Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

An Analysis of the Phenomenon of Morphemic Inversion Words in Wuxi Dialect

Zhengyang LiSouth-Central Minzu University*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Dialectal morphemic inversion words are a noteworthy lexical phenomenon in Chinese. Taking Wuxi dialect as the research object, this paper sorts out 32 groups of morphemic inversion words corresponding to Mandarin Chinese on the basis of defining the concept of morphemic inversion words, through literature collection and interviews with native speakers. It systematically analyzes these words from three dimensions: word-formation patterns, semantic relations and word order features. The morphemic inversion words in Wuxi dialect are dominated by coordinate isomorphic words, and their semantic differences are mainly affected by the changes of morpheme meanings; heteromorphic words involve various structural changes, reflecting the word order tendency of placing the subject component in the front and the descriptive component at the end. This study provides empirical support for the description of inversion words in Wu dialect, and lays a foundation for the cross-dialectal typological comparison and the discussion on the evolution mechanism of inversion words.

Keywords: morphemic inversion words; Wuxi dialect; structural types
Published: June 15, 2026
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2026.NS34541
Volume: CHR Vol.109
pp. 69-77
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