UNIVERSAL SYNTAX AND MANDARIN

Although investigation of the phonology of the Chinese dialects is by no means exhaustive, our knowledge of that level of the language is by far the more complete. Here, therefore, I attempt to discuss some lexical phenomena. As a result of historical background, geography conditions, living environment, manners and customs and other factors, Cantonese and Mandarin have many differences in vocabulary. Lexical contrast between dialects forms a broad field. There are many interesting phenomena that deserve us to discuss. This paper investigates one phenomenon, which is called ‘using each morpheme of the paratactic compound’. One of the major characteristics of Chinese vocabulary is that paratactic compounds take up a comparatively larger portion, since this word-formation model is productive. Comparing Mandarin with Cantonese, we find that there are some paratactic compounds that existed in written Chinese, which Cantonese always uses one morpheme of the paratactic compound to represent the whole meaning of the compound, while Mandarin uses another morpheme. This paper first describes data of the phenomenon ‘using each morpheme’; second, analyzes the characteristics of this phenomenon; third, concludes possible reasons of ‘using each morpheme’. A short conclusion is appended to the paper.

Linguistic Typology, 2000

TILTM 2022 Topical Issues of Linguistics and Teaching Methods in Business and Professional Communication, 2022

The typology of the Chinese language is a systemic phenomenon (not an "exoticism") due to its external and internal determinants, which have influence at all levels: topic-comment syntax, "banal metaphor", a lack of agreement in syntax, an absence of "usual" words and sentences, as well as different values of language levels, and so forth. In modern practical textbooks of the Chinese language (isolating, topicprominent): a) theory and typology are not sufficiently covered, b) grammar is explained as similar to the grammar of "European" (inflectional, subject-prominent) languages.The goal of this paper is the typological justifying of the minimal necessary set of linguistic features which could form the basis for Chinese language textbooks, using the methods of systemology, topic-subject analysis, and the contrastive comparison of typologically different languages. As a result, brief descriptions of Chinese syntax and syllable structure, in addition to parts of the speech morphology and the "value" of language levels (which include "strong" and "weak" ones, and their properties and order in Chinese are directly opposite to such properties and order in European languages) are presented.

Roczniki Humanistyczne, 2019

The process of creating a modern national standard language for the whole of China has been long. It started in the beginning of the 20 th century, when it became clear that a common spoken tongue was needed to unite the Chinese people. Thus the concept of Guóyǔ-'national language'-was created. After the founding of People's Republic of China, the work was taken up anew, the standard was renamed Pŭtōnghuà-'common speech.' Its pronunciation is based on the dialect of Beijing, the Mandarin dialects have been the source of lexicon, and grammar has been founded on "model works in báihuà." But how exactly did the work on creating the new standard look like? This paper intends to show the process of codification of the pronunciation of what we now know as Pŭtōnghuà. How it was decided to choose the speech of Beijing as the starting point, how the work was carried out, and also how the standard is changing.

2003

1994

This publication of proceedings, most in English and some in Chinese, of a conference on Chinese languages and linguistics include the following papers: "On Rule Effect and Dialect Classification" (Chin-Chuan Cheng); "Cross-Linguistic Typological Variation, Grammatical Relations, and the Chinese Language" (Bernard Comiie); "Is Chinese a Pragmatic Order Language" (Shuanfan Huang, Kawai Chui); "Origin of Seven Typological Characteristics of the Chinese Language" (Tsu-lin Mei); "Some Remarks on Word Order and Word

Linguistic Typology, 2018

This study explores the range and diversity of the typological features of Mandarin, the largest dialect group within the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. Feeding the typological data of 42 Sinitic varieties into the phylogenetic program NeighborNet, we obtained network diagrams suggesting a north-south divide in the Mandarin dialect group, where dialects within the Amdo Sprachbund cluster at one end and those in the Far Southern area cluster at the other end, highlighting the impact of language contact on the typological profiles of various Mandarin dialects.

This article deals with some issues related to the application of a number of notions of Western linguistics to the analysis of Chinese morphology. The article first investigates some basic articulations of the notion of “word” with respect to the Chinese language, i.e. morpheme, syllable, bound and free root, semi-word. Among the peculiarities which emerge are the centrality of the syllable in the morphological analysis of this language and the tendency to reanalyse syllables as morphemes. The new syllables reanalysed as morphemes may be used as constituents in compound neologisms. The article also proposes some reflections on free and bound roots in Chinese and highlights the fact that Chinese bound roots cannot be assimilated to the so-called semi-words in the languages of Europe, contrary to what has been suggested by Packard (2000), who considers these two kinds of roots to be very similar. Finally, this article presents some issues related to lexical categories and to the categorial indeterminacy of lexical items in the Chinese language.

1990