Research

Will syntax harbour stylistic features? An exploration on the A1B1A2B2 pattern of Chinese idioms

Shijie Wang

Dec 17, 2020 • 22 min read

Introduction

The cognitive mechanism of Chinese idiom processing has received scholarly attention for decades (e.g. Mateu & Espinal, 2007; Nunberg, Sag, & Wasow, 1994). This line of research focuses on the compositionality of idioms (e.g. Bobrow & Bell, 1973; Swinney & Cutler, 1979; Gibbs & Colston, 2012; Cacciari and Tabossi, 1988). Some scholars claimed that chengyu (成语; one primary type of four-character idiom in Chinese) is an entire meaning unit that does not follow the typical syntactic structure of modern spoken Chinese (Moratto, 2010). Dissimilarly, considerable empirical research also verified the hypothesis of the hybrid model. For instance, employing Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), Zhang, Yang, Gu, and Ji (2013) scrutinised the processing patterns of chengyu and proved that language receivers comprehended the habitual idioms not only based upon their long-term memories.

A small number of scholars are also interested in the syntactic aspects of Chinese four-character idioms. The study from Zhang et al. (2013) has identified a mature syntactic rule, that is, A₁B₁A₂B₂. This means two coordinate compounding words, A₁A₂ and B₁B₂, were not simply conjoined to be A₁A₂B₁B₂ but reorganised into the form of A₁B₁A₂B₂. For example, the habitual idiom containing diao qian (调遣; move-send; deploy) and bing jiang (兵将; soldiers-military commander; troops) is not diao qian bing jiang (调遣兵将, move-send-soldiers-military commander; deploy troops) but diao bing qian jiang (调兵遣将; move-solders-send-military commander, deploy troops). One recent study also confirms the processing easiness of A₁B₁A₂B₂ compared to the subject-predicate and the prosody-syntax mismatched idioms (see Bai, Xie, & Feng, 2019 for more details). Unfortunately, almost no study has been conducted on the real application of those identified syntaxes which is an important aspect of language production and possibly second language acquisition. Therefore, the present essay will assess the applicability of the syntax ‘A₁A₂B₁B₂ to A₁B₁A₂B₂’.

Besides the semantic and syntactic processing, some early works on Chinese rhetorics also explored the stylistic feature of four-character idioms. Chinese four-character idioms are believed to inherently harbour a formal register, because (1) the quadrisyllabic structure reflect the aesthetic view of native Chinese speakers (Chen, 2001 cited in Moratto, 2010); (2) the profound cultural elements within the idioms exhibit the education level of the speakers; and (3) the frequent utilisation in the Chinese literary texts constructs the prestige of those idioms compared to the daily spoken language (Gunn, 1991). Nonetheless, the studies on the style of idioms normally concentrate on the comparison between well-established habitual idioms and unhabitual four-character collocations. Differently, the present essay is interested in whether certain syntactic structures (in this case, A₁B₁A₂B₂) has obtained the stylistic feature of the original idioms and can also endow the self-invented idioms with this specific style.

Therefore, this essay will primarily attempt to confirm the existence of the syntactic rule A₁B₁A₂B₂, evaluate the applicability of this rule in different constructions, and explore the stylistic features of it.

Method

Research Design

To confirm the existence of the syntactic rule A₁B₁A₂B_2., different from the previous studies which only reviewed the habitual idioms in dictionaries, the present essay will assess whether the self-invented A₁B₁A₂B₂words are intelligible to native Chinese speakers. Most of these terms are invented via altering the purely compositional collocation A₁A₂B₁B₂forms to the A₁B₁A₂B₂ ones. For instance, the term ji mou shen yuan (计谋深远; plan-strategy-deep-far; plan foresightedly) will be transformed to ji shen mou yuan (计深谋远; plan-deep-strategy-far; plan foresightedly) (see Appendix A for more). If the speakers can understand the changed one, this ‘A₁A₂B₁B₂ to A₁B₁A₂B₂’ rule then might be regarded as one of the mature grammatical rules of Chinese idiom production.

Additionally, to explore the applicability of this rule in diverse constructions, the author creates a series of A₁B₁A₂B₂terms based on different part of speech (PoS) patterns of two constituents A₁A₂andB₁B₂ including n. + v., v. + n., n. +adj., adj. +n., v. + v., n. + n., and adj. +adj.. It should be noticed that the PoS here only represents the PoS of the two disyllable constituents. For example, the pair kuang wang (狂妄; crazy-absurd; outrageously arrogant) and si xiang (思想; speculate-think; thinking) is regarded as adj. + n., even though after the reorganisation of the word order kuang si (狂思; crazy-speculate; crazily imagine) can be identified as a verb. It is acknowledged that these complicated conversions of PoS may be sometimes neglected by the present essay due to the lack of a meticulously detailed data. However, the result can still be recognised as a valuable starting point for future research.

