Abstract
The paper examines the 『ABB』 suffix
adjectives in the Modern Chinese in terms of their emergence, structural
formations and distinctions, semantic features and grammatical functions. It is
argued that the 『ABB』 suffix adjectives in Modern Chinese 1) as adjective formations came
into wide systematic use by the Tang dynasty at the latest, with homophones
common in the writing ; 2) display a variety of constructions beyond the simple
『 A+BB』 formula, with
complicated internal sturctures; 3) embody rich semantic contents and complete
syntactic functions, which are comparable to the usages in the contemporary
Chinese; 4) have undergone morphological enrichment in the process of the
addition, permutation, and extension.