The Extreme Poverty of Affixation in Chinese: Rarely Derivational and Hardly Affixational

Shu-Kai Hsieh, Jia-Fei Hong, Chu-Ren Huang

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingChapter in an edited book (as author)Academic researchpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter explores the morphological poverty of the Chinese from an empirical perspective. Until recently, the nature of affixation in Chinese is still not well recognized and has been one of the hotly debated topics in Chinese morphology. Based on the CKIP Morphological Database (incl. 4025 “affixes” in Chinese), this chapter covers the issue of the lack of affixation in Chinese based on a range of linguistic facts and empirical arguments such as lack of productivity and irregularities in word-formation rules.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics
EditorsChu-Ren Huang, Yen-Hwei Lin, I-Hsuan Chen, Yu-Yin Hsu
PublisherCambridge University Press
Chapter8
Pages158-173
ISBN (Electronic)9781108329019
ISBN (Print)9781108420075
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Aug 2022

Publication series

NameCambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
PublisherCambridge University Press

Keywords

  • derivation
  • affixation
  • Chinese morphology
  • statistical modeling
  • morphological productivity

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