Moreover, if it is true that the base-form (normally A₁A₂B₁B₂) and the marked form (A₁B₁A₂B₂) are almost the same in terms of their syllable structure (quadrisyllable) and ideational meaning, the author is interested in that to what extent they are different in the aspect of stylistic meaning. For example, if qian jia xi yuan (迁家徙园; move-family-move-garden; move away from the original place of residence) is semantically and phonologically similar to qian xi jia yuan (迁徙家园; move-move-family-garden; move away from the original place of residence), the stylistic difference of them may suggest that the syntactic rule A₁B₁A₂B₂ per sehas harboured specific stylistic feature. That may become another line of research on Chinese idiom grammaticalisation.

To explore those hypotheses, both questionnaire-based survey and interview were conducted. The first section of the questionnaire contains several 5-point items asking the participants to rate the intelligibility of all the marked terms (from ‘cannot understand’ to ‘understand immediately’), followed by a parallel set of questions about the base-forms in the second section. The reason for putting the marked terms first is that the author wants to avoid the participants to interpret the marked items based on their completely compositional original forms. The third section comprises a series of 9-point items asking the participants to identify the formality for each term (from ‘vulgar speech’ to ‘solemn expression’). As a total of 32 terms will be investigated, a detailed list of the explanation of each term may be lengthy to present in the main text; therefore, comprehensive information will be attached in Appendix A for reference, and the questionnaire will be shown in Appendix B.

Participants

The present study involves 21 right-handed Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s undergraduate students who are attending ENG317 Chinese Linguistics. All the participants reported that they are native Mandarin speakers, receiving education over 10 years under Putonghua medium instruction. It is also confirmed that the respondents have never suffered from any types of language disorders or neurological impairment. Before the actual data collection, they are all informed about their rights to terminate the survey. The anonymity of the participants is ensured throughout the study.

Results and Discussion

The Existence of the Syntactic Rule A₁B₁A₂B₂

Table 1 is the descriptive data of the intelligibility score of each item, ranging from 1 to 5. The experimental group indicates the uncommon word order (marked) and the control group represents the opposite (unmarked). In most cases, the marked terms are of A₁B₁A₂B₂pattern, but the first two rows represent the habitual idioms with A₁B₁A₂B₂base-forms and A₁A₂B₁B₂marked forms which will be in comparison with the others.

It could be noticed that the marked A₁B₁A₂B₂pattern usually would not be spotted as unintelligible. From Table 1, nearly 80% of the marked terms have an intelligibility score over 4 (representing ‘understand with some efforts’ in the questionnaire). In addition, in the interview, the participants demonstrated that they hardly encountered difficulties when trying to decode those marked terms. Also, some even claimed that they are able to ‘comprehend those group of words holistically just like idioms’. It can be an evidence to show that A₁B₁A₂B₂ has become a mature syntactic rule for Chinese idiom production. However, from Table 1, it can be inferred that the applicability of this rule indeed varies in different constructions.

Applicability of the syntactic rule A₁B₁A₂B₂

To explore the applicability of this rule, the author chooses to observe to what extent the intelligibility of marked terms differentiates according to different PoS patterns of the constituents. However, it is not reliable to simply rank the experimental group’s average score, because this score will fluctuate concerning the intelligibility level of the base-forms. The r-value in Table 1, which represents the magnitude of difference between the intelligibility of marked forms and that of the completely compositional base-forms, can be indicative of the applicability of this syntactic reformation. If the pairs exert an r-value under .1 , the applicability of the ‘A₁A₂B₁B₂ to A₁B₁A₂B₂’ rule is extremely high because no significant difference of intelligibility could be identified between the experimental and control groups. In this respect, two terms were found including shi yi yong yao (施医用药; execute-cure-use-medicine; use medicine to cure people) and kuang si wang xiang (狂思妄想; crazy-speculate-absurd-think; think in a frantic manner). Two participants said that they to some extent resorted to the existing forms which contain the similar word order such as qiu yi wen yao(求医问药; beg-cure-ask-medicine; seek medical advice) and qi si miao xiang (奇思妙想; odd-speculate-wonderful-think; wonderful thoughts). Therefore, it may be concluded that this syntactic rule is most applicable to the newly invented term which resembles the existing idiom.

