A Comparative Study of Secondary Interjections Between Chinese and Japanese: From the Perspective of Lexicalization and Grammaticalization

WANG Xin , FU Jing Abstract: Secondary interjections mainly include evaluative interjections, evocative interjections, conversational interjections and swearwords used as interjections. From the micro perspective, there are similarities and differences in the formation path of secondary interjections in Chinese and Japanese, and from the macro perspective, they are similar. Chinese “hao” and Japanese “yoshi” are the most similar ones. The situation is the same before and after interjectionization. Swearwords are all used as interjections in Chinese, Japanese and English. And in Chinese and Japanese, they have the same path but different sources. The evocative interjections “gei” and “douzo” have the same path but different sources. In a broad sense, conversational interjections are from the same sources, but their changing paths are different. The formation of secondary interjections is a process from lexicalization （only when the etymology is a nonword） to grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, which is consistent with the broad-spectrum of language evolution across languages. When the etymology is a word, even though it didn’t undergo a process of lexicalization, its grammaticalization characteristics are very obvious.