Table of Contents
Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
Title page
Copyright page
List of Figures
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Foreword
Part I: Syntax, Semantics, and Morphology
1: Morphology
1 Introduction
2 Affixes in Chinese
3 Compounds in Chinese
4 More on V–O compounds: Syntax or morphology?
5 Conclusion
2: Classifiers
1 Introduction
2 Cognitive-descriptive perspective
3 Morphology
4 Acquisition
5 Conclusion
3: Adverbial Adjuncts in Mandarin Chinese
1 Introduction
2 Pre-verbal adverbials
3 Post-verbal adverbials
4 Two theories
5 Concluding remarks
4: Light Verbs
1 Introduction
2 The light verb syntax of Mandarin Chinese
3 Some extensions
4 Alternative theories of light verbs in Chinese
5 Conclusion
5: Topic and Focus
1 Introduction
2 Topic
3 Focus and focus constructions
4 Topic, focus, and contrast
5 Summary
6: Aspect
1 Introduction
2 Viewpoint aspect
3 Situation aspect
4 Aspect and tense in Chinese
5 Conclusion
7: Sentence-Final Particles
1 Introduction
2 Common properties of Chinese SFPs
3 SFPs and the structure of the C-domain in Chinese
4 Issues in the syntactic derivation of SFPs
5 Summary and thoughts for future research
8: Wh-Expressions in Mandarin Chinese
1 Introduction
2 The empirical data
3 Different approaches to in situ wh-expressions
4 Concluding remarks
9: Quantification and Scope
1 Quantifiers
2 Scope interaction
3 Conclusion and further issues
10: The Syntactic Structure of Noun Phrases
1 Constituents and constituent order
2 Interpretational properties
3 Modification
4 The classifier
5 The structural position of the classifier
6 De and its identity
7 NumeralP and NumberP
8 D or no D
9 Conclusion
Acknowledgments
11: Ellipsis
1 Introduction
2 DP/NP ellipsis
3 VP-ellipsis
4 Sluicing
5 Conclusion
12: Causal VVs in Mandarin
1 Introduction
2 Talking about causal VVs
3 Non-causal VVs
4 Semantic relations between M and R
5 The potential form
6 The interpretation of S and O
7 Explaining the interpretations of S and O
8 Syntax
9 Conclusion
13: Comparatives
1 Introduction
2 The clausal analysis and its syntactic implications
3 Controversies
4 Reconsideration of the clausal comparative
5 Concluding remarks
Acknowledgments
Part II: Phonetics, Phonology, and Prosody
14: Chinese Phonetics
1 Introduction
2 Part I
3 Part II
4 Conclusion
15: Segmental Phonology
1 Introduction
2 Standard Mandarin sounds, distribution, and processes
3 Beijing Mandarin er suffixation
4 Diminutive affixation and rime change
5 Co-occurrence restrictions
6 Concluding remarks
16: Syllable Structure and Stress
1 Introduction
2 What is a syllable?
3 The maximal syllable in Chinese
4 The minimal syllable in Chinese
5 Syllabic C
6 Heavy and light syllables
7 Stress, the Weight-Stress Principle, and tone
8 Judgment of stress
9 Word stress
10 The disyllabic requirement
11 Phrasal stress and the Information-Stress Principle (ISP)
12 Concluding remarks
17: Tones, Tonal Phonology, and Tone Sandhi
1 Introduction
2 Typological characteristics of Chinese tones
3 Tonal representation and the TBU
4 The analysis of Chinese tone sandhi patterns
5 Variation, gradience, and exceptions in Chinese tone patterns
6 Other issues
7 Conclusion
18: Prosody and Syntax
1 Introduction
2 Chinese tone sandhi and its relation to syntactic structure
3 Other prosody and syntax phenomena in Chinese
4 Summary
Part III: Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics
19: Bilingual and Multilingual Acquisition of Chinese
1 Introduction
2 Findings on the acquisition of Chinese in multilingual contexts
3 Influence of Chinese on English
4 Trilingual and multilingual development
5 Conclusions
Acknowledgments
20: Neurocognitive Approaches to the Processing of Chinese
1 Orthographic processing of Chinese
2 Prosodic and phonological processing of Chinese
