The origin of the form of polysyllabic synonyms(more than three tones)can be dated back to ancient Chinese literature with relatively rare in number.However,a sudden increase of polysyllabic synonyms occurred in the Chinese versions of Buddhism Scriptures of the Middle Ages.As a matter of fact,from the perspective of precise meaning expression(a monosyllabic polysemous word are juxtaposed with a monosyllabic word contained the same sememe to highlight their common sememe),synonymous expressions with more than two tones can be called redundancy.The present paper argued that,the sudden increase of polysyllabic synonyms is closely related with the stylistic form of the Chinese version of Buddhism Scriptures,such as four characters patterns in main contents and five or seven characters in patterns in prefix for the purpose of neat form and syllables overlapping.Secondly,it may be related to the literal translation of synonymy in the original Buddhist Scriptures.In the phonetic forms of polysyllabic synonyms in the Chinese Versions,most of them were formed in a combination of disyllables or tetrasyllables or a combination of a disyllables and a single syllable(trisyllables)(very few are combinations of three or more monosyllables).However,with the passage of time,the syllables of Chinese gradually developed from monosyllabic to disyllabic,which caused the polysyllabic synonym multiplexing in the Chinese Buddhist Scriptures to develop disyllabic norms in the ancient Chinese literature.In this process,it is necessary to make a choice between polysyllabic synonymous forms(two of the three or two of the four),and this choice is often rule-based.
Chinese versions of Buddhism scripturespolysyllabicsynonymous reusesourcedisyllabificationselection
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