Statistical internet based analysis of the Affixoidma in Modern Mandarin Chinese

This study examines recent morphological developmentmā 'mother' in Modern Mandarin Chinese, such as that in dānqīn mā 'single mother'. Our data are taken from the Taiwan News Smart Web (2019). Collocation [13, 7] and Semantic prosody [25, 26] is the research framework of this study. Then the criteria for identifying affixoids [29, 8] will be taken for further examining the data. The goal of the study is to investigate the morphological and semantic attributes of [X-ma] nominals and to find out why the affixoids are productive. The research goals are: (1) to reveal the semantic prosody of [X-ma] nowadays; (2) to show whether the [X-ma] structures are compounding or affixation. The findings indicate that [X-ma] expresses more positivity than negativity. The - ma in Modern Mandarin is developing toward an affix, now an affixoid.