3 Lexical representation and acquisition in Chinese
4 Processing of phrases and sentences in Chinese
5 Conclusions
Part IV: Historical Linguistics
21: Historical Syntax of Chinese
1 Introduction
2 Generative analyses of historical Chinese syntax
3 New perspectives in studies of Chinese historical syntax
4 Final remarks
22: Historical Phonology of Chinese
1 Introduction
2 Periodization
3 Methods and materials
4 Features of Middle Chinese
5 Features of Old Chinese
6 Major developments over time
7 Differentiation of dialects
8 Controversies and questions
Part V: Morpho-Syntax of Other Non-Mandarin Varieties of Chinese
23: Aspects of Cantonese Grammar
1 Introduction
2 General differences between Cantonese and Mandarin
3 Post-verbal elements: Sentence-final particles
4 Post-verbal elements: Suffixes
5 Discontinuous constructions
6 Concluding remarks
Acknowledgments
24: Taiwanese Hokkien/Southern Min
1 Taiwanese Hokkien/Southern Min vs. Mandarin in general
2 Word order
3 Aspect/phase markers
4 Causative/passive/unaccusative sentences
5 Negative question particles
6 Nominal domains
7 Conclusions
Index
Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The handbook of Chinese linguistics / C.-T. James Huang, Y.-H. Audrey Li, Andrew Simpson.
pages cm. – (Blackwell handbooks in linguistics)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-470-65534-4 (hardback)
1. Chinese language–Handbooks, manuals, etc.
PL1071.H39 2014
495.1–dc23
2013038492
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: © Artellia / Dreamstime.com
Cover design by Workhaus
List of Figures
14.1(a–d) Superimposed F0 contours on the bisyllabic compound words in Beijing Mandarin with the final syllable in the neutral tone ([0]) and one of the citation tones [55 35 214 51] on the initial syllable (male speaker).
14.2(a–d) Superimposed F0 contours on the trisyllabic compound words in Beijing Mandarin with the final syllable in the neutral tone ([0]) and one of the citation tones [55 35 214 51] on the initial and second syllable (male speaker).
14.3(a–d) Superimposed F0 contours on the trisyllabic compound words in Beijing Mandarin with the second syllable in the neutral tone ([0]) and one of the citation tones [55 35 214 51] on the initial and final syllable (male speaker).
14.4 Formant trajectories of the monosyllabic word [ɚ35] “child” 儿; Section (a) = [ə], Section (b) = [ə]-to-[ɚ] transition, and Section (c) = [ɚ] (female speaker).
14.5(a–g) Formant frequency trajectories of the [ɚ]-suffixed vowels [i-ɚ], [y-ɚ], [ɿ-ɚ], [ʅ-ɚ], [a-ɚ], [u-ɚ], and [ɤ-ɚ] (female speaker).
14.6(a–g) Formant frequency trajectories of the plain vowels [i], [y], [ɿ], [ʅ], [a], [u], and [ɤ] (female speaker).
14.7(a–g) EMMA data on the tongue shapes and tongue positions at the temporal points of approximately 10%, 50%, and 90% of the total duration of the vowels with [ɚ]-suffixation (female speaker facing to the left).
14.8(a–g) EMMA data on the tongue shapes and tongue positions at the temporal points of approximately 10%, 50%, and 90% of the total duration of the plain vowels (female speaker facing to the left).
14.9(a–b) (i) EMMA data on tongue shapes and tongue positions for the Beijing Mandarin apical vowels [ɿ] and [ʅ] (in dark thin line) of the syllables [sɿ˥] “silk” and [ʂʅ˥] “teacher” and the syllables [tsɿ˥] “capital” and [tʂʅ˥] “juice”; (ii) tongue shapes and tongue positions for the Beijing Mandarin dorsal vowels [i a u] (in light thin line); and (iii) palate contour (in dark thick line) (female speaker facing to the left).
14.10 Schematized spectrographic assemblies of the vowel [i] of [i˥] “clothes” and apical vowels [ɿ] of [sɿ˥] “silk” and [tsɿ˥] “capital” and [ʅ] of [ʂʅ˥] “teacher” and [tʂʅ˥] “juice” in Beijing Mandarin (female speaker).
