A Study of the Types of Morphemization in Contemporary Chinese

Abstract

All living languages change and linguistic change occurs at all levels of linguistic systems. Morphemes, as elements used for coining new words, are often subject to language change. This paper attempts to study morphemization in Chinese, which is a type of morphological change in languages. It is found that syllables in phonetic borrowings and those in lianmian-words in Chinese are the two sources of morphemization in contemporary Chinese. What’s more, Morphemization of syllables in phonetic borrowings mainly happen in the phonetic borrowings from Sanskrit and English.