Parallelisms in lexical changes across languages: Analogical changes in Chinese and French time words

This paper highlights a methodology featured in a larger study called contrastive geo-linguistics, which aims to improve the interpretation of linguistic maps in a way that is unique and distinct from typical methods used in previous research. This study illuminates the observable parallelisms between Chinese and French (Gallo-Romance) time words, focusing on the historical development of words, such as “daytime,” “noon,” “every day,” the days of the week (Tuesday, etc.), and day-specific indicators such as “today” or “tomorrow,” etc. It also distinguishes the nature of lexical changes specific to each language. We analyzed four maps: three of them being from our larger previous study on Chinese dialects and the other being based on the ALF (L’Atlas Linguistique de la France). Observation and comparison of these maps lead us to assume that a common condition for change was the reduction of the head part of words meaning “day,” -di in French, and -ri in Chinese, and the resultant crisis of losing their lexical identities. This condition motivated two types of changes. One is referred to as “synonymic substitution type,” which is characterized by the replacement of the heads of words with autonomous free forms, such as -jour in French and -tian in Chinese. This type is confirmed in the vocabulary of each language. Another type is referred to as the “analogy type.” Our analyses have revealed that the function of analogy yielded different effects between French and Chinese. In Northern French dialects, it contributed to preserving -di. Meanwhile, in Northern China, it resulted in radical changes, by which time words such as “today” and “morning” came to reconstruct their forms by acquiring any bound morpheme that semantically would have no direct connection with the notion of time. We interpret this phenomenon using a new notion titled “analogical attraction.”