Title:
RECIPROCAL CONDITIONS FOR ATTRIBUTIVE MIRROR INVERSED SENTENCES IN MODERN CHINESE

Authors:
Xiaolan Gan , China

Abstract:
Mirror inversed sentences (MISs) is a special syntactic-semantic phenomenon in modern Chinese with the typical characteristics of “reciprocal syntactic components and unchanged propositional meaning”. At present, whether discussing the reciprocal conditions of MISs from the perspective of predicates, body words or constructions, they are all faced with a common problem: they can never answer the question of why the propositional meaning of MISs remains unchanged. This paper summarizes the common conditions for realizing the interchangeability of body words in attributive MISs, and explores the deep cognitive reasons for the interchangeability. This paper finds that the existence of “symmetry” semantic relations in attributive dimensions is the common necessary condition for this kind of MISs to realize the interchangeability of body words. In other words, the conceptual semantic symmetry of MIS is the premise of its formal symmetry, and formal symmetry is the reflection of its conceptual semantic symmetry