book announcement on sinitic languages: typology and history

[Hilary Chappell]

Dear colleagues,

This book I edited, appearing earlier this year, may be of interest to many typologists:

Sincerely,

Hilary Chappell







BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT

SINITIC GRAMMAR: SYNCHRONIC AND DIACHRONIC PERSPECTIVES

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD

Edited by Hilary Chappell

ISBN: 0-19-829977-X

425 pages, 71 tables

Price: 57.95 pounds Sterling



Abstract of contents:

This is the first book in English to present cutting edge analyses on the grammar of the little-explored Sinitic or (Chinese) languages and their dialects. The aim is to describe the extent of their variation and divergence. The 13 analyses contained in the book meld historical and typological approaches in the examination of a variety of phenomena from grammar and morphosyntax. The perspective adopted challenges the view that standard Mandarin should necessarily be taken as representative of all Chinese languages. In fact, the studies in this volume show how different 'dialect' grammar can be, not to mention earlier stages of Chinese, from the modern, official language: putonghua. 

The book is designed to be accessible to a general linguistics readership, providing the necessary background information on the language(s) described in each chapter, as well as full transcription and translation of all the examples, given in Chinese characters. The introduction presents an up-to-date background to the history and geography of Chinese dialects as well as summaries of each contribution to this anthology. Both endcovers of the book display a dialect map of China for the ten main Sinitic languages.

Topics covered include aspect, evidentials, locatives, verb complementation, reduplication, modal verbs, markers of predication, affixation, prepositions, relative clauses, interrogatives, and stratification. Language data from most of the ten main Chinese dialect groups are presented, specific studies being on Xiang, Cantonese Yue and Taiwanese Southern Min. Earlier stages of Chinese examined include the pre-Archaic Shang oracle bone inscriptions, Archaic and Medieval Chinese and the written genre of Classical Chinese.



Table of contents:

PART I: INTRODUCTION 

Chapter 1: Synchrony and diachrony of Sinitic languages: a brief history of Chinese dialects   HILARY CHAPPELL 

PART II: TYPOLOGICAL AND COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR

Chapter 2: The development of locative markers in the Xiang-Changsha dialect    YUNJI WU 

Chapter 3: A typology of evidential markers in Sinitic languages 

HILARY CHAPPELL 

Chapter 4: Verb complement constructions in Chinese dialects: types and markers    CHRISTINE LAMARRE

PART III: HISTORICAL AND DIACHRONIC GRAMMAR

Chapter 5: Vestiges of Archaic Chinese derivational affixes in Modern Chinese dialects    LAURENT SAGART 

Chapter 6: Markers of predication in Shang bone inscriptions REDOUANE DJAMOURI 

Chapter 7: On the modal auxiliaries of volition in Classical Chinese ALAIN PEYRAUBE 

PART IV: YUE GRAMMAR

Chapter 8: The interrogative construction: (re)constructing early Cantonese grammar   HUNG-NIN SAMUEL CHEUNG 

Chapter 9: The verb complement construction in historical perspective with special reference to Cantonese  ANNE YUE 


Chapter 10: Aspects of contemporary Cantonese grammar: the structure and stratification of relative clauses   STEPHEN MATTHEWS AND VIRGINIA YIP

PART V: SOUTHERN MIN GRAMMAR

Chapter 11: Semantics and syntax of verbal and adjectival reduplication in Mandarin and Taiwanese Southern Min  TSAO FENG-FU 

Chapter 12: Competing morphological changes in Taiwanese Southern Min   LIEN CHINFA 

Chapter 13: Aspects of historical-comparative syntax: functions of prepositions in Taiwanese and Mandarin   YING-CHE LI 

References

Index: Author, Subject, Language

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