A Summary of Classical Chinese Analytic Syntax: the System of Basic Syntactic Categories
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Background I. Names
Background I. Names 1. China It used to be thought that the name ‘China’ derived from the name of China’s early Qin dynasty (Chin or Ch’in in older transcriptions), whose rulers conquered all rivals and initiated the dynasty in 221 BC. But, as Wilkinson notes (Chinese History: A Manual: 753, and fn 7), the original pronunciation of the name ‘Qin’ was rather different, and would make it an unlikely source for the name China. Instead, China is thought to derive from a Persian root, and was, apparently, first used for porcelain, and only later applied to the country from which the finest examples of that material came. Another name, Cathay, now rather poetic in English, but surviving as the regular name for the country in languages such as Russian (Kitai), is said to derive from the name of the Khitan Tarters, who formed the Liao dynasty in north China in the 10th century. The Khitan dynasty was the first to make a capital on the site of Beijing. The Chinese now call their country Zhōngguó, often translated as ‘Middle Kingdom’. Originally, this name meant the central – or royal – state of the many that occupied the region prior to the unification of Qin. Other names were used before Zhōngguó became current. One of the earliest was Huá (or Huáxià, combining Huá with the name of the earliest dynasty, the Xià). Xià, in fact, combined with the Zhōng of Zhōngguó, appears in the modern official names of the country, as we see below. 2. Chinese places a) The People’s Republic of China (PRC) [Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó] This is the political entity proclaimed by Máo Zédōng when he gave his speech (‘China has risen again’) at the Gate of Heavenly Peace [Tiān’ān Mén] in Beijing on October 1, 1949. -
In Language and Linguistics Compass 7.1:39-57 (2013) Survey Of
In Language and Linguistics Compass 7.1:39-57 (2013) Survey of Chinese Historical Syntax Part I: Pre-Archaic and Archaic Chinese Edith Aldridge, University of Washington Abstract This is the first of two articles presenting a brief overview of Chinese historical syntax from the Pre-Archaic period to Middle Chinese. The phenomena under examination in the two papers are primarily aspects of pre-medieval grammar which differ markedly from modern Chinese varieties, specifically fronting of object NPs to preverbal position, the asymmetry between subject and object relative clause formation, and the encoding of argument structure alternations like active and passive. I relate each of these characteristics to morphological distinctions on nouns, verbs, or pronouns which are either overtly represented in the logographic writing system in Archaic Chinese or have been reconstructed for (Pre-)Archaic Chinese. In the second part of this series, I discuss the changes in the Archaic Chinese grammatical features and correlate these innovations with the loss of the (Pre-)Archaic Chinese morphology. The main goal of these articles is to highlight a common denominator, i.e. the morphology, which enables a systemic view of pre-medieval Chinese and the changes which have resulted in the striking differences observed in Middle Chinese and beyond. 1. Introduction This paper is the first in a two-part series on grammatical features of Chinese from the earliest attested records over a millennium before the Common Era (BCE) to Middle Chinese of approximately the 5th century of the Common Era (CE). The first installment introduces characteristics of Pre-Archaic and Archaic Chinese which distinguish it from both Middle Chinese and modern Chinese varieties, in particular Standard Mandarin. -
NTOU Chinese Grammar Checker for CGED Shared Task
NTOU Chinese Grammar Checker for CGED Shared Task Chuan-Jie Lin and Shao-Heng Chen Department of Computer Science and Engineering National Taiwan Ocean University No 2, Pei-Ning Road, Keelung 202, Taiwan R.O.C. {cjlin, shchen.cse}@ntou.edu.tw However in NLPTEA2-CGED (Lee et al., Abstract 2015), it is required to report the location of a detected error. To meet this requirement, two Grammatical error diagnosis is an new systems were proposed in this paper. The essential part in a language-learning first one was an adaptation of the classifier tutoring system. Participating in the developed by machine learning where location second Chinese grammar error detection information was considered. The second one task, we proposed a new system which employed hand-crafted rules to predict the measures the likelihood of sentences locations of errors. generated by deleting, inserting, or We also designed two scoring functions to exchanging characters or words. Two predict the likelihood of a sentence. Totally sentence likelihood functions were three runs were submitted to NLPTEA2-CGED proposed based on frequencies of space- task. Evaluation results showed that rule-based removed version of Google n-grams. systems achieved better performance. More The best system achieved a precision of details are described in the rest of this paper. 23.4% and a recall of 36.4% in the This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 identification level. gives the definition of Chinese grammatical error diagnosis task. Section 3 delivers our newly 1 Introduction proposed n-gram statistics-based systems. Section 4 gives a brief description about our Although that Chinese grammars are not defined SVM classifier. -