14.11(a–e) Palatograms (upper) and linguograms (lower) of [ch] of [chɔ] “tomato,” [ɲ] of [ɲau] “urine,” [ɲ] of [ɲi] “ear,” [ç] of [çɔ] “boot,” and [ç] of [çi] “to hope” in Meixian Kejia (male speaker).
14.12(a–e) Palatograms (upper) and linguograms (lower) of [s] of [sɿ˥] “silk,” [ʂ] of [ʂʅ˥] “teacher,” [ts] of [tsɿ˥] “capital,” [tʂ] of [tʂʅ˥] “juice,” and [ɹ] of “the Sun” in Beijing Mandarin (female speaker).
20.1 Selected brain regions showing significant activation differences between familiar (Chinese/English) and unfamiliar (Italian/Japanese) stimulus conditions in the language discrimination task. Activation maps and time course results indicate that (a) unfamiliar languages elicited stronger activations than familiar languages in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; number indicating coordinates) in the left hemisphere (the side marked with L), while (b) familiar languages elicited stronger activations than unfamiliar languages in the left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). Error bars indicate standard errors of the mean.
20.2 Surface 3D images display brain regions that responded more strongly in the noun and verb conditions as compared with the baseline condition, for Chinese (a) and English (b), respectively. No significant differences were found between the Chinese and English in the activation patterns for nouns and verbs.
20.3 Mean number of nouns, verbs, and adjectives learned by a connectionist model at different lexical development stages for (a) Chinese, and (b) English. Results are averaged across ten simulations.
20.4 Grand average ERPs across nine electrodes under the three experimental conditions: congruous sentences (dark solid line), sentences that contain semantic violations (dashed line) and sentences that contain both semantic and syntactic violations (light solid line).
22.1 Traditional view of the Chinese language family.
22.2 Excerpt from the beginning of Guǎngyùn.
22.3 The first table of Yùnjìng.
List of Tables
1.1 Headedness properties of compounds of phrases.
5.1 Summary of Paul and Whitman's (2008) and Lee's (2005) classifications of shi … (de).
14.1 The tonal contexts in which the neutral tone turns into one of the seven variant tone contours: high falling, mid falling, low falling, high level, high-mid level, mid level, and low level.
14.2 Changes in the rhymes as a result of [ɚ]-suffixation in Beijing Mandarin.
21.1 Relative chronology of bei passives in Classical Chinese.
22.1 Examples of reading pronunciations of three distinct Middle Chinese initials in selected modern dialects.
22.2 Li Fang-Kuei's revision of Bernhard Karlgren's Middle Chinese reconstruction.
22.3 Baxter's “typeable transcription” of Middle Chinese.
Notes on Contributors
Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng is Chair Professor of Linguistics at Leiden University. Her research interests include comparative syntax (both micro- and macro-comparisons), syntax–semantics interface, and syntax–phonology interface. Some recent research topics include verb doubling, free choice items, and prosodic domains.
Siu-Pong Cheng is Research Assistant at T.T. Ng Chinese Language Research Centre of the Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests focus on Cantonese discontinuous constructions, the cartographic approach, and empty categories.
San Duanmu is Professor of Linguistics, University of Michigan. He is a phonologist and the author of The Phonology of Standard Chinese (2nd edition, Oxford 2007) and Syllable Structure: The Limits of Variation (Oxford 2008). Currently, he is working on the book Sounds and Features, to be published by Oxford.
Thomas Ernst is a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, and has research interests in adverbs, Chinese syntax, and phrase structure theory. He has published in such journals as Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Language, and the Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
Shengli Feng is Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include prosodic syntax, historical Chinese syntax, Chinese exegesis, and Chinese poetic prosody.
Francesca del Gobbo is a Junior Specialist in Linguistics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on Chinese linguistics, specifically on the interface between syntax and semantics. She has been working on relative clauses, the DP-structure, focus and topic, sentence-final particles, secondary predication, as well as the acquisition of appositive relative clauses.
Zev Handel is Associate Professor of Chinese Linguistics at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research interests include historical Chinese phonology and dialectology, comparative Sino-Tibetan linguistics, and the history of Asian writing systems.
Miao-Ling Hsieh is Associate Professor at National Taiwan Normal University. Her research interests include negation, questions, noun phrases, Taiwanese Southern Min, and language acquisition.
