Finally, let us examine the relation between the two morphemes of two-character S-J words. For convenience’sake, we will employ the term“semantic head”or“seman- tic core”to refer to the central element that determines the meaning of a complex S-J word (Kobayashi 2004). This diverges from the standard practice in morphology, where the term“head”is defined as the element determining the category of a whole entity containing it (see Chapter 6 [Namiki and Kageyama, this volume]). In the case of two-character S-J words, however, no formal clue is available to identifying the category of the component morphemes, so we have to rely on the semantic relations between the two morphemes in a given S-J word.
For example, the word愛車 ai-sya[love-car]‘one’s favorite car’is a noun that refers to a car, not a noun referring to a love. Accordingly, the semantic head of ai-syais the right-hand morpheme sya‘car’. In the preponderance of two-character S-J nouns, the semantic head is the right-hand morpheme. VNs and ANs are similar:
in the VN密売 mitubai[secretly-sell]‘sell secretly/illegally’(≈密かに売る hisoka-ni uru‘sell in secret’) and in the AN病弱 byoozyaku[sick-weak]‘having a weak con- stitution’ (≈病気がちで体が弱い byookigati de karada ga yowai ‘prone to illness with a weak body’), it is the right-hand morpheme that is the semantic core. In comparison, in a coordinate compound (also called“dvandva”) like 男女 danzyo
Sino-Japanese words 103
[man-woman], since the meaning is ‘men and women’ neither the left morpheme dan‘man’nor the right morpheme zyo‘woman’alone can determine the meaning.
Accordingly, in the case of coordinate compounds both of the two morphemes com- prising the compound can be taken as semantic heads. Such a coordinate relation is not limited to nouns but can be found in other categories as well. Examples include VNs like救助 kyuuzyo, in which bothkyuuandzyomean‘save’, and ANs like閑静 kansei‘quiet’, wherekanandseiboth mean‘quiet’. The last possibility is that the left morpheme could be the semantic head. This pattern is frequently found in verbal nouns having the structure“verb-like morpheme + noun-like element”. For example, since 洗車 sensya‘wash-car’does not refer to a type of car but means the act of washing a car, the left-hand morphemesen‘wash’can be taken to be the semantic head. In addition, if one interprets 強力 kyoo-ryoku [strong-power] ‘powerful’ as 力が強い tikara ga tuyoi ‘power is strong’or過大 ka-dai [over-big] ‘too much’as 大き過ぎる ookisugiru ‘too big’, it is probably possible to interpret such ANs as having their semantic heads on the left.
Classifying two-character Sino-Japanese words according to which of the word’s two morphemes is the semantic core of the word as a whole yields Table 4.
Table 4:Semantic heads in two-morpheme Sino-Japanese words
Noun Verbal Noun Adjectival Noun
Right-hand semantic head
愛車ai sya[love-car]
‘favorite car’,名犬 mei ken[name-dog]
‘famous dog’, 著者tyo sya [write-person]‘author’
密売mitu bai [secret-sell]‘smuggle’, 毒殺doku satu [poison-kill]‘kill by poisoning’,骨折 kos setu[bone-break]
‘break a bone’
病弱byoo zyaku [sick-weak]‘having a weak constitution’
Dual semantic head
男女dan zyo [man-woman]‘men and/or women’,父母 hu bo[father-mother]
‘parents’,公私koo si [public-private]‘official and personal’
救助kyuu zyo [save-save]‘save’, 開閉kai hei[open- close]‘opening and closing’
閑静kan sei [quiet-quiet]‘quiet’
Left-hand semantic head
— 洗車sen sya
[wash-car]‘washing a car’,読書doku syo [read-book]‘reading’
強力kyoo ryoku [strong-power]
‘powerful’
There are only a few words that mightfill the empty position in Table 4 of nouns with left-hand semantic heads: the following could possibly be considered as such.
(12) Taroo ga satu-zin(殺人) o okasi-ta.
Taro NOM kill-person ACC commit-PST
‘Taro committed murder.’
Since thesatu-zin[kill-person] in (12) cannot havesuruattached, that is *satuzin-suru is unacceptable, it is a noun rather than a VN. And, since the meaning ofsatu-zinis not‘a person who kills (or has killed)’but is‘the act of killing a person’, the satu
‘kill’on the left can be considered to be the semantic head.
Restricting consideration to two-character Sino-Japanese verbal nouns, let us consider their internal structure in more detail. According to Kobayashi (2004), they are roughly categorized as in (13).
(13) a. Composed of a verb-like element and a noun corresponding to one of its arguments:
停電(する)tei-den(suru)[stop-electricity (do)]‘blackout, have a power outage’,観戦(する)kan-sen(suru)[view-match (do)]‘watch a sports match’,登山(する)to-zan(suru)[climb-mountain (do)]‘mountain climb’, 読書(する)doku-syo(suru)[read-book (do)]‘read books’
b. Composed of a verb-like element and another verb-like element:
救助(する)kyuu-zyo(suru)[save-save (do)]‘save’,開閉(する)kai-hei(suru) [open-close (do)]‘open and close’,殴殺(する)oo-satu(suru)[strike-kill (do)]‘beat to death’,打倒(する)da-too(suru)[hit-make.fall (do)]
‘knock down, overthrow’
c. Composed of an adjunct-like element and a verb-like element:
病死(する)byoo-si(suru)[illness-die (do)]‘die of an illness’,銃殺(する) zyuu-satu(suru)[gun-kill (do)]‘shoot to death’,密売(する)mitu-bai(suru) [secretly-sell (do)]‘sell illegally’,秒殺(する)byoo-satu(suru)[second-kill (do)]‘kill instantly’
Tei-denin (13a) means電気が停まる denki ga tomaru‘electricity stops’, whereden
‘electricity’andtei‘stop’are in a subject-predicate relation.Kan-senin (13b) means 戦いを観る tatakai o miru‘watch a game/match’, wherekan‘watch’andsen‘game/
match’are in a predicate-object relation. To-zanmeans 山に登る yama ni noboru
‘climb onto a mountain’, where to‘climb’ and zan‘mountain’ are in a predicate- endpoint relation. The relations between the verb-like element and the noun-like element may vary, but in all cases the left-hand verb-like element is the semantic core and the right-hand noun-like element corresponds to an internal argument of the predicate (subject of an unaccusative verb, endpoint of a motion verb, object of a transitive verb).