Apart from these two terms, Table 1 shows that the constructions generating the r-values between .1 to .3 are usually n. + v., v. + n., n. + adj., and adj. + n. formations. The four pairs of n. + n. and adj. + adj. formation all produce the r-values over .3. Also, some surprising results can be identified such as two v. + v. constructions generate .23 and .79 r-values respectively. Some respondents reported that the high intelligibility of lue qin duo zhan (掠侵夺占; ransack-invade-rob-encroach; ransack and encroach) is solely due to the high semantic similarity among those four characters. Therefore, v. + v. still seems to be a construction with low applicability of the ‘A₁A₂B₁B₂ to A₁B₁A₂B₂’ rule. Based on the above findings, it is found that constituents with different PoS (n. + v., v. + n., n. + adj., and adj. + n.) are more possibly to use the A₁B₁A₂B₂ rule, but those with the same PoS (n. + n., adj. + adj., and v. + v.) are not perfectly compatible to this rule. The author hypothesises that this may stem from the different compositionality level of different constructions. Of the terms with different PoS, the two parts (A₁B₁ and A₂B₂) may become endocentric compounds (e.g. subject + predicate, verb + object, head + postmodifier, and premodifier + head), such as shi yi (施医; execute-cure; to cure people)and yong yao (用药; use-medicine; to use medicine). In contrast, two characters with the same PoS, unless they are synonyms, are more difficult to compound to be coordinate noun phrase, coordinate verb phrase, or serial verb constructions.

In the interview, three respondents also reported that the semantic reconstruction might hinder the processing of those marked terms and even change the experiential meaning of the base-forms. For example, the modification on shen ti biao mian (身体表面; body-body-surface-face; the surface of the body) will produce a term containing an existing word ti mian (体面; body-face; decent) which conflicts with the original meaning. This problem may be because (1) Chinese is an analytical language regarding word order as an crucial semantic device (Whaley, 1996), and (2) the new invented two-character terms may be identical to one of the ubiquitous two-character compounds in Chinese by accident (Arcodia, 2007). Therefore, one constraint for this syntactic rule is that it should not be applied when the A₁B₁A₂B₂ structure contains an existing term which is semantically different from the unmarked base-form.

Stylistic meaning of the syntactic rule A₁B₁A₂B₂

It should be firstly pointed out that, as discussed earlier, the ideational meaning of the A₁A₂B₁B₂ and A₁B₁A₂B₂ terms may not be identical, which means that there might be other differences between these two groups apart from the stylistic feature. However, if a general pattern of stylistic difference can be identified, this is obviously a valuable starting point for future research.

Table 2 presents the descriptive data of the perceived style of two groups of terms. In some cases, the A₁A₂B₁B₂ terms which may be a daily usage (Mean = 4.62) such as kuang wang si xiang (狂妄思想; crazy-absurd-speculate-think; think in a frantic manner) will become a formal speech (Mean = 6.48) when changed into A₁B₁A₂B₂ form (r = .48). Using the effect size benchmark of Cohen (2013), it could be concluded that, except lue qin duo zhan (掠侵夺占) , all the other A₁B₁A₂B₂ constructions are perceived to be significantly more formal than the A₁A₂B₁B₂ ones. As mentioned before, the four characters of lue qin duo zhan (掠侵夺占) are semantically similar which may hinder the recognition of the A₁B₁A₂B₂ rule; therefore, the author may at this stage regard this data as an outlier. In the interview, the respondents indicated that, although they have never seen the terms in the experimental group before, those words ‘sound pretty figurative, literary, and formal’. Some even believed that the utilisation of these words could make them ‘look cool’. Both the quantitative and qualitative data confirm that the A₁B₁A₂B₂construction entails a high register in the Chinese language.

Additionally, as sometimes defamiliarisation per se can trigger different linguistic reaction (Shklovsky, 1917), the author used two originally A₁B₁A₂B₂ idioms, including diao bing qian jiang (调兵遣将) and long zheng hu dou (龙争虎斗; dragon-compete-tiger-fight; a fierce struggle between two evenly matched opponents), to show that changing them back to the A₁A₂B₁B₂ structures does not enhance but significantly decrease their formality (r = -.49 and -.57 respectively), indicating that this stylistic difference does not derive from only defamiliarising the base-forms.

