The constructional form of meaning and the difficulty level of definition in Chinese compound words

Abstract

Most of the meanings of Chinese compound words are opaque. How to define the meaning of compound words, there is no good methods. With the predication and the undergraded predication theory, this paper analyzes the semantic construction of compound words and summarizes more than 20 semantic constructional forms. On this basis, we further analyzes the definition difficulty of compound words and divides it into four levels: level 0 means the meaning is easiest to define; level 1 is easier to define; level 2 is difficult to define; and level 3 is the most difficult to define. We hope this paper can contribute to solve the definition problem of Chinese compound words.