Sino-Japanese words 105
When two-character Sino-Japanese words of the type shown in (13a) are used as predicates, it may or may not be possible for a noun phrase corresponding semanti- cally to the incorporated argument to appear, as observed by Kageyama (1980, 1999). With kan-sen or to-zan, the noun-like element contained in the VN can be realized in the sentence as a more concrete referential noun.
(14) a. Watasi wa Hansin-Kyozin-sen o kan-sen(観戦) I TOP Hanshin.Tigers–Yomiuri.Giants-game ACC spectate si-ta.
do-PST
‘I watched the Tigers-Giants game.’
b. Yuuzin ga Huzi-san ni to-zan(登山) si-ta.
friend NOM Fuji-mountain DAT climb-mountain do-PST
‘A friend climbed Mt. Fuji.’
In (14a) theHansin-Kyozin-sen‘Tigers-Giants game’corresponding to thesen‘match, game’ of kan-sen [watch-game] appears in the sentence as an accusative-marked object. Similarly, Huzi-san ‘Mt. Fuji’ corresponds to the zan ‘mountain’ of to-zan [climb-mountain] and appears in the sentence as a dative complement. This phe- nomenon can be called “doubling” and, where the noun-like element internal to the two-character S-J word denotes a general notion (‘game’ or ‘mountain’), the noun phrase appearing in the sentence (‘Tigers-Giants game’or‘Mt. Fuji’) designates a hyponym to it. This is the most common pattern for two-character S-J VNs used as predicates. There are also cases in which the noun-like element internal to the two-character S-J word and the syntactic object NP stand in a whole-part relation.
(15) a. Watasi wa migi-ude o kos-setu(骨折) si-ta.
I TOP right-arm ACC break-bone do-PST
‘I broke my right arm.’
b. Titi wa tegami o kai-huu(開封) si-ta.
father TOP letter ACC open-seal.of.an.envelope do-PST
‘Father opened (the envelope of) a letter.’
In (15a) the object‘right arm’and the‘bone’internal to the compound are in a whole- part relation. (Namely, what actually breaks is not the whole right arm but the‘bone in the right arm’that forms a part of it.) In (15b),‘letter’and‘seal of an envelope’are in the same kind of relation. There are also VNs that do not allow doubling. For example読書 doku-syo [read-book] does not allow an accompanying direct object as in *小説を読書する *syoosetu o doku-syo suru[novel ACC read-book do]‘read a novel’. Similarly, such collocations as *全力を尽力する *zenryoku o zinryoku suru
[all.one’s.power ACC expend.one’s.power do] ‘totally expend all one’s power’ and
*汚れた顔を洗顔する *yogoreta kao o sengan suru [dirty face ACC wash-face do]
‘wash one’s dirty face’are impossible (see also Shimamura 1985).
In the two-character Sino-Japanese words of (13b), which are composed of two verb-like elements,救助 kyuu-zyo‘save’ contains two near-synonyms, kyuu ‘save’ andzyo‘save’, and開閉kai-hei‘open and close’contains two antonyms,kai‘open’ andhei‘close’. In neitherkyuu-zyonorkai-hei is it possible to say that one or the other of the verb-like elements determines the meaning of the word as a whole, so, from the perspective of identifying the semantic head, they can probably be analyzed as being dual-head two-character S-J words. In contrast to these, since 殴殺oo-satu[beat-kill] means‘kill by beating’, it is the right-hand verb-like element (satu‘kill’) that can be identified as the semantic head of the word.
Finally, in the examples given in (13c) of two-character Sino-Japanese VNs composed of an adjunct-like element and a verb-like element, since病死 byoo-si [illness-die] means‘to die of an illness’, the left-hand adjunct-like elementbyoocan be taken as an adverb-like element giving the cause of death. 銃殺 zyuu-satu [gun-kill] means ‘kill with a gun (kill by shooting with a gun)’ and the left-hand adjunct-like element zyuu ‘gun’ shows the instrument used in the act of killing.
密売 mitu-bai[secretly-sell] means‘sell secretly/illegally’and the left-hand adjunct- like elementmitushows the manner in which the act of selling takes place. All of these two-character S-J words have their semantic heads on the right.
4 Characteristics of three-character Sino-Japanese words
This section examines the structure and meaning of three-character S-J words.
However, as in the case of two-character S-J words, apparent three-character words resulting from clipping of longer expressions, such as 女子大 zyosidai (←女子 大学 zyosi-daigaku ‘women’s college’) and 知事選 tizisen (←知事選挙 tizi-senkyo
‘governor-election’) are excluded from consideration.