Interestingly, in the interview, some respondents claimed that, when encountering the marked forms (A₁A₂B₁B₂) of those originally A₁B₁A₂B₂words, they ‘automatically reorganise the order of the terms to understand it’ without recognising those words as marked terms. It may support the hybrid model that individuals will directly retrieve the meaning from long-term memory if based on enough clues can they identify the term as a habitual idiom (Cacciari & Tabossi, 1988).

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay examined the presence of A₁B₁A₂B₂ rule of Chinese four-character idioms, the applicability of this rule, and the stylistic feature held by this rule. Firstly, by investigating the intelligibility of several self-invented A₁B₁A₂B₂ terms, the existence of this syntactic rule was confirmed. Secondly, it is hypothesised that the applicability of this rule is dependent on the compositionality level and their conflicts with the existing terms. Thirdly, it is unveiled that the A₁B₁A₂B₂ term always harbours a more formal register.

It seems that, during the grammaticalisation of the A₁B₁A₂B₂pattern, the high register of many Chinese idioms with this pattern has been integrated into this syntactic rule. If it is true, the first contribution of the present essay is to expand our understanding of grammaticalisation. This preliminary exploration should be consolidated by more cognitive or even neurolinguistic research. In addition, the model for idiom processing may be enhanced based on our results because a new variable (i.e. stylistic feature of syntax) should be added. Limited by length, the present essay will only present the findings of this empirical research, and the construction of a new theoretical framework may be elaborated in the future.

Three principal limitations exist for the present study. The findings cannot be generalised to a broader community of Chinese speakers, due to the limited representative of the well-educated multilingual participants who are receiving tertiary education at the time of the survey. Also, restrained by time and coursework requirement, the sample size cannot be larger which is of utmost importance in quantitative empirical research (Field, 2013). Finally, the self-invented terms only covered a small number of possible constructions, restricting the range and depth of interpretation. However, this research can be served as a valuable exploratory study which requires further replications.

References

Arcodia, G. F. (2007). Chinese: A Language of Compound Words. Selected proceedings of the 5th Décembrettes: Morphology in Toulouse, 79-90.

Bai, C., Xie, X., & Feng, S. (2019). The Influence of Chinese Prosody on Syntactic Processing of Chinese Idioms. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 47(2), 406-424.

Bobrow, S. A., & Bell, S. M. (1973). On Catching on to Idiomatic Expressions. Memory & cognition, 1(3), 343-346.

Cacciari, C., & Tabossi, P. (1988). The Comprehension of Idioms. Journal of memory and language, 27(6), 668-683.

Chen, J. (2001). Zhongguo Wenhua Xioucixue (Chinese Rhetoric Culture). Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe.

Cohen, J. (2013). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences: Routledge.

Field, A. (2013). Discovering Statistics Using Ibm Spss Statistics: sage.

Gibbs, R. W., & Colston, H. L. (2012). Interpreting Figurative Meaning: Cambridge University Press.

Gunn, E. (1991). Rewriting Chinese: Style and Innovation in Twentieth-Century Chinese Prose: Stanford university press.

Mateu, J., & Espinal, M. T. (2007). Argument Structure and Compositionality in Idiomatic Constructions. The Linguistic Review, 24(1), 33-59.

Moratto, R. (2010). Chinese to Italian Interpreting of Chengyu. Intralinea, 12.

Nunberg, G., Sag, I. A., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 70(3), 491-538.

Shklovsky, V. (1917). Art as Technique. Literary theory: An anthology, 15-21.

Swinney, D. A., & Cutler, A. (1979). The Access and Processing of Idiomatic Expressions. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 18(5), 523-534.

Whaley, L. J. (1996). Introduction to Typology: The Unity and Diversity of Language: SAGE publications.

Zhang, H., Yang, Y., Gu, J., & Ji, F. (2013). Erp Correlates of Compositionality in Chinese Idiom Comprehension. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 26(1), 89-112.

Appendix

Appendix A: Chinese Terms Used in the Study

In every group, term a always indicates the uncommon/marked one and term b the common/unmarked one. For example, if certain term habitually appears with A₁B₁A₂B₂ formation, term a of this group will be the A₁A₂B₁B₂ construction, and vice versa.

