PhonDi Discussion Group

San Duanmu and Zuxuan Qin will speak on "A Judgment Study on the Interaction among Phonology, Morpho-syntax, and Semantics."

Abstract
There are several strong generalizations in Chinese on the interaction between phonology and morpho-syntax. A typical case involves word length preferences in NN compounds, such as ‘coal store’, shown in (1). The preferred length patterns are 2+2, 2+1, and 1+1, where 1 is a monosyllabic noun and 2 a disyllabic one. In contrast, 1+2 is judged to be ill formed. As has been widely reported, many Chinese words, including ‘coal’ and ‘store’, can be monosyllabic or disyllabic, with little difference in meaning.

(1) Word length preferences in Chinese NN compounds

Length
N1
N2
Gloss

2+2
meitan
shangdian
‘coal store’

2+1
meitan
dian
‘coal store’

*1+2
mei
shangdian
‘coal store’

1+1
mei
dian
‘coal store’


The generalizations are intuitively robust and widely accepted in the literature. In addition, it has been shown that they follow from general phonological principles. Moreover, supporting evidence is found from corpus data, where 1+2 NN occurs rarely (well below 2% of all NN compounds), while 2+2, 2+1, and 1+1 occur at much higher frequencies.

However, the generalizations have not been confirmed by acceptability judgment experiments. In addition, a number of important questions remain. For example, is the acceptability judgment clear cut or gradient? Are there differences among 2+2, 2+1, and 1+1? Are there other factors that influence acceptability judgment? We report the results of an acceptability judgment experiment that reveals a far more complicated picture. It is found that besides the phonological factor, which remains strong, morphological, syntactic and semantic factors also play significant roles.