The “semiAandsemiB” pattern is a popular boxtype structure in modern Chinese. The structure consists of “half” or “a half” as two constant items and A and B as two variable items, expressing a prominent derogatory sense. Moreover, the structure is optimized along with word order. This optimization is related with human thinking and cognitive order, embodying the principle of resemblance in cognitive linguistics. The structure forms a different but mutuallycompensating series of boxtype structure with the other two relative patterns: semiAandnonB and nonAandnonB.

Modern chinese model structure; word order; semantic relation