Symmetry of Japanese Kanji Lexical Productivity on the Left- and Right-hand Sides

Tamaoka Katsuo

Altmann Gabriel

Glottometrics

Japanese kanji combine with other kanji to produce various two-kanji compound words. First, the present study examined whether the extent of left-hand and right-hand productivity of the Japanese 1,945 basic kanji abides by an 'honest' distribution. The result showed that kanji compound building (or kanji lexical productivity) was depicted by a birth-and-death process leading to the negative binomial and/or the Waring distribution. Second, the study investigated whether these basic kanji display symmetry on the left- and right-side lexical productivity. Analysis of these kanji suggested that although each kanji displayed symmetry in lexical productivity, there is no tendency among the basic kanji to produce their compound words to the same extent on the left or the right side on the whole.

Japanese kanji

kanji lexical productivity

birth-and-death process

symmetry

Japanese [ 810 ]

eng