Popular Etymology and Analogous Separable Words
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.201127.102How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- popular etymology, semantic change, anti-lexicalization, analogous separable word
- Abstract
The paper, by comparing and summarizing the classic definitions of the popular etymology in China and abroad, points out the features distinguishing the popular etymology from other language phenomena: the old form and the old meaning are obscure; the old form is interpreted with the known form or meaning; the new interpretation is the distortion of the old meaning, resulting in the “deformation” of the old meaning or the old form; the “distortion” will “pass into common usage”. The paper further reveals the fundamental nature of the popular etymology — a phenomenon of semantic change with anti-lexicalization as the key part of the changing process. By adopting the features and the nature to define the popular etymology and comparing analogous separable words with typical popular etymologies, the research concludes that the irregular analogous structure, of which the irregular analogous separable word is a typical type and can be categorized into the popular etymology. The semantic change occurs in the irregular analogous separable word, which also reveals the anti-lexicalization of the popular etymology. The finding shows that some language phenomena that are not considered as the popular etymology actually share the same essential features, which means the popular etymology covers a wider range of language phenomena than usually thought.
- Copyright
- © 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Wen Zhao PY - 2020 DA - 2020/11/28 TI - Popular Etymology and Analogous Separable Words BT - Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Education, Language and Inter-cultural Communication (ELIC 2020) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 521 EP - 524 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201127.102 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.201127.102 ID - Zhao2020 ER -