Literature Review of English and Chinese Quasi—affixes

徐常娟+唐钰怡

【Abstract】Quasi-affixes， which are common both in modern English and Chinese， are a continuum of word-building elements from content words to prototypical affixes. In this paper， a number of linguists research findings of English and Chinese quasi-affixes are analyzed in detail.

【Key words】Literature Review； English； Chinese Quasi-affixes

1. Introduction

In modern English and Chinese， some particular words attract a great deal of linguists attention， for example， “after-” in the front of afterthought， afterglow， aftereffect； “-sounding” at the back of odd-sounding， funny-sounding， archaic-sounding； ling- （零-） in lingjuli （零距離）， lingwuran （零污染）， lingxiaoyi （零效益）； -chong （-虫） in wangchong （网虫）， shuchong （书虫）， chanchong （馋虫） and so forth. It is quite controversial on the definition of such items as “after-， -sounding， ling- and –chong”. They are called quasi-affixes.

2. Previous Studies of English Quasi-affixes

2.1 Bussmanns Account

The definition of English quasi-affixes is claimed explicitly by Bussmann （1996：10）. According to him， “the fact that some morphemes form semantic classes onto themselves indicates a transition from free morpheme status to affix status， for instance， “–works” in fire+works， water+works， road+works， and such transitional affix-like elements are called quasi-affixes”. However， he does not provide a further analysis of them.

2.2 Bauers Account

Bauer （1983：35） postulates that the diachronic passage of a lexeme to a suffix is much more common. He illustrates it by using some examples of the German suffix “–heit”， the French suffix “–ment”， and the English suffixes “–dom”， “-hood” and “–ly”. He assumes that German “–heit” and English “–hood” which go back to a lexeme meaning “condition， rank” are cognate and that French “–ment” is etymologically derived from Latin mentem “a mind” and that English suffixes “–dom” and “–ly” go back to Old English doom “judgment” and lic “a body” respectively. He contributes this change to the framework of grammaticalization. More examples in other languages （French， Danish） are illustrated by Bauer to demonstrate that some elements have lost most of the meanings of the respective lexemes and have become a kind of grammatical tools. A significant contribution of Bauers analysis is that he observes such linguistic units and classifies them into a grammatical subset， but he does not go into the deep investigation of them.

3. Previous Studies of Chinese Quasi-affixes

3.1 Lv Shuxiangs Account

The study of Chinese quasi-affixes can be traced back to Lv Shuxiang who implicitly advocates the definitions of“semi-prefix” and “semi-suffix”. Lv （1979：49） says： “There are seldom typical affixes in Chinese， but there are a lot of semi-prefixes and semi-suffixes which possess incompletely grammatical meanings and sometimes perform as independent roots.” Lv Shuxiangs research has been a milestone in the history of Chinese quasi-affixes. Ever since 1970s， there have been a variety of studies examining Chinese quasi-affixes which are concerned with their properties， functions， and applications.

3.2 Shen Mengyings Account

Shen Mengying has advocated many times that there exists a new current of morphologization in modern Chinese. His earliest studies reveal that the words once with discernible lexical meanings are now characterized by functional meanings， fixed positions and strong productivity in word-formation， and that these new derivatives are commonly trisyllabic. In 1995， Shen Mengying further points out that new morphologization， brought up by the interaction of language forming ability of Chinese people and social pragmatic factors， possesses not only the common features of affixes， but also the particular ones of Chinese nation. What he calls new morphologization is in fact what we name quasi-affixes now， such as duo（多）， re （热）， hu（户）， gan （感）， tan （坛）， etc..

3.3 Yin Hailiangs Account

Yin Hailiang has presented a comprehensive analysis of Chinese quasi-affixes， which makes a great contribution. He claims that quasi-affixes are transitional components in the grammaticalization process from the notional morphemes to typical affixes， and that the entire set of all quasi-affixes is a continuum. In his dissertation， he puts forward some important and useful concepts such as the competence of word-formation， the competence of generating new derivatives and the degree of semantic contribution. One of his contributions is that he classifies Chinese quasi-affixes from five different perspectives， which are location， syllable， source， word-building competence and degrees of usage.

References：

[1]Bauer，L.1983.English Word-formation[M].Cambridge： Cambridge University Press.

[2]Harley，H.2006.English Words—A Linguistic Introduction[M].Oxford：Blackwell Publisher Ltd.

[3]陳光磊.汉语词法论[M].上海：学林出版社，1994.

[4]尹海良.现代汉语方位类词缀“头”和“面”的认知考察[J].东南大学学报，2008（7）：120-125.