Chinese Grammar Wiki
ELEMENTARY CHINESE GRAMMAR II - UNDER CONSTRUCTION Chinese Grammar Wiki All Set Learning Book: Elementary Chinese Grammar II - under construction This text is disseminated via the Open Education Resource (OER) LibreTexts Project (https://LibreTexts.org) and like the hundreds of other texts available within this powerful platform, it freely available for reading, printing and "consuming." Most, but not all, pages in the library have licenses that may allow individuals to make changes, save, and print this book. Carefully consult the applicable license(s) before pursuing such effects. Instructors can adopt existing LibreTexts texts or Remix them to quickly build course-specific resources to meet the needs of their students. Unlike traditional textbooks, LibreTexts’ web based origins allow powerful integration of advanced features and new technologies to support learning. The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of OER content to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society. The LibreTexts project is a multi-institutional collaborative venture to develop the next generation of open-access texts to improve postsecondary education at all levels of higher learning by developing an Open Access Resource environment. The project currently consists of 13 independently operating and interconnected libraries that are constantly being optimized by students, faculty, and outside experts to supplant conventional paper-based books. These free textbook alternatives are organized within a central environment that is both vertically (from advance to basic level) and horizontally (across different fields) integrated. The LibreTexts libraries are Powered by MindTouch® and are supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. -
Singapore Mandarin Chinese : Its Variations and Studies
This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Singapore Mandarin Chinese : its variations and studies Lin, Jingxia; Khoo, Yong Kang 2018 Lin, J., & Khoo, Y. K. (2018). Singapore Mandarin Chinese : its variations and studies. Chinese Language and Discourse, 9(2), 109‑135. doi:10.1075/cld.18007.lin https://hdl.handle.net/10356/136920 https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.18007.lin © 2018 John Benjamins Publishing Company. All rights reserved. This paper was published in Chinese Language and Discourse and is made available with permission of John Benjamins Publishing Company. Downloaded on 26 Sep 2021 00:28:12 SGT To appear in Chinese Language and Discourse (2018) Singapore Mandarin Chinese: Its Variations and Studies* Jingxia Lin and Yong Kang Khoo Nanyang Technological University Abstract Given the historical and linguistic contexts of Singapore, it is both theoretically and practically significant to study Singapore Mandarin (SM), an important member of Global Chinese. This paper aims to present a relatively comprehensive linguistic picture of SM by overviewing current studies, particularly on the variations that distinguish SM from other Mandarin varieties, and to serve as a reference for future studies on SM. This paper notes that (a) current studies have often provided general descriptions of the variations, but less on individual variations that may lead to more theoretical discussions; (b) the studies on SM are primarily based on the comparison with Mainland China Mandarin; (c) language contact has been taken as the major contributor of the variation in SM, whereas other factors are often neglected; and (d) corpora with SM data are comparatively less developed and the evaluation of data has remained largely in descriptive statistics. -
Code Switching of Semarang Babah Chinese Complies
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION The writer found in the field that it was not all Semarang babah Chinese did code switch using Chinese language. Some of them used Dutch to code switch as Lohanda (2002: 49 & 73) says that some of babah Chinese preferred to choose Hollandsch Chineesche School (HCS). Some of them even did not code switch at all. They used only local language/ s to speak. Because of this fact, the writer chose Semarang babah Chinese people who did code switch using Chinese language as participants to get the data. This chapter shows the analysis and the interpretation of the data gotten from the field to answer the problem formulations that have been mentioned above. The data of this thesis are taken from the transcription of babah Chinese conversation in their social gathering (Appendix 1) and the questionnaire (Appendix 2). The writer analyzed the transcription of the conversation to answer how babah Chinese people code switch whether they use Chinese language in a full sentence (inter-sentential) or insert word per word into a sentence (intra-sentential) when they code switch in social gathering and to know the Chinese words which are still used by babah Chinese when they code switch. To know the reasons why babah Chinese code switch using Chinese language and the people they code switch with, the writer analyzed the questionnaire. Therefore, this chapter is divided into four subchapters: 1. Intra-sentential and / or inter-sentential code switching among Semarang babah Chinese. 2. The Chinese words used by Semarang babah Chinese when they code switch. -
Learning Chinese
