A study of the morphological structure and semantics of three-character idiomatic expressions in Cantonese = 粵語三字格慣用語的結構和意義研究

Abstract

 Idiomatic expression is a common language unit, it has been popular in people's daily life for a long time. In particular, the research on Cantonese idiomatic expressions was insufficient. In daily communication, three-character idiomatic expressions are often used. In fact, idiomatic expressions have expressive power and vitality, as well as deep cultural connotations. The rich expressiveness of idiomatic expressions is formed in people's lives, and they come from people's expressions on certain social phenomena or feelings. This dissertation consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the research background, purpose of the topic and key points of the study. The second chapter is divided into two parts. For the first part, it tells about the classification of the three-character idiomatic expressions with different structures while the verb-object idiomatic expressions structure occupy the most of them. The second part analyzes the structural characteristics of three-character idiomatic expressions, and points out that it is relatively fixed. The third chapter mainly explores the semantic features of the three-character idiomatic expressions, explaining that the duality and variation of semantics are important features of the semantics of idiomatic expressions. It also discusses the emotional commendation of idiomatic expressions. The fourth chapter analyzes the color meanings of idiomatic expressions in Cantonese, and gives practical examples to illustrate that they consist of vivid image colors, humorous metaphor colors, bright emotional colors and strong local colors. The last chapter serves as a conclusion, highlighting the research result of this study. This dissertation attempts to discuss three-character idiomatic expressions in different angles to enrich the overall study of three-character idiomatic expressions in Cantonese.