C.-T. James Huang is Professor of Linguistics at Harvard University. His research focuses on syntactic theory, the syntax–semantics interface, and parametric theory. He has published in Language, Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language Semantics, is author/co-author of Between Syntax and Semantics (Routledge, 2009) and The Syntax of Chinese (Cambridge, 2009), and is founding co-editor of the Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
Wai-Sum Lee is Associate Professor of Phonetics at City University of Hong Kong. Her primary research interest is the phonetics of Chinese dialects. She is an editorial board member for the Chinese Journal of Phonetics and the editor of the Proceedings of ICPhS-17. She is also a council member of the IPA.
Ping Li is Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, and Information Sciences and Technology, and Co-Director of the Center for Brain, Behavior, and Cognition at the Pennsylvania State University. He is editor of the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. His research focuses on language acquisition, bilingualism, and cognitive neuroscience.
Yen-Hui Audrey Li is Professor of Linguistics and East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include syntactic theory, typology, the interface of syntax with semantics, and phonology. She has published in Language, Linguistic Inquiry, Journal of East Asian Linguistics, and has (co-)authored books for Kluwer/Springer, MIT Press, and Cambridge University Press.
Wei-Wen Roger Liao holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from University of Southern California, and is currently Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of Linguistics of Academia Sinica. His research focuses on a range of topics related to generative syntax, comparative syntax, and morpho-syntax, including classifiers, indefinites, Chinese aspects, and compounding.
Jo-Wang Lin is Professor of Linguistics at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. His main interests are semantics and the syntax–semantics interface. He has published papers in journals such as Journal of East Asian Linguistics, Journal of Semantics, Linguistic Inquiry, Linguistics, Linguistics and Philosophy, Natural Language Semantics, and Phonology.
Tzong-Hong Jonah Lin is Associate Professor at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. His research interests include grammatical theory, Chinese linguistics, comparative East Asian syntax, and Siraya grammar.
Yen-Hwei Lin is Professor of Linguistics at Michigan State University. Her research interests include segmental phonology, syllable structure, phonetically-based phonology, and loanword phonology. She is author of The Sounds of Chinese and has published in Phonology, Journal of East Asian Linguistics, and Language.
Chen-Sheng Luther Liu is currently Professor at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. His research focuses on a range of topics in the syntax and semantics of Chinese, including anaphora, adjectives, and comparatives. He has published in the Journal of East Asian Linguistics and Lingua.
Youyi Liu is Assistant Professor of Psychology, at the faculty of State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University. His research focuses on language processing (L1/L2), reading development, and dyslexia.
Stephen Matthews is Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include language typology, language contact, and bilingualism. He has published on the grammar of Cantonese and other dialects, on contact languages including Chinese Pidgin English, and on bilingual development.
Hua Shu is Professor of State Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University, China. Her research interests include Chinese language processing, reading acquisition, dyslexia and the underlying neural bases. She has published papers in journals such as Human Brain Mapping, Neuroimage, Child Development, Journal of Educational Psychology, and JCPP.
Shu-Ing Shyu is currently Associate Professor at the National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung. Her main research interests are in syntax and interface studies of Mandarin focus and topic. She has published papers in journals such as Linguistics, Journal of Chinese Linguistics, and Language and Linguistics.
Andrew Simpson is Professor of Linguistics and East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on the comparative syntax of East, Southeast, and South Asian languages. He is joint general editor of the Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
Hooi Ling Soh is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Minnesota. Her recent research focuses on how aspectual information is represented and interpreted in the mind of the speaker. She has published in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Linguistic Inquiry, Journal of East Asian Linguistics, and Oceanic Linguistics.
Rint Sybesma is Professor of Chinese Linguistics at Leiden University (the Netherlands). His main interest is in Sinitic comparative syntax. He is currently the managing editor of the Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics (Brill).
Sze-Wing Tang is Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Director of T.T. Ng Chinese Language Research Centre of the Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and chief editor of Studies in Chinese Linguistics.
Ting-Chi Wei is currently Associate Professor at the National Kaohsiung Normal University in Taiwan. His research interests focus on syntactic issues in regard to ellipsis, pro-drop, word order, and interrogatives in Mandarin Chinese and Formosan languages.
Alexander Williams is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park. He works mainly on verbal semantics and its relation to clausal syntax, particularly in languages of the isolating type.