Learning Chinese Chinese is the native language of over a billion speakers, more Language Family people than any other language. It is spoken in China, Singapore, Sino-Tibetan Malaysia, and in many overseas Chinese communities. Dialect 4UBOEBSE.BOEBSJOJTCBTFEPO/PSUIFSO Writing Systems: Chinese dialects. Standard Mandarin is Simplified, Traditional, and Pinyin the language of business, education, and the media in all regions of China, and is tSimplified Chinese (e.g. 汉语) characters are widely used in the People’s widely understood in almost every corner Republic of China. They are based on and share most of their characters of the Chinese-speaking world. with traditional Chinese characters. t Traditional Chinese (e.g. 漢語) characters are in widespread use in Your Learning Options Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and in many overseas Chinese communities. t3PTFUUB4UPOFPGGFSTZPVUIFDIPJDFPG Knowledge of traditional characters will also allow you to recognize many Simplified or Traditional characters characters in classical Chinese texts. for your course. Simplified Traditional tPinyin (e.g. hàn yǔ) is a method of writing Chinese using the Roman alphabet. Pinyin is a transliteration of characters into the Roman script and is used for teaching the language phonetically and for typing Chinese. t3PTFUUB4UPOFBMTPBMMPXTZPVUPMFBSOUP speak and understand spoken Chinese Language Tips without learning Chinese characters. t$IJOFTFJTXSJUUFOXJUIOPTQBDFTCFUXFFOXPSET If this is your objective, you can study your course in the pinyin script. t&BDIDIBSBDUFSJO$IJOFTFDPSSFTQPOETUPBTJOHMFTZMMBCMF tThe meaning of a Chinese syllable depends on the tone with which it is spoken. Chinese has four tones: t3PTFUUB4UPOFHJWFTZPVUIFBCJMJUZUP mā má mǎ mà view pinyin along with the characters. steady high 2 high rising 3 low falling-rising 4 falling You can use this feature as a t"UPOFNBZDIBOHFTMJHIUMZEFQFOEJOHPOUIFUPOFTPGJUTOFJHICPSJOH pronunciation guide for the characters you encounter in the course. -
Chinese Writing Written Mandarin As Noted Above, Mandarin Is Often Used to Refer to the Written Language of China As Well As to the Standard Spoken Language
Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K. Wheatley, MIT 3. Chinese writing Written Mandarin As noted above, Mandarin is often used to refer to the written language of China as well as to the standard spoken language. This is the language of composition learned in school and used by all educated Chinese regardless of the particular variety or regional languages that they speak. A Cantonese, for example, speaking Taishan Cantonese (Hoisan) at home and in the neighborhood, speaking something closer to standard Cantonese when s/he goes to Canton (city), and speaking Cantonese flavored Mandarin in certain formal or official situations, is taught to write a language that is different in terms of vocabulary, grammar and usage from both Hoisan and standard Cantonese. Even though s/he would read it aloud with Cantonese pronunciation, it would in fact be more easily relatable to spoken Mandarin in lexicon, grammar, and in all respects other than pronunciation. From Classical Chinese to modern written Chinese Written language always differs from spoken, for it serves quite different functions. But in the case of Chinese, the difference was, until the early part of the 20th century, extreme. For until then, most written communication, and almost all printed matter, was written in a language called Wényán in Chinese (‘literary language’), and generally known in English as Classical Chinese. As noted earlier, it was this language that served as a medium of written communication for the literate classes Classical Chinese was unlikely ever to have been a close representation of a spoken language. It is thought to have had its roots in the language spoken some 2500 years ago in northern China. -
Generating Classical Chinese Poems from Vernacular Chinese
Generating Classical Chinese Poems from Vernacular Chinese Zhichao Yang1,∗ Pengshan Cai1∗, Yansong Feng2, Fei Li1, Weijiang Feng3, Elena Suet-Ying Chiu1, Hong Yu1 1 University of Massachusetts, MA, USA fzhichaoyang, [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] hong [email protected] 2 Institute of Computer Science and Technology, Peking University, China [email protected] 3 College of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, China [email protected] Abstract Since users could only interfere with the semantic of generated poems using a few input words, mod- Classical Chinese poetry is a jewel in the trea- els control the procedure of poem generation. In sure house of Chinese culture. Previous poem this paper, we proposed a novel model for classical generation models only allow users to employ Chinese poem generation. As illustrated in Figure keywords to interfere the meaning of gener- ated poems, leaving the dominion of gener- 1, our model generates a classical Chinese poem ation to the model. In this paper, we pro- based on a vernacular Chinese paragraph. Our ob- pose a novel task of generating classical Chi- jective is not only to make the model generate aes- nese poems from vernacular, which allows thetic and terse poems, but also keep rich semantic users to have more control over the semantic of the original vernacular paragraph. Therefore, of generated poems. We adapt the approach our model gives users more control power over the of unsupervised machine translation (UMT) to semantic of generated poems by carefully writing our task. We use segmentation-based padding and reinforcement learning to address under- the vernacular paragraph. -
Global Chinese 2018; 4(2): 217–246
