Chinese Color Words

Abstract

In the Chinese morpheme system, color words are a special group of words which are important for communication and often used in daily life. Therefore, the study of color words is valuable. This research studies the five basic color adjectives : read - "Hong", while adjective "Bai" , the black adjective "Hei", the yellow adjective "Huang" and the green adjective "Qing". The research emphasizes on the perspective of background, explanation, word structure, meaning, and usage of these adjectives as the morpheme in forming words in modern Chinese. The data of this study were obtained by collecting words and idioms from the following dictionaries : the “Xiandai Hanyu Cidian” published in 2006, the "Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian” in 2004, the “Xin Shiji Hanyu Duoyong Cidian” in 2003, the "Zhonghua Chengyu Cihai” in 2001, and the “Hanyu Guanyongyu Cidian” in 2004. In total, 947 words were identified : 185 words with the adjective "red" or "Hong," 299 words with "white" or "Bai," 153 words with "black" or "Hei," 174 words with "yellow" or "Huang," and 136 words with "green" or "Qing." Moreover, 934 idioms were identified : 146 idioms with “red” or “Hong,” 313 idioms with “white” or “Bai," 136 idioms with "black" or "Hei," 210 idioms with "yellow" or "Huang," and 129 idioms with "green" or "Qing."

It was found that each color adjective has its own background from the perspective of the definition. The color adjective does not only communicate denotation, but also connotation. Regarding word usage, the color word is not just an adjective, but performs as other parts of speech to form a sentence structure. In addition, together with other morphemes, it could form compound words and idioms which are very important for communication in modern Chinese.