Abstract:What is distinction？The ability to distinguish things or words from each other；What is density of lexicon？That is，the number of words in a certain conceptual category. Density of lexicon is directly proportional to distinctiveness，which means is，the more words（members）in a certain conceptual category，the higher their distinctiveness. There are two conceptual categories，one is “the same class and different meanings”，which means the conceptual category of one thing and one name；the other is “synonymy in the same class”，which means，the conceptual category of one thing with multiple names. The former reflects encyclopedic knowledge，while the latter reflects language knowledge. The author argues that the essence of language is one thing with multiple names，or one thing with multiple names is the inevitable trend of language development. Herbert Spencer discussed this trend as a result of language evolution in Progress：Its Law and Cause（1857）. When Zhang Taiyan and Zeng Guangquan translated Spencer’s work，their profound primary school knowledge resonated with Spencer，and thought that Chinese also needed to evolve and add vocabularies. Yan Fu felt in his own translation practice that Chinese words were poor and rough，and inadequate for translating English fine words. Then，Yan Fu started to design the ways to increase the density of words. Zhang Taiyan thinks that only Chinese philology can solve the problem of poor vocabulary. Yan Fu argued that pre-Han Dynasty words should be restored. The author makes a preliminary discussion on this issue and points out that the distinctiveness of modern Chinese is obtained through the dichotomy of words.
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