach. Our data lend support to rule-based learning of RVCs. Children master the event structure of RVCs and its interaction with aspect gradually. The headedness of the RVC in relation to event structure depends on its type: V2 is more salient than V1 for the result-state RVC, while V1 is more salient than V2 for the directional RVC.

Properties of Mandarin Reflexives

Abstract There are some problems concerning the properties of Mandarin reflexives as claimed by former studies. The present study redefines Mandarin simplex reflexives and compound reflexives as having different syntactic properties. Mandarin simplex reflexives with ziji possess features of both anaphor and pronoun and follow the normal pattern of derivation. This explains why the simplex reflexives exhibit the long-distance binding phenomenon and blocking effect. Mandarin compound reflexives are quite similar to English reflexives and they follow the special derivational pattern. At the beginning of the derivation, they form pairs with antecedents and their antecedents help to value the reflexive feature and then designate ziji as a suffix to the pronouns. This helps to explain why the Mandarin compound reflexives strictly follow the BCA. The simplex reflexive in Mandarin double reflexive structures is different from the bare conditional shui in having de dicto interpretation, that is, it has an implicit specified antecedent in the context.

Mandarin compound vowels produced by prelingually deafened children with cochlear implants

ObjectiveCompound vowels including diphthongs and triphthongs have complex, dynamic spectral features. The production of compound vowels by children with cochlear implants (CIs) has not been studied previously. The present study examined the dynamic features of compound vowels in native Mandarin-speaking children with CIs. MethodsFourteen prelingually deafened children with CIs (aged 2.9–8.3 years old) and 14 age-matched, normal-hearing (NH) children produced monosyllables containing six Mandarin compound vowels (i.e., /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /uo/, /iɛ/, /iaʊ/, /ioʊ/). The frequency values of the first two formants were measured at nine equidistant time points over the course of the vowel duration. All formant frequency values were normalized and then used to calculate vowel trajectory length and overall spectral rate of change. ResultsThe results revealed that the CI children produced significantly longer durations for all six compound vowels. The CI children's ability to produce formant movement for the compound vowels varied considerably. Some CI children produced relatively static formant trajectories for certain diphthongs, whereas others produced certain vowels with greater formant movement than did the NH children. As a group, the CI children roughly followed the NH children on the pattern of magnitude of formant movement, but they showed a slower rate of formant change than did the NH children. ConclusionsThe findings suggested that prelingually deafened children with CIs, during the early stage of speech acquisition, had not established appropriate targets and articulatory coordination for compound vowel productions. This preliminary study may shed light on rehabilitation of prelingually deafened children with CIs.

A comparative study of Mandarin compound vowels produced by prelingually deafened children with cochlear implants and normal hearing peers

The present study examined the dynamic features of compound vowels in native Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs). Fourteen prelingually deafened children with CIs (aged 2.9−8.3 years) and 14 age-matched, normal-hearing (NH) children produced monosyllables containing six Mandarin vowels (/aɪ/, /aʊ/, /uo/, /iɛ/, /iaʊ/, /ioʊ/). The frequency values of the first two formants were measured at nine equidistant time points (10-20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90%) over the course of vowel duration. All formant frequency values were normalized and then used to calculate vowel trajectory length, vowel section length, overall spectral rate of change, and vowel section rate of change. The results revealed that the CI children produced significantly longer durations for all six compound vowels. They clearly showed positional deviation from the NH children on vowels /aɪ/, /uo/ and /iɛ/. The CI children’s ability to produce formant movement for the compound vowels varied considerably. Some CI children produced ...

The Emergence of the Binary Foot in Mandarin

While the binary foot is a common requirement across languages, formalized as a constraint, Ft-Bin is violable, and predicts patterns of latent binarity in some languages. This paper outlines the prosodic behaviour of synthetic compounds in Mandarin, which are demonstrated to yield output structures that must consist of binary feet, and where otherwise additional obligatory syllables will undergo tonal deletion in order to satisfy this requirement. The addition of classifiers and other function words into these compounds indicates that the foot is not syllabic, and the deletion of the tones associated with these morphemes indicates that feet are instead tonal in nature. These feet appear to be an emergent effect, whereby an optimal unmarked structure surfaces in specific contexts. In other words, Ft-Bin is enforced in synthetic compounds, and is only statistically active in the lexicon. The context for this emergence is a morphosyntactically derived form, contrary to predictions of recent approaches to constraint application, where constraints apply more stringently to inner domains. As such, foot binarity in compounds is likened to prosodic phenomena, such as reduplication.

Thematic and Argument Structures of Mandarin Si-V and V-Si Compound Verbs

Mandarin compound verbs containing si ‘die’ are numerous and intriguing with varying meanings of si. This study investigates the meanings, functions, and thematic structures of all si-compounds. It was found that there are five basic categories of verbal si-compounds. The most common type is the resultative si-compound with the prototypical meaning of ‘to die.’ The three types have the grammaticalized si meaning of ‘to the extreme degree,’ ‘persistence,’ and ‘motionless and fixed state.’ The last type is one derived through a process of causative construction either from unaccusative si-compounds or from lexical re-mapping of theta roles in a composite causal-caused event. The five types of si-compounds all show a systematic relation among themselves either via the grammaticalization of si, or via the syntactic process of resultativity and causativity. The former causes the meaning of si to change, and the latter, the thematic structure alternation in compound verbs.

Antonymous Adjectives in Disyllabic Lexical Compounds in Mandarin: A Cognitive Linguistics Perspective

Antonymous Adjectives in Disyllabic Lexical Compounds in Mandarin: A Cognitive Linguistics Perspective

Dehydration and Degradation Kinetics of Bioactive Compounds for Mandarin Slices Under Vacuum and Oven Drying Conditions

In this study, the dehydration and degradation kinetics of bioactive compounds of mandarin slices were observed under oven and vacuum drying conditions at 55, 65 and 75C. The dehydration kinetics of the mandarin slices was described by seven thin-layer drying models. The Page model with R2 of 0.992–0.999 was determined to be the best model. Degradation kinetics of total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, antioxidant capacity and vitamin C content were described using a first-order kinetics model with R2 of 0.838–0.979. Despite the faster drying, degradation of the total phenolic and flavonoid content increased under vacuum. However, the vitamin C degradation of mandarin slices in oven drying was two times more than in vacuum drying. The antioxidant capacity was protected at the lower temperature for vacuum drying, the opposite of oven drying. In addition, oven drying generally caused more color changes and required more energy. Practical Applications Mandarin is an important phytochemical source. The drying process can damage the phytochemical compounds dependent on drying methods and treatment conditions. The article describes dehydration kinetics and degradation kinetics for total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, antioxidant capacities and vitamin C content in mandarin slices under different conditions. The change in phytochemical compounds in mandarin was presented for choosing drying methods and conditions.

Information Compatibility and Resultative Verb Compounds in Mandarin

Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session Dedicated to the Contributions of Charles J. Fillmore (1994)