Group 1 (n. + v.; habitually A₁B₁A₂B₂)

long hu zheng dou

龙虎争斗

dragon tiger compete fight

a fierce struggle between two evenly matched opponents

long zheng hu dou

龙争虎斗

dragon compete tiger fight

a fierce struggle between two evenly matched opponents

Group 2 (v. + n.; habitually A₁B₁A₂B₂)

diao qian bing jiang

调遣兵将

move send solders military commander

deploy troops

diao bing qian jiang

调兵遣将

move solders send military commander

deploy troops

Group 3 (n.+ v.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

feng hu yu xiao

风呼雨啸

wind shout rain howl

the wind and storm are whistling

feng yu hu xiao

风雨呼啸

wind rain shout howl

the wind and storm are whistling

Group 4 (n. + v.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

sheng zhan yin li

声颤音栗

voice shiver sound tremble

voice trembles

sheng yin zhan li

声音颤栗

voice sound shiver tremble

voice trembles

Group 5 (v.+ n.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

qian jia xi yuan

迁家徙园

move family move garden

move away from the original place of residence

qian xi jia yuan

迁徙家园

move move family garden

move away from the original place of residence

Group 6 (v.+ n.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

shi yi yong yao

施医用药

execute cure use medicine

use medicine to cure people

shi yong yi yao

施用医药

execute use cure medicine

use medicine to cure people

Group 7 (adj.+ n.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

pi jing bei shen

疲精惫神

tired spirit exhausted mind

lost vitality

pi bei jing shen

疲惫精神

tired exhausted spirit mind

lost vitality

Group 8 (n.+ adj.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

xin yu qing yue

心愉情悦

heart pleased feeling happy

feel delighted

xin qing yu yue

心情愉悦

heart feeling pleased happy

feel delighted

Group 9 (n.+ adj.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

ji shen mou yuan

计深谋远

plan deep strategy far

plan foresightedly

ji mou shen yuan

计谋深远

plan strategy deep far

plan foresightedly

Group 10 (adj. + n.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

kuang si wang xiang

狂思妄想

crazy speculate absurd think

think in a frantic manner

kuang wang si xiang

狂妄思想

crazy absurd speculate think

think in a frantic manner

Group 11 (v. + v.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

tang jiao se dai

搪交塞待

block give obstruct treat

use evasive answers

tang se jiao dai

搪塞交待

block obstruct give treat

use evasive answers

Group 12 (v. + v.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

lue qin duo zhan

掠侵夺占

ransack invade rob encroach

ransack and encroach

lue duo qin zhan

掠夺侵占

ransack rob invade encroach

ransack and encroach

Group 13 (n. + n.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

shen ti biao mian

身表体面

body surface body face

the surface of body

shen biao ti mian

身体表面

body body surface face

the surface of body

Group 14 (n. + n.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

chun nian qiu sui

春年秋岁

spring year autumn year

age and year

chun qiu nian sui

春秋年岁

spring autumn year year

age and year

Group 15 (adj. + adj.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

fen xiong nu hen

愤凶怒狠

Anger brutal furious ruthless

furious and fierce

fen nu xiong hen

愤怒凶狠

Anger furious brutal ruthless

furious and fierce

Group 16 (adj. + adj.; habitually A₁A₂ B₁B₂)

qi mei yi yan

奇美异艳

odd beautiful strange enticing

oddly beautiful

qi yi mei yan

奇异美艳

odd strange beautiful enticing

oddly beautiful

Appendix B: Questionnaire

PAGE 1

以母语者角度看，您能迅速理解该词汇吗？

From the perspective of a native speaker, could you quickly understand those terms?

(1 cannot understand; 2 too ambiguous; 3 barely understand; 4 understand with some efforts; 5 understand immediately)

无法理解歧义极重勉强理解小作思索瞬间理解

龙虎争斗 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

调遣兵将 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

风呼雨啸 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

声颤音栗 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

迁家徙园 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

施医用药 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

疲精惫神 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

心愉情悦 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

计深谋远 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

狂思妄想 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

搪交塞待 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

掠侵夺占 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

身表体面 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

春年秋岁 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

愤凶怒狠 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

奇美异艳 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

PAGE 2

以母语者角度看，您能迅速理解该词汇吗？

From the perspective of a native speaker, could you quickly understand those terms?

(1 cannot understand; 2 too ambiguous; 3 barely understand; 4 understand with some efforts; 5 understand immediately)

无法理解歧义极重勉强理解小作思索瞬间理解

龙争虎斗 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

调兵遣将 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

风雨呼啸 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

声音颤栗 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

迁徙家园 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

施用医药 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

疲惫精神 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

心情愉悦 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

计谋深远 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

狂妄思想 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

搪塞交待 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

掠夺侵占 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

身体表面 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

春秋年岁 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

愤怒凶狠 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

奇异美艳 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

PAGE 3

假定这些词是母语者可理解的词汇，您觉得这个词一般出现在何种场合？

Assuming those terms are acceptable to native speakers, from your perspective, what kind of context in which these terms should be used?