Virginia Yip is Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages and Director of the Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include bilingualism, second language acquisition, cognitive science, and Cantonese Grammar. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition and Second Language Research.
Eric Zee is Professor of Phonetics at City University of Hong Kong. His research interest is in phonetics and typology of the sounds of Chinese dialects. He is an editorial board member for Phonetica and the Journal of the IPA and a member of the Council of the IPA.
Jie Zhang is Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of Kansas. His research uses experimental methods to investigate the speakers' knowledge of phonological patterns, in particular tone patterns in Chinese languages. He has published in Phonology, Lingua, Phonetica, and Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
Foreword
The study of Chinese linguistics in formal, generative perspectives is a field that has become particularly well-established over the last 35 years, attracting ever larger numbers of researchers worldwide, as interest in both Chinese and theoretical approaches to language continue to grow rapidly. For some time there has been a pressing demand for an overview volume on core areas of Chinese linguistics which will provide readers with an efficient, balanced, and accessible introduction to some of the most important results of research into Chinese carried out by theoretical linguists since the 1980s. The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics sets out to address this demand, with a set of 24 chapters presenting readers with critical overviews of a broad range of major topics in the formal study of Chinese linguistics. Each chapter describes and assesses the major achievements and controversies of research work relating to the particular topic of the chapter, and provides readers with references for further reading.
The volume is divided into five parts. The first 13 chapters are contributions on the syntax, semantics, and morphology of Chinese, covering topics relating to functional-grammatical elements such as classifiers, aspectual markers, sentence-final particles, and light verbs; also processes of interpretation in questions, quantificational and comparative structures and contexts of ellipsis, and the syntactic structuring of topic, focus, adverbial, and nominal elements. Two rather well-known phenomena in Chinese syntax, the ba (disposal) and bei (passive) constructions, were deliberately not included in the volume for the reason that good overviews of the properties of these constructions are already available elsewhere (e.g., in The Syntax of Chinese by Huang et al. Cambridge, 2009). The second section of the volume continues with five chapters on the phonetics and phonology of different varieties of Chinese, with specific contributions on segmental phonology, syllable structure and stress, tonal and tone sandhi systems, and the interaction of aspects of prosody with syntactic structure in Chinese. Part III focuses on issues of acquisition and psycholinguistics, with chapters on the bilingual and multilingual acquisition of Chinese, and on neurocognitive approaches to the processing of Chinese. Part IV then turns to the diachronic study of Chinese, with studies of both historical syntax and phonology. Finally, Part V closes the volume with two chapters devoted to aspects of morpho-syntax in non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese – Cantonese and Taiwanese Southern Min.
With its extensive coverage of topics in formal Chinese linguistics, the Handbook of Chinese Linguistics allows for use as a primary reader for structured, taught courses on Chinese linguistics at the university level, and for individual study by graduate students and other professional linguists who either focus their research directly on Chinese or have primary specializations in other language groups but also a desire to learn about Chinese for comparative purposes. Each chapter is extremely informative and also well-balanced and objective in its presentation thanks to the considerable efforts of the team of contributors to the volume, to whom we are tremendously grateful. We feel that the collection of chapters specifically created for the Handbook of Chinese Linguistics demonstrates the depth of understanding that there already is of Chinese after three decades of the formal analysis of different varieties of the language, and hope that the insights and controversies described in the volume will stimulate much further research in the years to come.
