Study on the Word Formation and Meaning Evolution of the Contrary-Order Synonym “Gongjing”-“Jinggong”

同素异序词是汉语词汇发展史上一种重要的语言现象。在上古及中古时期，近义或者同义词更容易形成一组同素异序词，如“恭敬”和“敬恭”。“恭敬”和“敬恭”虽都在周代产生，但二者的发展结果却大不相同：“恭敬”词频较高，留存至今；“敬恭”用例较少，逐渐淘汰。究其原因，主要是受到汉语词重音规律和言语交际选词原则的影响。The contrary-order synonym is an important language phenomenon in the history of Chinese vocabulary development. In ancient and medieval Times, near-synonyms or full synonyms were more likely to form a group of contrary-order synonyms, such as “Gongjing” and “Jinggong”. Although “Gongjing” and “Jinggong” were both produced in the Zhou Dynasty, the development results of the two are very different: “Gongjing” has a high frequency and remains to this day; there are fewer “Jinggong” use cases, and they are gradually eliminated. The reason is mainly influenced by the rules of Chinese word stress and the principles of word selection in verbal communication.