Blending of Mandarin Chinese “N+N” Compounds

Abstract

This research examined the blending of Mandarin Chinese “N-N” compounds, following the approach of cognitive linguistics according to which the semantic blending of nouns is one of the language use phenomena which reflects the conceptual of the language users. The understanding of compound blending enables the students who study Chinese as a foreign language to grasp the conception of Chinese people, the meaning and the derivation of the meaning of compounds. The research was conducted in the following technique: 50 “N-N” compounds were randomly selected from Chinese-Thai dictionaries, whose characteristic of blending and grouping the type of blending is then analyzed according to the blending theory of Fauconnier & Turner (2002) and Benczes (2006).

             The research showed that the meaning of “N-N” compounds in Chinese is the result of single-scope networks and double-scope networks blending, which use three kinds of conceptual mapping: metaphor, metonymy, and metaphor together with metonymy. The mappings may occur in the former N which is the modifier or the latter N which is the head of the compounds.  However, the result covered only parts of the N-N compound blending, there might be other types of blending in Chinese N-N compounds. The paper seeks to contribute to future studies on other types of compound blending.