Part I
Syntax, Semantics, and Morphology
1
Morphology
This chapter provides an overview of morphological phenomena in Mandarin Chinese. Although Chinese is in the main an isolating language, with significantly less morphology than agglutinating and polysynthetic languages, a range of both inflectional and derivational affixes do occur and are productive, and will be discussed in Section 2. Like many other heavily isolating languages, Chinese exhibits great richness in the area of compounding, and much of the chapter focuses on this aspect of morphology in Chinese. Section 3 discusses general patterns found in nominal compounds and the controversial issue of the headedness of Chinese compounds. Section 4 takes the study of compounds further into the verbal domain and examines the status of a particularly challenging type of compound in Chinese, verb–object/VO compounds, which seem to behave both as morphological compounds and syntactic phrases, posing potential problems for their categorization as objects formed by morphological or syntactic rules. Before we proceed to consider these issues, certain standard morphological terminology made use of in the chapter will be noted. First, in terms of structural role, a morpheme (the smallest meaningful or grammatical unit participating in word formation operations) may be a stem (the base of which is called a root) or an affix (AFF). If a morpheme is able to stand alone as an independent word, it is termed a free morpheme; it is otherwise referred to as a bound morpheme. By such a definition, all affixes are necessarily bound, while roots may be either free or bound (simple examples of bound roots in Chinese would be ge- in ge-dan “pigeon-egg, pigeon egg” and er- in er-zi “son-Affix, son”). Affixes are further divided into two types, according to their morphological functions. Derivational affixes generally change the categories of the stems they attach to, while inflectional affixes contribute grammatical information and functions to the stems but do not affect the category of the stem (e.g., plural marking on nouns, tense affixation to verbs).
In its inventory of affixal elements, Chinese has been noted to exhibit both inflectional and derivational affixes, as broadly defined above (Dai 1992; Packard 2000).1 In what follows in Sections 2.1–2.2, a sampling of representative affixes given in Chao (1968), Dai (1992), Li and Thompson (1981), and Packard (2000), is given, categorized here according to their categorial statuses (i.e., whether the inflectional affixes are attached to verbal or nominal stems, and whether the derivational affixes yield verbal or nominal stems). In Section 2.3, a controversial issue is discussed regarding the correct distinction of bound roots and derivational affixes in Chinese.
Chinese nouns are in general rather “bare” because they are not inflected for grammatical gender, number, or person. The plural (PL) suffix -men, which is used with human nouns and pronouns in standard Mandarin, marks the only exception, as illustrated in (1):2
(1) | N[+human]-men “noun-Plural” |
ren-men “person-PL: people,” laoshi-men “teacher-PL: teachers,” nan-hai-men “male-child-PL: boys,” gong-ren-men “work-man-PL: workers,” wo/ni/ta-men “I/you/he-PL: we/you/they” (but not *niu-men “cow-PL” or *che-men “car-PL”). |
Chao (1968) notes that certain classifiers can also be used as inflectional suffixes marking plurality and collectivity:
(2) | N+CL “noun-Collective” |
zhi-zhang “paper-CL: papers,” niu-zhi “cow-CL: a herd of cows,” ma-pi “horse-CL: a herd of horses,” hua-duo “flower-CL: flowers” (but not *ren-ge “person-CL” or *shou-zhi “hand-CL”). |
Verbal inflections in Chinese are also relatively few. Verbs are only inflected with aspectual suffixes (Asp). In Mandarin, these aspectual suffixes include the Perfective -le, Experiential -guo, and Progressive/Durative -zhe, which combine with verbs in an extremely regular fashion (see Chapter 7 for further discussion). One less-mentioned aspectual suffix, which Chao (1968: 205) refers to as Tentative aspect (while Li and Thompson 1981 and Dai 1992 use the term Delimitative aspect), is in the form of reduplication (RED):
(3) | V-RED “V for a short while/a little” |
zou-zou “walk-walk: walk for a while,” xue-xue “learn-learn: learn a little/for a while,” kan-kan “see-see: watch for a while” |
As Dai (1992) notes, when this rule is applied to disyllabic words, the whole stem must be reduplicated, as shown in (4b), which contrasts with unacceptable reduplication forms in (4c):
(4) | Verb reduplication rule for disyllabic stems |
a. [XY]V-RED → XY-XY, when the verbal stem is of the form XY | |
b. [bang-zhu]-bang-zhu “help-help-RED: help a little,” [an-wei]-an-wei “peace-console-RED: console a little”ss | |
c. *bang-bang-zhu, *bang-zhu-zhu, *bang-bang-zhu-zhu |
We shall come back to reduplication in Section 3.2, where the reduplication rule will be shown to be useful for determining the “compound-hood” of Verb–Object compounds.
