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Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Radicals| title | Diachronic Prototype Semantics of Chinese Radicals |
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| start_date | 2023/11/17 |
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| schedule | 14h-15h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | Doyen 22 & via Teams |
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| summary | Chinese radicals are the semantic components of Chinese characters that generally indicate major concepts and categories. Characters that share the same radical may be semantically linked in various ways to the broad semantic category that the radical represents, and radicals may thus be considered a categorization mechanism to distinguish lexical meanings (see Chen 2012). However, traditional studies of Chinese characters or radicals in Chinese linguistics are philological in nature (e.g. Lu & Wang 1994; Wang 1996), which tend to focus on the origin of radicals and characters, their graphemic development through time, and the symbolic connection between the character’s graphemic form and its phonetic aspect. In other words, not only has the cognitive aspect of Chinese radicals been neglected, but also prototype-based studies of Chinese radicals seem to be a missing corner.
To fill this research gap, this study takes the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics to determine which role radicals play as a way of categorization in Chinese characters. Concretely, the project focuses on the FIRE character given that FIRE is an independent character that can also be used as a radical in composite characters. The question arises as to what extent the semantic developments of the FIRE character and the FIRE radical are similar and whether it is possible that the FIRE radical develops independently of the FIRE character. In a first case study, I therefore investigate how the senses of the internal semantic structure of the FIRE character connect as a network. In a second case study, I analyze the semantic structure and development of the FIRE radical as well as the semantic network of composite characters in which the FIRE radical is involved. Finally, I look into variant characters and paronyms incorporating the FIRE radical in order to find out the semantic functions of radicals in so-called radicalization processes, whereby a radical is either added, replaced or removed from a character. Although the semantic structure of the FIRE radical overlaps with that of the FIRE character to a large extent, we find that the radical features independent developments, which are due to the semasiological change of the FIRE radical, internal semantic changes within composite characters and external mechanisms such as phonetic loaning and analogy. |
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| responsibles | Rolin |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2023/11/09 15:25 UTC |
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