Abstract:

The Chinese noun suffix“zi”evolved from the content word，and the evolution got completed at the Middle Chinese period. During that period，there was a dramatic increase of compound words with the morpheme of“zi”that were generally used than in the Ancient Chinese period. There are thirty compound words with the morpheme of“zi”in“Qi Min Yao Shu”，and there are also another thirty-seven compound words in other literatures during the Middle Chinese period，which are different from those in“Qi Min Yao Shu”. These words are typically nouns indicating the character appellation，animal and plant names， utensil names and names of other processed objects. In these compound words，“zi”lost its real meaning as a word，and became a redundancy morpheme which only functioned as a syllable，or a virtual morpheme which changed the grammar function of the root morpheme. Therefore，the use of“zi”to other morphemes to form a derived compound word took hold during this period when“zi”became a typical noun suffix in these compound words.

Key words: morpheme&ldquo, zi&rdquo, ；Middle Chinese；Qi Min Yao Shu；derivation compound words；noun suffix