It can also be noted that adjectives in Chinese may undergo reduplication, and while verbal reduplications take the form XYXY, adjectival reduplications have the different form XXYY (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981). For example, the word qingsong “relax/relaxed” can be used as a verb or as an adjective. The distinction is reflected through different reduplication patterns. Observe the following examples:
(5) | a. [qing-song]V-RED → qing-song-qing-song “to relax a little” | [XYXY] |
b. [qing-song]Adj-RED → qing-qing-song-song “quite relaxed” | [XXYY] |
Derivational affixes generally display a range of characteristics: (i) they select for the syntactic category of the stem/root they attach to; (ii) sometimes they may change the category and meaning of the stem/root they are attached to; and (iii) in some instances they may have no inherent meaning at all. A representative selection of derivational affixes present in Mandarin is illustrated in this section. Structurally, the cross-linguistic observation has been made that a derivational suffix functions as the head of the morphological unit it builds up, in the sense that its categorial feature projects as the identity in the new unit, while only some (but not many) derivational prefixes may function as heads (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987; Williams 1981). This property holds of Chinese too, as shown in (6). The word pai-zi “racket” is formed from the combination of the suffix –zi, which belongs to the category of N, and the verb pai “stroke.” The suffix functions as the head of the output pai-zi, which accordingly is a noun rather than a verb:
(6)
The suffix -zi, which does not have a substantive meaning, is very common in Chinese in combination with monosyllabic roots. The suffix -zi generally selects V or N as its input (in a few exceptional instances -zi also combines with an adjective), and always results in an output of type N/noun:
(7) | a. N-ziN |
qi-zi “wife-ZI: wife,” er-zi “son-ZI: son,” gua-zi “melon-ZI: melon,” sheng-zi “rope-ZI: rope” | |
b. V-ziN | |
pai-zi “stroke-ZI: racket,” shua-zi “brush-ZI: brush,” jia-zi “pick-ZI: clip,” pian-zi “cheat-ZI: cheater” | |
c. A-ziN | |
lao-zi “old-ZI: father (pejorative),” xiao-zi “small-ZI: kid,” feng-zi “crazy-ZI: lunatic” |
Another suffix, -tou (literally “head”), also occurs as a derivational suffix, though less commonly than -zi:
(8) | a. V-touN |
zhuan-tou “earn-head, opportunity to profit,” xiang-tou “think-head, idea/hope” | |
b. Adj-touN | |
lao-tou “old-head, old people (pejorative)” | |
c. N-touN | |
ling-tou “zero-head, small change” |
Nominal derivational prefixes are also found in Chinese. For example, the prefix lao- (literally “old”) can be seen in many words in Chinese, which no longer carry the literal meaning “old”:
(9) | a. lao-N |
lao-hu “old-tiger, tiger,” lao-shu “old-mouse, mouse,” lao-shi “old-teacher, teacher,” lao-po “old-wife, wife,” lao-ban “old-board, boss,” lao-xiong “old-brother, buddy” |
There are very few verbal derivational suffixes in Chinese. In fact, the only one that is still quite productive in modern Mandarin is the suffix -hua, which selects for N or Adj as its input, and yields a V:
(10) | a. N-huaV |
[gong-ye]-hua “labor-industry-HUA: industrialize,” [ji-xie]-hua “machine-machine-HUA: mechanize” | |
b. A-huaV | |
ruo-hua “weak-HUA: weaken,” qiang-hua “strong-HUA: strengthen,” huo-hua “active-HUA: activate,” zi-dong-hua “self-move-HUA: automatize” |
The prefix ke- (literally “able”) is a notable case of a prefix that may function as a head (it changes a V input to an Adj output):
(11) | keAdj-V => Adj |
ke-ai “able-love: lovable,” ke-hen “able-hate: detestable,” ke-xiao “able-laugh: laughable,” ke-lian “able-pity: pitiable,” ke-shi “able-eat: edible,” ke-gui “able-expensive: valuable” |
In addition to the class of derivational affixes illustrated with examples above, Chinese also has a significant number of elements that function as bound roots – roots that cannot stand as words by themselves. As there are various similarities between bound roots and derivational affixes, it is always a challenging in Chinese morphology to decide whether a bound morpheme should be categorized as a bound root or a derivational affix.
