The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey (review)

Because this work potentially appeals to specialists in Chinese linguistics, students of the Chinese language, professionally trained linguists, and the educated public, a fruitful way to begin this review is first to identify the likely expectations about the book that each type of potential reader might have as a result of seeing its title for the first time, and then assess how well the book actually meets the needs and expectations of each of these four constituencies. One good way to obtain this sort of insight is to consult William Bright (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (IEL), which offers numerous definitions for 'lexicon', most of which are likely to be understood by the more general public. In addition, it also offers one technical meaning for this word that is universally understood by those who have received formal training in linguistics.

According to the IEL, 'lexicon' might refer to a certain type of dictionary, such as a dictionary of slang or a Chinese-English dictionary. It might also focus on what is called 'lexicography', which is "concerned with the theory of dictionary compiling and use," or on 'lexicology', which is "concerned with the unified theoretical study of dictionaries and lexical units, considered on both semantic and grammatical levels." Under 'lexicology' in the IEL, a checklist of seven different categories of lexical information is provided, indicating what sort of information one should normally expect to find for each word in a lexicon/dictionary. This checklist consists of (1) Phonological and/or orthographic data, (2) Morphological data, (3) Usage label, (4) Semantic data (5) Syntactic data (6) Lexical co-occurrence data, and (7) Encyclopedic data. If nothing else, a very reasonable expectation by someone who sees the title The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey for the first time is that it is very probably a thorough, systematic dictionary of the Chinese language in which a considerable amount of phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic information is provided for each entry.

A linguist, on the other hand, usually holds a somewhat different working concept of what a 'lexicon' is, understanding this to refer to "the complete set of meaningful units in a language; the words, etc., as in a dictionary, but without definitions." According to the IEL, within generative grammar "three main questions have arisen concerning the treatment of the lexicon": (a) "What kinds of elements are entered in the lexicon—are all words entered or only some?" (b) "How are the properties of these elements represented?" and (c) "How do lexical elements get 'inserted' into sentences?"

A general linguist or a specialist in Chinese linguistics, therefore, might realistically expect the work under review here to constitute a near-complete list of all the basic words and forms of Chinese, that is, all and only those basic building blocks (morphemes and words) that cannot be derived by the application of morphological (word-forming) rules. Such a reader might also expect to find discussion of how these basic morphemes are marked in the lexicon, what morphological processes occur in Chinese, and how these lexical items interact with the syntactic rules of Chinese.

Generally speaking, the work under review here does meet many of the expectations of the nontechnical linguist, and several of the expectations of the technical linguist, too, as reflected in the titles of each of its nine chapters:

1. Chapter 1. The Phonological Make-up of the Chinese Lexicon

2. Chapter 2. The Graphetic Composition of the Chinese Lexicon

3. Chapter 3. Morphological Features of the Chinese Lexicon

4. Chapter 4. Syntactic Features of the Chinese Lexicon

5. Chapter 5. Phonaesthetic Features of the Chinese Lexicon

6. Chapter 6. Rhetorical Features of the Chinese Lexicon

7. Chapter 7. Sense Relations of the Chinese Lexicon

8. Chapter 8. Cultural and Socio-Political Features of the Chinese Lexicon

9. Chapter 9. Loanwords in the Chinese Lexicon

Despite this very "comprehensive" treatment of the lexicon, however, it must be pointed out that the work here is not a dictionary, as the author makes very clear...