Global Chinese 2018; 4(2): 217–246 Don Snow*, Shen Senyao and Zhou Xiayun A short history of written Wu, Part II: Written Shanghainese https://doi.org/10.1515/glochi-2018-0011 Abstract: The recent publication of the novel Magnificent Flowers (Fan Hua 繁花) has attracted attention not only because of critical acclaim and market success, but also because of its use of Shanghainese. While Magnificent Flowers is the most notable recent book to make substantial use of Shanghainese, it is not alone, and the recent increase in the number of books that are written partially or even entirely in Shanghainese raises the question of whether written Shanghainese may develop a role in Chinese print culture, especially that of Shanghai and the surrounding region, similar to that attained by written Cantonese in and around Hong Kong. This study examines the history of written Shanghainese in print culture. Growing out of the older written Suzhounese tradition, during the early decades of the twentieth century a distinctly Shanghainese form of written Wu emerged in the print culture of Shanghai, and Shanghainese continued to play a role in Shanghai’s print culture through the twentieth century, albeit quite a modest one. In the first decade of the twenty-first century Shanghainese began to receive increased public attention and to play a greater role in Shanghai media, and since 2009 there has been an increase in the number of books and other kinds of texts that use Shanghainese and also the degree to which they use it. This study argues that in important ways this phenomenon does parallel the growing role played by written Cantonese in Hong Kong, but that it also differs in several critical regards. -
A Contrastive Investigation of Standard Mandarin and Accented Mandarin
A Contrastive Investigation of Standard Mandarin and Accented Mandarin Aijun Li, Xia Wang* Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences * Nokia Research Center, Beijing [email protected], [email protected] spoken in Shanghai covering more than 11,850,000 Abstract populations. Although it is rather young in Wu dialect family, Segmental and supra-segmental acoustic features between Shanghainese becomes more and more interesting to standard and Shanghai-accented Mandarin were analyzed in researchers because of its economical and political importance. the paper. The Shanghai Accented Mandarin was first In this paper we will mainly focus our contrastive study on classified into three categories as light, middle and heavy, by segmental and supra-segmental acoustic features between statistical method and dialectologist with subjective criteria. standard and Shanghai-accented Mandarin (ASH). Accent of Investigation to initials, finals and tones were then carried out. Shanghai Mandarin is classified into three categories as light, The results show that Shanghainese always mispronounce or middle and heavy by subjective criteria from dialectologist modify some sorts of phonemes of initials and finials. The and objective criteria from statistical results obtained from the heavier the accent is, the more frequently the annotation. Then the phonetic level analysis on Shanghai mispronunciation occurs. Initials present more modifications accent is made for the three accent categories. A phonetic than finals. Nine vowels are also compared phonetically for 10 articulation contrastive table for Standard and Shanghai accent Standard Chinese speakers and 10 Shanghai speakers with Mandarin will be generated for initials and finals with middle-class accent. -
Treaty-Port English in Nineteenth-Century Shanghai: Speakers, Voices, and Images
Treaty-Port English in Nineteenth-Century Shanghai: Speakers, Voices, and Images Jia Si, Fudan University Abstract This article examines the introduction of English to the treaty port of Shanghai and the speech communities that developed there as a result. English became a sociocultural phenomenon rather than an academic subject when it entered Shanghai in the 1840s, gradually generating various social activities of local Chinese people who lived in the treaty port. Ordinary people picked up a rudimentary knowledge of English along trading streets and through glossary references, and went to private schools to improve their linguistic skills. They used English to communicate with foreigners and as a means to explore a foreign presence dominated by Western material culture. Although those who learned English gained small-scale social mobility in the late nineteenth century, the images of English-speaking Chinese were repeatedly criticized by the literati and official scholars. This paper explores Westerners’ travel accounts, as well as various sources written by the new elite Chinese, including official records and vernacular poems, to demonstrate how English language acquisition brought changes to local people’s daily lives. I argue that treaty-port English in nineteenth-century Shanghai was not only a linguistic medium but, more importantly, a cultural agent of urban transformation. It gradually molded a new linguistic landscape, which at the same time contributed to the shaping of modern Shanghai culture. Introduction The circulation of Western languages through both textual and oral media has enormously affected Chinese society over the past two hundred years. In nineteenth-century China, the English language gradually found a social niche and influenced people’s acceptance of emerging Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review E-Journal No.