Dai (1992: section 4.2) lists four relevant criteria which may be used to differentiate bound roots from affixes, while recognizing that none of the criteria is, by itself, precise enough to be decisive in the categorization of bound morphemes: (i) affixes tend to be more productive than bound roots; (ii) the meanings of affixes tend to be consistent, and are sometimes more abstract in nature than the meanings of bound roots (or are even without any clearly definable meaning); (iii) affixes tend to perform certain grammatical functions; and (iv) affixes tend to attach to free forms. Notice that all of these criteria are effectively stated as “tendencies” since counterexamples can always be found (see Dai 1992 for details). The criteria (i) to (iii) are also adopted in Packard (2000: Section 3.4.3.2). Using these criteria, Dai (1992) argues that examples like -xi in xue-xi “study-practice: study,” yu- in yu-jian “pre-see: foresee,” -ti in shen-ti “body-body: body,” and -qi in yue-qi “music-instrument: musical instrument” are actually all derivational suffixes, rather than bound roots.
Before reconsidering the affix vs. root status of these bound morphemes noted by Dai, it is worth noticing that similar challenges of bound morpheme categorization occur in English too. For example, consider the neoclassic bound roots bio-, photo-, and -(o)logy in English (Bauer 1983; Plag 2003; Selkirk 1982). At first glance, these bound morphemes appear to be affixes. However, Plag (2003) argues that a “bio-logy problem” occurs if we consider these bound morphemes as affixes. Specifically, if bio- and -logy were both to be classed as affixes, then it would have to be concluded that the word bio-logy contains no root, violating the fundamental principle of word formation that every word contains at least one root. Plag (2003) therefore concludes that forms such as bio- and -logy are best analyzed as bound roots (in other words, bio-logy will be analyzed as a compound; see Section 3).
The same operating criterion can be adopted to determine the affix vs. root status of bound morphemes in Chinese. For example, yu- “pre-” and -xi “practice,” which Dai (1992) considers affixes, should instead (following Plag's approach to bio-logy) be analyzed as bound roots because their combination in yu-xi “pre-practice: preview/practice beforehand” is also a well-formed word (or at least, one of the two morphemes should be classed as a bound root, otherwise yu-xi will be rootless). Another useful criterion, based on the word-internal position of bound morphemes, can now be added here as a means to distinguish the root vs. affixal status of bound morphemes. Categorizing a bound morpheme as an affix entails that the affix occurs in a regular, fixed position relative to the stem it attaches to as either a prefix or a suffix, while a root in principle has greater freedom in positioning and might be expected to occur in different word-internal positions relative to other roots (while maintaining a constant meaning). Consequently, if a bound morpheme is not subject to a positional constraint, it should clearly best be analyzed as a bound root. Applying such a criterion to the morphemes considered by Dai above, yu- “pre-” should most probably be categorized as a prefix, while -xi “practice” should be treated as a bound root. This is because -xi can be found in word-initial as well as word-final position (e.g., xi-zuo “practice-doing, assignment”, xi-guan “practice-tendency, habit”, etc.), but it is difficult to find yu- in a non-initial, non-prefix position. By the same criterion, -qi “instrument” and -ti “body” should also be treated as bound roots, instead of suffixes (contra Dai 1992), since one can find words like qi-ju “instrument-tool: tool” and ti-ji “body-volume: volume.”
Other cases are trickier, due to the fact that some bound morphemes exhibit polysemy (there are actually different morphemes which share the same phonological form). For example, consider the prefix lao- “(literally) old” and the suffix -tou “(literally) head”. These bound morphemes no longer carry their literal meanings when they are affixes (e.g., lao-hu “old-tiger: tiger,” lao-shi “old-teacher: teacher,” zhuan-tou “earn-head: opportunity to profit”; see (8) and (9)). However, in other instances, they seem to behave as bound roots, keeping their literal meanings. As the positional criterion above predicts, such non-literal uses of lao and tou are not restricted to fixed word-internal positions:
(12) | a. lao “old” used as bound root |
lao-tou “old-head: old people (pejorative),” lao-ren “old-person: senior citizen,” nian-lao “age-old: aged,” qi-lao “old-old: aged and respectable person,” yuan-lao “origin-old: senior statesman” | |
b. tou “head” used as bound root | |
tou-fa “head-hair: hair,” tou-kui “head-helmet: helmet,” che-tou “car-head: hood of vehicle,” |
We can thus conclude the following. If a bound morpheme carries no substantive meaning, and/or its position is fixed, it is best analyzed as an affix. Otherwise, it should be categorized as a bound root.3