Spatio-Temporal Distribution of Modifying Morphemes in Sinitic Nouns of Foreign Crops

Crops that were initially introduced as foreign vegetables, such as corn, sweet potato, and potato, have diverse word forms in Sinitic languages. This paper, based on large-scale data, investigates the spatio-temporal distribution of the modifying morphemes in the compound nouns of such crops, including 胡 hú ‘foreign’, 番 fān ‘foreign’, 洋 yáng ‘oceanic, foreign’, 西 xī ‘Western’, 海 hǎi ‘oceanic’, 荷兰 Hélán ‘Holland’, and 倭 Wō ‘Japan’. These morphemes share one prominent geographical pattern: they take as a core the region where the crop was first introduced. While some show multidirectional distribution, e.g., the 番 fān ‘foreign’ category, some show unidirectional distribution, e.g., the 洋 yáng ‘oceanic, foreign’ category. Diachronically, 胡 hú ‘foreign’ and 番 fān ‘foreign’ precede 洋 yáng ‘oceanic, foreign’ and 西 xī ‘Western’. Such spatio-temporal distribution can be accounted for by semantic change, sociocultural development, geomorphological environment, and the history of intercultural communication.