2. The Western language tends to be reconstructive and the Chinese language tends to be accumulative in the use of words.
The west language is phonographically and tends to be more variable. This greater variability is manifest in two respects. First, in the west language, it is common not to use the same words and the same phrases to express something that has changed somewhat. The west language in characterized by reconstructiveness. Secondly, the west language is characterized by frequent changes in word orders and sentence patterns.
In contrast, the Chinese language has a greater degree of stability and invariableness, which is closely related to its use of ideographs and pictographs. Ideographs are symbols of things reflecting the objective natural laws. So, the Chinese language has multiple dimensions and relative stability, manifest first of all in the accumulativeness of words or phrases. Since the objective things often change gradually and are often interrelated , so usually the same words or phrases are not used to express an objective thing that has changed somewhat , or are interrelated by adding to them a new element , rather than using other reconstructive words or phrases .
In this way, a Chinese word can have a set of multiple meaning. For instance , “闻” used in “耳闻” (listen by ear) , “听闻” (hear of ) , and “新闻” (news) can mean “hear” ; “闻” used in “闻到气味” (smell an odor) can mean “smell” . “紧” (tight) used in “束紧” (bond in clothing), “紧缩” (shrink) , “紧急” (emergency), “紧迫” (imperative) , “紧凑” (compact) , “严紧” (strict ) , “紧密” (close) and “紧张” (nervous ) can have approximate but unsimilar meanings . “乖” used in “乖僻” (eccentric ) , “乖谬” (absurd) , “乖张” (odd and unreasonable) and “乖戾” (perverse) can mean “unreasonable” , but “乖” used in “乖巧” (clever and lovely) and “乖乖” (darling) can mean “reasonable”, which are contrary to each other . In the Chinese language it is not rare that quite a few relevant meanings can be derived from a root word. With the accumulative semantic development, the Chinese word can have a greater generality and flexibility.
. A child , for example ,if he is aware of a concept “车” (chariot) , can speak out a pile of terms , such as “火车” (train) , “汽车” (car) , “马车” (horse-drawn cart ) , “牛车” (ox-drawn cart) , “驴车” (donkey-drawn cart) “人力车”(rickshaw) , “两轮车” (bicycle) , “独轮车” (wheelbarrow) and “三轮车” (tricycle) . Therefore, the Chinese primary and middle school students can write letters and compositions if they get a mastery of 2,000 to 3,000 characters. A common-edition Xinhua Dictionary (Modern Chinese Dictionary) comprise a little more than 8,000 characters inclusive of the variables , in addition to a little more than 3,200 entries of multi-syllable terms . This is a characteristic of the Chinese language, conspicuously in contrast with the West language.
