Shēngshēng 生生 functions both as an adverb acting as the adverbial modifier and as a suffix indicating degree. Context expansion and subjectivity are important factors contributing to its semantic evolution. The predicative components modified by shēngshēng have the meaning of damage, which are categorized into damage to life and damage to interests, and shēngshēng absorbs the contextual meaning due to its frequent occurrence in damage-related contexts. The predicative components expand from disyllabic verbs to the verb-resultative construction and verb-degree construction, and the damaged object expands from animate to the inanimate. The semantic function of shēngshēng is weakened and the expressive function is strengthened under the effect of subjectivity. The semantics of shēngshēng are reduced from ‘alive’ to ‘cruelly’ and ‘miserably’ and other subjective evaluation meanings. Shēngshēng as an adverb combines with yìng 硬 and huó 活 to form yìngshēngshēng 硬生生 and huóshēngshēng 活生生, while shēngshēng as a suffix gives rise to a series of X + shēngshēng X生生. Both uses exhibit similar word formation.