Late Archaic Chinese

1959 ◽  
Author(s):  
W.A.C.H. Dobson
Keyword(s):  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese

scholarly journals A semantic analysis of modal DE 得 in pre-modern Chinese

Lingua Sinica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Barbara Meisterernst
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Semantic Constraints ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Auxiliary Verb ◽  
Sinitic Languages

Abstract In this paper, the lexical semantics of the pre-modal verb 得 dé and its development into a modal auxiliary will be discussed. Two different positions are available for the modal dé, the default preverbal position of modal auxiliary verbs and a post-verbal position. The analysis of the event and the argument structure of the lexical verb dé reveals that the different modal uses of dé originate from its functions as an achievement verb. In this regard, dé clearly differs from the other verbs of possibility in Late Archaic Chinese. The particular syntacto-semantic constraints of dé can account for its development into both a modal auxiliary verb, and for the particular functions it develops in the Modern Sinitic languages as a postverbal modal marker.

scholarly journals Wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-36
Author(s):  
Aiqing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Head Position ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Intervention Effect ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Inverted Order ◽  
Government And Binding Theory ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
The Government

Following the Government and Binding theory mainly developed by Chomsky (1981, 1982, 1986), I explore wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation in Late Archaic Chinese (LAC). I propose that the inverted order of wh-P in LAC is generated via PP inversion followed by the separate preposing of wh and P. The wh-complement raises to [Spec, PP] and further moves to the specifier position of a functional projection. If the wh-PP is base-generated preverbally, the preposition moves to the head position of the functional projection directly; if the wh-PP is base-generated postverbally, the preposition must first incorporate to a V0 and then move to the head position of the functional projection through excorporation. In terms of the Intervention Effect, wh-arguments and adverbials that usually move to the Low focus position below negation are subject to a blocking effect caused by negation, so these wh-phrases have to land in the High focus position above negation which is expected to accommodate ‘high’ adverbials exclusively. I argue that the Intervention Effect in LAC is a consequence of Q-binding as feature movement of [wh], interacting with fronting into the hierarchy of clause-internal positions driven by [Focus] feature.

ANALYSE SYNTAXIQUE DES EXPRESSIONS QUANTITATIVES EN CHINOIS ARCHAIQUE

1993 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-237
Author(s):  
Drocourt Zhitang
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese

Based upon a systematic investigation of the data, this article demonstrates that the appearance of a new structure "numeral + measure + noun" in Late Archaic Chinese does not result from a change in word order as most syntactic studies propose, but rather from semantic restrictions that develop with the evolution of the language. In quantitative expressions, the prenominal or postnominal position of the numeral assumes a distinct function that one must analyze as modifier and predicate respectively.

Possibility and necessity and the scope of negation in Early Middle Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Barbara Meisterernst
Keyword(s):  
Functional Domain ◽  
Upward Movement ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
General Process ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
Archaic Chinese

Abstract This paper provides a classification of modal verbs of possibility and necessity in Late Archaic and Early Middle Chinese based on an analysis of their scopal features with respect to negation. It shows that circumstantial readings and deontic readings are interpreted in two different syntactic positions which can be determined by the scope of negation following the cartographic approach proposed in Tsai (2008, 2015) and the proposal of Cormack and Smith (2002) of a Polarity Head, which constitutes a syntactic divide of the domain of necessity modals from the domain of circumstantial modals. Our analysis of the scope of negation demonstrates that the deontic interpretation of possibility modals requires their upward movement from the lexical to the functional domain as part of the grammaticalization process from pre-modal lexical verbs to modal auxiliaries of different functions in Modern Mandarin. In Early Middle Chinese, negated modal verbs of possibility start to replace the synthetic modal negators of Archaic Chinese as part of the general process of analyticization of Chinese. We also show that the only true necessity modals in Late Archaic Chinese belong to the category of circumstantial modals due to their scopal features when they are negated.

Some Observations On a Grammar of Late Archaic Chinese

T oung Pao ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-286
Author(s):  
N.G.D. Malmqvist
Keyword(s):  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese

Object relative clauses in Archaic Chinese

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Aldridge
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Genitive Case ◽  
Object Relative

AbstractThis article proposes that Late Archaic Chinese object relative clauses were reduced relative clauses consisting of a TP dominated by DP. They contained a functional morpheme suo, which attracted an operator to the edge of the vP before moving to T in order to provide T with an [N] feature that could be selected by D. The embedded subject moved to the specifier of the nominalized T, where it valued genitive case with D under Agree. The reduced nature of SUO relative clauses accounts for the fact that a unique strategy was required for relativization on VP-internal positions, as opposed to subject position, since the lack of a CP layer denied the clause a uniform landing site for operators originating internal and external to vP. This analysis also accounts for the loss of the relativization asymmetry by correlating it with the loss of nominalizing morphology such as genitive case.

Observations On A New Classical Chinese Grammar

1959 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 556-571
Author(s):  
A. C. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Literary Language ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Early Archaic ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
Middle Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Formal Basis ◽  
Surprising Fact

It is a surprising fact that the Chinesische Grammatik (1881) of G. v.d. Gabelentz remains the only grammar of Classical Chinese widely available in a Western language. Joseph L. M. Mullie's Grondbeginselen van de Chinese letterkundige taal is accessible only to those who read Flemish, and the Structural analysis of literary Chinese of H. E. Shadick and Hsin-min Wu has not yet appeared in printed form. The publication of this grammatical analysis of LAC (Late Archaic Chinese) by Professor Dobson, Head of the Department of East Asiatic Studies at Toronto, is therefore an event of great importance to sinologists and to linguists generally. Its object is to establish, on a purely formal basis, the grammar of the literary language of the fourth and third centuries B.C. For descriptive purposes this period is taken as a unity, ignoring the peculiarities of particular texts and the dialects which may underlie them. It excludes, not only the Early Archaic of the ‘Songs’ and ‘History’, but the Middle Archaic of the ‘Spring and autumn annals’ and the early ‘Analects’. Professor Dobson seeks to liberate the grammar of LAC from all the Western categories so far imposed on it (parts of speech, subject/predicate, subject/object, case, tense) and to establish, with the aid of a new and often alarming terminology, new categories distinguished by purely formal criteria.

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