accusative and ergative languages

[Jim Rader]

Charles Li and Sandra Thompson's _Mandarin Chinese: A Functional
Reference Grammar_ (1981) is bulky (691 pages) and, as I recall,
hardly touches on issues such as formation of compounds, which play
a great role in Standard Chinese.

Jim Rader

> [Patrick Ryan:]

>>> If this were true, then a good reference grammar of Chinese or
>>> Vietnamese ought to be shorter than a good reference grammar of Russian
>>> or Latin.  And this does not appear to be the case.

>> Actually, I think it may well be the case for Chinese. I have a copy
>> of Chao's _Mandarin Primer_ (336 pages), which has a Chapter III -
>> Grammar, beginning on page 33, and *ending* on page 59. I can
>> compare this to Forbes' _Russian Grammar_, which contains 436 pages
>> of grammar and indices.

> It is hardly reasonable to adduce one small and elderly primer of
> Chinese and compare it with a large reference grammar of Russian.
> In any case, I have seen at least one very large reference grammar of
> Mandarin, though I can't recall who wrote it.

> Larry Trask