ChineseThis general introduction to the study of Chinese traces the language's history from its beginnings in the second millennium B.C. to the present, and provides a clear picture of the contemporary language and its sociolinguistic status. Chinese, in its numerous dialects, has more speakers than any other language in the modern world, and this vast extension in time and space brings to its study an exceptional complexity. Nevertheless, Norman's crisp organization and lucid elegance make this extraordinary range of material easily accessible even to those with an elementary understanding of linguistics. Chinese includes information on the genetic and typological connections of the language, the writing system, the classical and early vernacular tongues, the modern language and non-standard dialects, and the history of linguistic reform in China. |
Contents
The historical phonology of Chinese | 23 |
the Qieyun | 24 |
23 The Song rhyme tables | 28 |
24 The methodology of Middle Chinese reconstruction | 34 |
25 The reconstruction of Old Chinese | 42 |
26 Old Mandarin | 48 |
27 Tonal development | 52 |
The Chinese script | 58 |
67 Stress and intonation | 148 |
68 Morphophonemics | 149 |
The modern standard language II | 152 |
72 The morpheme | 154 |
73 The word | 155 |
74 Word classes | 157 |
75 Expression of grammatical categories | 159 |
76 The Chinese sentence | 166 |
32 Codification of the script under the Qin dynasty | 63 |
33 The varieties of ancient script and its nomenclature | 64 |
34 Developments in the Han dynasty | 65 |
35 PostHan developments in the script | 69 |
36 The number of Chinese characters | 70 |
37 The adaptability of the Chinese script | 74 |
38 Recent developments in the Chinese writing system | 79 |
The classical and literary Languages | 83 |
42 Morphemes and words | 84 |
43 Word classes | 87 |
44 The Classical Chinese sentence | 95 |
45 Some grammatical operations | 97 |
46 Place and time adjuncts | 103 |
47 Nominal and verbal modification | 104 |
48 Nominalization | 105 |
49 Conjoining constructions | 106 |
410 The classical literary language in later ages | 108 |
The rise and development of the written vernacular | 111 |
52 Nouns measures and localizers | 112 |
53 Pronominal forms | 117 |
54 Predicatives | 121 |
55 Changes in word order | 130 |
The modern standard language I | 133 |
62 The problem of nomenclature | 135 |
63 Phonology of the standard language preliminaries | 138 |
64 The initials | 139 |
65 The finals | 141 |
66 Tones | 145 |
77 Traditional Chinese lexicography | 170 |
78 The rise of bilingual dictionaries | 172 |
79 Modern lexicography in China | 176 |
| 181 | |
82 Historical factors in dialect development | 183 |
83 Degree of diversity among the Chinese dialects | 187 |
84 Dialect geography | 188 |
85 Dialect boundaries | 189 |
86 The Mandarin dialects | 190 |
87 The Central dialects | 197 |
88 The Wu dialects | 199 |
89 The Gan dialects | 204 |
810 The Xiang dialects | 207 |
The dialects of the Southeast | 210 |
92 The Yue dialects | 214 |
93 The Kejia dialects | 221 |
94 The Min dialects | 228 |
95 Min and Kejia | 239 |
96 Difficulties in classification | 241 |
Language and society | 245 |
102 Diglossia bidialectalism bilingualism | 249 |
103 Government language policy | 253 |
104 The fate of alphabetic writing in China | 257 |
105 Present and future prospects | 263 |
Notes | 266 |
References | 274 |
| 283 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adverbs alphabetic Central dialects century Chao China Chinese characters Chinese dialects Chinese language Chinese script Classical Chinese clerical script common compounds consonants dialect groups dictionary distinction early elements example final Fújiàn Fúzhōu Gàn grammar graph guage Guangyun Guǎngzhōu Han dynasty initials Karlgren Kèjiā lái literary language Liú main vowel Mandarin dialects meaning medial Méixiàn Middle Chinese Modern Chinese morphemes Nanbeichao nasal national language negative northern nouns obstruents occur Old Chinese origin palatal particle Peking Peking dialect period phonetic phonological prepositions pronouns pronunciation putōnghuà Qièyun reconstruction region rén retroflex rhyme tables rù tone seal script sentence shăng shì Shijing sibilants Southern dialects speakers spoken Chinese spoken language standard language stops suffix syllable syntactic Tang dynasty texts tion tonal categories velars verb vernacular Vietnamese voiceless wényán words writing system Wú dialects Xiàmén Xiang Y. R. Chao Yuán Yuè dialects