The Peircean Sign as a Model for Interpreting Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese  

作　　者：Steven Bonta 

机构地区：[1]不详

出　　处：《Language and Semiotic Studies》2020年第1期1-30,共30页语言与符号学研究（英文）

摘　　要：The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese.We use the Peircean Sign,derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness,Secondness,and Thirdness,as an interpretive framework.Because Mandarin Chinese is both well-documented and comparatively opaque to foreign influences,it presents an ideal case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign(in contrast to English,which,with much higher levels of foreign contact-induced change,would be expected to involve a broad mixture of various semiotic influences).We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological,lexical,and morphosyntactic levels,as well as the inventory of written characters.We conclude that the primary constraint that conditions semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12].We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language,and how it helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

关 键 词：Charles Sanders Peirce linguistic semiotics Chinese linguistics semiotic structures SEMIOTICS semiotic systems Peircean categories 

分 类 号：H1[语言文字—汉语]