Stress and the Development of Disyllabic Words in Chinese

Abstract

SUMMARYA common conception of Chinese is that most of its words are monosyllabic historically but disyllabic in modern times. Since Chinese lost over 50% of its syllables in the past 1000 years, a standard explanation for the increase of disyllabic words is that they are created to avoid homonyms. I argue instead that, although disyllabic words have increased recently, Chinese has always had many disyllabic words. In addition, the increase of disyllabic words is not primarily due to homonym avoidance, but due to an increase in new vocabulary, most of which consists of polysyllabic borrowings, polymorphemic translations, and polymorphemic creations, which cannot be represented by monosyllabic words. In support of the present analysis, I offer illustration that the use of disyllabic words is not dictated by homonym avoidance but by metrical structure. I also discuss a few other approaches to disyllabic words in Chinese.RÉSUMÉUne idee recue sur la langue chinoise est que presque tous les mots etaient primitivement monosyllabiques, mais depuis lors devenues dissyllabi-ques. Pendant le dernier millenaire ans, le chinois a perdu plus de 50% de ses syllabes, alors que le nombre des mots dissyllabiques a-t-il augmente pour eviter rhomonymie. C'est l'explication la plus courante. Cependant, nous constatons que malgre cette augmentation recente, le chinois possede depuis toujours beaucoup de mots dissyllabiques. Par ailleurs, le phenomene d'augmentation du nombre de syllabes ne s'est pas produit essentiellement afin d'eviter l'homonymie, mais est du a 1'apparition de nouveaux mots, dont la plupart sont des emprunts polysyllabiques, des caiques polymorphologi-ques et des neologismes polymorphemiques, que ne pouvaient representer des mots monosyllabiques. Cette analyse nous permet donc de constater que l'emploi de mots polysyllabiques ne pas produit pour eviter l'homonymie, mais est dû a la structure metrique. Nous parlerons egalement de quelques autres approches visant a analyser les mots dissyllabiques en chinois.ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEs wird oft behauptet, daß viele chinesische Worter historisch einsilbig, aber heutzutage zweisilbig seien. Weil das Chinesische mehr als 50% seiner Silben im letzten Jahrtausend verlor, wird die Zunahme an zweisilbigen Wortern oft als Versuch erklart, Homonyme zu vermeiden. In vorliegenden Beitrag wird dagegen argumentiert, daB obwohl die Zahl zweisilbiger Worter zugenommen hat, es stets viele zweisilbige Worter im Chinesischen gegeben hat. Auch hangt die Zunahme an zweisilbigen Worterm in erster Linie nicht mit der Vermeidung von Homonymen zusammen, sondern mit der Zunahme an neuen Wortern, da dieser neue Wortschatz hauptsachlich aus mehrsilbigen Lehnwortern, polymorphemischen Lehntibersetzungen und Neuschopfungen besteht, die nicht durch einsilbige Worter bezeichnet werden konnen. Als Unterstiitzung dieser Hypothese wird gezeigt, daB die Benutzung zweisilbiger Worter nicht der Homonymvermeidung gegolten hat, sondern von der metrischen Struktur vorgeschrieben wird. Anderwartige Analysen von mehrsilbigen Wortern im Chinesischen werden ebenfalls besprochen.

Phonologically-constrained change

“…By contrast, trochaic systems never seem to undergo monosyllabization. This is true not only of the numerous trochaic languages with a combination of disyllabic roots and a complex affixation system (for example, the majority of Central and Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages), but also seems to be true of disyllabic trochaic languages with little or no affixation, like the languages of Flores (Djawanai & Grimes 1995, Verheijen & Grimes 1995, Baird 2002 or Mandarin Chinese (Duanmu 1999). This is puzzling: at first glance, if a disyllabic iamb can lose its initial unstressed syllable, a disyllabic trochee could also drop its final unstressed syllable.…”

“…For example, gú "bone" does not occur alone but in combination with tóu "head" (Norman 1988, Duanmu 1999. At an early stage, such compounds probably did not have a clear stress pattern but showed roughly equal stress in the two syllables.…”

Reconstruction of Uncertain Historical Evolution of the Polysyllablization of Chinese Lexis

“…From the viewpoint of the Buddhist and Taoist scriptures of Eastern Han Dynasty, the polysyllablization of Chinese vocabulary based on the new lexical items is discussed in [16]. Since most of polysyllabic words are disyllabic words, the development of disyllabic words in Chinese is discussed in [17]. Also, many quantitative surveys and analyses have been conducted on polysyllabic words in different monographs across different time periods.…”

Surviving truncation: informativity at the interface of morphology and phonology

“…We presume that truncation in these cases is dictated by a phonological preference for disyllabic words (e.g., Duanmu 1999). The majority of Chinese words are disyllabic, and there are both truncation processes and augmentation processes that conspire to produce them (Duanmu 2012).…”