The Constructionalization of Antonymous Compounds: Evidence from the Adverb Chi-zao in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

In modern Chinese, the adverb chi-zao is regarded as an adjective-adjective compound, with morphemes chi ‘late’ and zao ‘early’ as extreme poles in a gradable temporality. The formation of chi-zao as an antonymous compound has not received much attention from a diachronic construction grammar perspective. This study reports on the historical change of chi-zao as evidence showing the interplay of antonymous compounds and constructionalization in modern Chinese. Based on corpus analysis, I found that the formation of chi-zao as 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.