New book: Chinese

Fri May 4 20:38:04 UTC 2001

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A Grammar of Mandarin Chinese

HUA LIN
University of Victoria

Mandarin Chinese is the official language in China, Taiwan and
Singapore, and the language with the largest number of native speakers.
In recent years, Mandarin usage has spread even further: it is now
taught in most schools in Hong Kong, and with the influx of immigrants
to the West from China and Taiwan, many parts of the world including
Canada, the United States, Australia, and Europe have seen a steady
increase in the number of speakers.  Mandarin is not a homogeneous
language; any grammar that tries to describe it needs to select one
region as its focus. In this book, the focus will be on Mandarin as is
spoken in its motherland of Northern China, especially the Chinese
capital of Beijing.

The book will begin by an introduction to the geographic
characteristics, dialects and historical development of the language.
This will be followed by Mandarin phonetics and phonology. Topics
covered include the syllable, tones, the consonants, the vowels, the
glides and, more importantly, how these interact to create the sound
structure of the language. A description of the morphology will follow,
addressing special features of the language in terms of compounding,
reduplication, word stress, and disyllabicity.  The remainder of the
book will be devoted to Mandarin syntax. It will first outline the major
parts of speech and the major types of phrases; then it will focus on
some salient syntactic features, including the topic-comment structure,
the serial-verb construction, and the de construction. The book will end
with two sample texts, each accompanied by interlinear translation and
free translation.

Table of Contents:

1       Introduction
1.1     A Brief History
1.2     The Chinese Dialects
1.2.1   The Northern Dialect
1.2.2   Yue
1.2.3   Min
1.2.4   Kejia
1.2.5 Wu

2 Phonetcs and Phonology
2.1     The Sounds
2.1.1   Consonants
2.1.2   Vowels
2.2     The SyllableE
2.2.1   The Initial And the Final
2.2.2   Phonotactic Constraints
2.2.2.1 Syllabic Consonants
2.2.2.2 Syllable Gaps
2.3     The Processes
2.3.1   Consonants
2.3.2   Vowels
2.3.3   Pinyin and IPA
2.4     THE TONES
2.4.1   Basic Tones
2.4.2   Neutral Tone

3       Morphology
3.1     The Morpheme
3.1.1   Monosyllabicity
3.1.2   Free and Bound
3.2     The Word
3.3     Word Structure
3.3.1   Affixation
3.3.1.1 Suffixes
3.3.1.2 Prefixes
3.3.2   Compounding
3.3.2.1 Coordinative Compounds
3.3.2.2 Endocentric Compounds
3.3.2.3 Verb-Object Compounds
3.3.2.4 Verb-Complement Compounds
3.3.2.5 Subject-Predicate Compounds
3.3.2.6 Noun-Classifier Compounds
3.3.2.7 Multisyllabic Compounds
3.3.2.8 Newer Compounds
3.3.3   Reduplication
3.3.3.1 Noun and Classifier Reduplication
3.3.3.2 Verb and Adjective Reduplication
3.3.3.3 Two Syllable Reduplication
3.3.3.4 Simplex or Complex?
3.3.3.5 Affixation or Compounding?
3.3.4   Abbreviations
3.3.5   Disyllabicity
3.4     Homophones
3.4.1   Lucky and Taboo Expressions
3.5     Word Stress
3.5.1   Meaningful Stress
3.6     Transliteration of Foreign Words
3.6.1   Sound Route
3.6.2   Meaning Route
3.6.3   Sound and Meaning Combined
3.6.4 From Cantonese

4       Parts of Speech
4.1.1   Nouns
4.1.1.1 Types of Nouns
4.1.1.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.2   Verbs
4.1.2.1 Types of Verbs
4.1.2.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.2.2.1       Action and Stative
4.1.2.2.2       Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
4.1.2.2.3       Auxiliary Verbs
4.1.3   Adjectives
4.1.3.1 Types of Adjectives
4.1.3.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.4   Numbers
4.1.4.1 Types of Numbers
4.1.4.1.1       Whole Numbers
4.1.4.1.2 Fractions, Decimals, Multiples and
         Ordinal Numbers
4.1.4.1.3       Approximate Numbers
4.1.4.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.5   Classifiers
4.1.5.1 Types of Classifiers
4.1.5.2 Syntactic Propertie
4.1.6   Pronouns
4.1.6.1 Types of Pronouns
4.1.6.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.7   Adverbs
4.1.7.1 Types of Adverbs
4.1.7.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.8   Prepositions
4.1.8.1 Types of Prepositions
4.1.8.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.9   Conjunctions
4.1.9.1 Types of Conjunctions
4.1.9.2 Syntactic Properties
4.1.10  Auxiliary Particles
4.1.10.1        Types of Auxiliary Particles
4.1.10.2        Syntactic Properties

5       Syntax
5.1     General Characteristics
5.2     Phrases
5.2.1   Noun Phrases
5.2.1.1 Coordinate NP
5.2.1.2 Endocentric NP
5.2.2   Verb Phrases
5.2.2.1 Coordinate VP
5.2.2.2 Endocentric VP
5.2.2.3 Verb-Object VP
5.2.2.4 Verb-Complement VP
5.2.2.5 Serial-Verb VP
5.2.3   Adjective Phrases
5.2.3.1 Coordinate AP
5.2.3.2 Endocentric AP
5.2.3.3 Adjective-Complement AP
5.2.4   Prepositional Phrase
5.2.4.1 With Nominal Objects
5.2.4.2 With Verbal Objects
5.2.4.3 Ba PP
5.2.4.4 Bei PP
5.3     Functional Components
5.3.1   Subjects
5.3.2   Predicates
5.3.3   Objects
5.3.4   Attributives
5.3.5   Adverbials
5.3.6   Complements
5.3.7 Functional Usage of Various Words
        and Phrases
5.3.7.1 Nominals
5.3.7.2 Verbs and VPs
5.3.7.3 Adjectives and APs
5.3.7.4 PPs
5.3.7.5 Adverbs
5.3.7.6 Numbers
5.4     Aspects and Negation
5.4.1   The Perfective Aspect
5.4.2   The Experiential Aspect
5.4.3   The Progressive Aspect
5.4.4   Negation
5.5     Interrogative Sentences
5.5.1   Yes-or-No Questions
5.5.2   Wh-Questions
5.5.3   Choice and Counterfactual Questions
5.6     Complex Sentences
5.6.1   Coordinate Complex Sentences
5.6.2      Endocentric Complex Sentences

ISBN 3 89586 642 3.
Languages of the World/Materials 344.
Ca. 200 pp. USD 45 / DM 92 / # 29

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