First occurred during the late Tang dynasty,the verb zhidao(知道)consists of daoo"to know"which originally means"to speak"and zhi"to know".The formation of zhidao underwent the path of"zhiverb+dao('to speak'→to know')verb→zhidaoverb"It shows a combination of paralleled synonyms which is not resulted from the lexicalization of VO phrases.The motivations behind such a word formation include diachronic disyllablization and the coordination of synonyms into single words.The fundamental motivation,however,lies in the needs of pragmatics and prosody.Discussions on the origin and formation of zhidao enables us to clarify some vague issues on the origin of Chinese disyllabic words and the theory of lexicalization.
zhidao(知道)originpath of word formationcommon wordslexical history of Chinese language
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