A Corpus-Based Study on the Syllablic Form Selection of Ancient Chinese High-Frequency Nouns in the Middle Ages

Polysyllablization was one of the trends governing the development of Chinese lexis, and the Middle Ages, linking the preceding era and the next, was the key stage. Under the macro trend of lexical polysyllablization, different words could select different syllabic forms. Due to lack of basic data on syllablic form selection from Ancient Chinese to Middle Chinese, there remain considerable ambiguities and even blanks in research. Nouns are the bulk of the lexical system. Focusing on high-frequency nouns in Ancient Chinese, this paper constructs lexical data on syllablic form selection from Ancient Chinese to Middle Chinese based on the corpus linguistics method. After a quantitative survey and statistical analysis, it preliminarily reveals the rules of syllablic form selection in the evolution of Chinese lexis from various aspects, such as overlapping morphemes, nature of the source text, word formation, etc.