Regarding the construction of 犯罪


I was playing with Kanji Kentei exercises. The area: 熟語の構成.

> The word in question: 犯罪
>
> The correct answer: 下の文字が上の文字の目的語・補語になっているもの（着席）

Makes sense: 罪を犯す → 犯罪

* * *

Now the question: what makes it not fit the category 同じような意味の漢字を重ねたもの（岩石）?

I find the two characters meeting the criteria for 同じような意味:

罪＝法にふれる。  
犯＝しきりをふみこえる。法やおきてをやぶる。

Do these categories have an order like "first matched A so A")? Or are there
some other criteria?




In this case, 罪 and 犯 never make synonyms. Despite loose notion of word class
in Chinese grammar, people usually know a word's semantic category e.g. is an
object, quality, action etc.

罪 is usually considered an abstract entity: a _crime_ , _sin_ , or _guilt_
etc. 犯 represents action: _violate_ , _trespass_ , _infringe_ etc. Doesn't 犯
also mean "infringement"? Yes, but it's only "action of infringing" and not
"infringed state". In other words, 犯 could mean "crime-committing" but not
"crime".

You could argue that 犯人 "committer" and 罪人 "criminal" are synonyms, but not
for "commit" and "crime".

> Do these categories have an order like "first matched A so A")? Or are there
> some other criteria?

There is unfortunately no rule to deduce what construction a word has. You can
guess from kanji meaning, but its mostly lexical so that you have to memorize
one by one if you seek accuracy; for example, 作曲 "music composition" is verb-
object ("make music") type, but 作品 "art work" is adjective-noun ("made
goods").

