A Contrastive Study of Word-formation in Noun Reduplication between Chinese and English

Although noun reduplication is a common phenomenon both in Chinese and English,it differs in many ways.This paper makes a comprehensive contrast between the Chinese and English reduplicative forms by the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.It finds out that total reduplication is more used in Chinese while partial reduplication in English,and no means of connection are adopted in Chinese word-formation while hyphens are often used in English.Through the contrastive analysis of the lexical means,vocabulary forms,transformations and transpositions between Chinese and English reduplication by reclassifying them,it explores the essential differences behind it.The results show that the Chinese noun reduplication reflects the traits of spatiality—chunkiness,elasticity and reversibility,while English reflects the traits of linearity— connectedness,adhesion and irreversibility.