17.107, Review: Lang Description/Historical Ling: Wu (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-107. Fri Jan 13 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.107, Review: Lang Description/Historical Ling: Wu (2005)

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1)
Date: 12-Jan-2006
From: Jianhua Hu < ctjhu at yahoo.com >
Subject: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study of the Grammar of the Chinese Xiang Dialects 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:03:19
From: Jianhua Hu < ctjhu at yahoo.com >
Subject: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study of the Grammar of the Chinese Xiang Dialects 
 

AUTHOR: Wu, Yunji 
TITLE: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study of the Grammar of the 
Chinese Xiang Dialects 
SERIES: Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 162 
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2005 
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1319.html 

Jianhua Hu, Department of Linguistics, Hunan University, P. R. China

SUMMARY 

This book is a study of the Chinese Xiang dialects spoken in Hunan, 
from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Following Bao and 
Li (1985), it classifies the dialects spoken in Hunan into dialects 
distributed over five broad areas: 
(1) the Xiang dialects spoken in the center of Hunan; 
(2) southwestern Mandarin dialects spoken in the west and south; 
(3) the Gan and Hakka dialects spoken in the east; 
(4) the Waxiang dialect spoken in the west of Hunan; 
(5) some unnamed dialects spoken in the south of Hunan. 
The book also follows Yuan Jiahua (1983) in dividing the Xiang 
dialects group into New Xiang and Old Xiang, with Old Xiang 
maintaining the Middle Chinese voiced initials that New Xiang has lost. 
The book consists of ten chapters, in addition to Introduction, Final 
Remarks, and a substantial Appendix. This book will be of interest to 
scholars and students working on grammar, dialectology, historical 
linguistics, comparative linguistics, typological linguistics, and 
grammaticalization. 

Introduction. The introductory chapter, besides introducing the 
linguistic approach and data of the book, gives an overview of Xiang 
grammar. It claims that the methods and theories of comparative and 
typological linguistics will be used in its synchronic study of 
contemporary Xiang grammar, and the methods and theories of 
historical linguistics and grammaticalization will be adopted in its 
diachronic study of the evolution of the syntactical systems of the 
Xiang dialects. Data used in this book include recorded narratives and 
existing publications in the study of Xiang dialects, in addition to the 
author's own data collection and fieldwork. The overview of Xiang 
grammar, which serves as background for the chapters to follow, 
covers topics such as word structure, syntactic categories, and word 
order.

Chapter 1 The Spoken Language of the Xiang Dialects. This chapter 
introduces the main phonological features of the Xiang dialects and 
the evolution of the phonological system of the Changsha (the capital 
city of Hunan) dialect over 50 years. The most significant phonological 
feature of the Xiang dialects is the retention of the contrast between 
Middle Chinese voiced and voiceless consonants, which has been lost 
in most other Chinese dialects. This chapter also discusses how 
conflicting speech codes have caused sound change and semantic 
variation in the Changsha community. The general tendency in 
Changsha has been a shift from 21 tone to 45 tone. According to the 
author, the shift towards a higher tone results from the influence of 
Putonghua (PTH), ie., the standard Chinese.

Chapter 2 Written Language of the Xiang Dialects. This chapter 
discusses the techniques for representing Xiang dialects in Chinese 
characters. There are two types of written materials in which Xiang 
dialects are represented in characters: those mainly written in dialects 
and those written in a combination of Mandarin and dialects. Based on 
the discussion of the difficulties and techniques used in recording 
dialects in three types of examples (A Dictionary of the Changsha 
Dialect, two published editions of a novel, and the tape and libretto of 
two local operas), the author points out that there are three 
techniques that the book will use in representing Xiang dialects. They 
are: (1) the use of corresponding characters; (2) the use of a 
homophonous character; (3) the use of a hollow rectangle. 

Chapter 3 Morphology and Its Evolution in the Xiang Dialects. This 
chapter discusses the lexical systems of the Xiang dialects. It shows 
that, although a Xiang dialect may share up to 85% of its morphemes 
with Mandarin, a Xiang dialect may have a small proportion of 
monosyllabic morphemes, mainly verbs describing bodily movement, 
that are absent from Mandarin. For instance, in Changsha and Loudi 
dialects, there are 42 verbs describing bodily movements (verbs 
describing movements related to five senses and movements of head, 
hands, feet or the whole body, etc.) that have no corresponding forms 
in Mandarin. It also shows how words are formed in Xiang dialects. 
According to the author, affixation has the most distinguishing features 
in Xiang dialects. 

Chapter 4 Pronouns and Their Evolution in the Xiang Dialects. This 
chapter introduces the pronominal systems and their features in the 
Xiang dialects, using pronouns of the Changsha dialect as major 
examples. The research, which is based on the author's own 
fieldwork, shows that, although both suffixation and tonal variation are 
used to mark the difference between singular and plural forms of 
personal pronouns in the Xiang dialects, a shift has occurred from 
tonal variation to suffixation, due to the influence of northern Chinese. 
Besides showing that there exists a three-way instead of two-way 
distinction in demonstrative pronouns in some localities, it further 
demonstrates that there is a close relationship between personal and 
demonstrative pronouns in phonology, due to the etymological 
relationship or analogy. Another interesting point about demonstrative 
pronouns from the syntactic perspective is that in some localities, for 
instance, the Xinhua dialect, demonstrative pronouns like 'this' 
and 'that' cannot occupy argument positions. 

Chapter 5 Adverbs and Their Evolution in the Xiang Dialects. This 
chapter describes the adverbial system in the Changsha dialect, 
showing that most adverbs in the Changsha dialect are not related to 
those in Mandarin in etymology. Negative adverbs in the Xiang 
dialects are the focus of discussion in this chapter. It is claimed that in 
the Xiang dialects the negative adverb derived from a verb with a 
bilabial nasal consonant, and there used to be no distinction between 
a negative verb and a negative adverb, as is the case with the 
Longhui and Xiangxiang dialects which still keep traces of the earlier 
stage in this aspect.

Chapter 6 The Evolution of Passive and Disposal Constructions in the 
Xiang Dialects. While briefly describing the prepositional markers, this 
chapter focuses on the discussion of the historical development of the 
passive and disposal constructions in the Xiang dialects. Based on her 
investigation of the oral data from one hundred localities, the author 
shows that twenty forms can be used as disposal markers and thirty-
three as passive markers. An interesting point to note is that the Xiang 
dialects differ from Mandarin in that the disposal and passive markers 
in some localities are often derived from the same verb. The disposal 
markers mainly came from the verb with the meaning 'to give' or 'to 
take'. The passive markers, besides deriving from the above two 
meanings, can also come from verbs meaning 'to suffer', 'to receive', 
or 'to request', etc. Another difference between Mandarin and the 
Xiang dialects is that both disposal and passive markers in the Xiang 
dialects derived from active verbs. 

Chapter 7 Aspectual Markers and Their Evolution in the Xiang 
Dialects. This chapter consists of three parts. Part one discusses the 
aspect markers in the Changsha and Xiangxiang dialects. These 
aspect markers mainly fall into three categories: perfective, anterior, 
and continuative. Part two examines how aspect markers evolved from 
locative markers. Part three studies the grammaticalization path of the 
aspect markers in the Xiang dialects. It is claimed that all the aspect 
markers in the Xiang dialects came from verbs indicating direction. 
While some aspect markers may indicate the same directional 
meaning, they may also be used to express the same aspect meaning. 
In the Xiang dialects, not all aspect markers have finished their 
process of grammaticalization. Although some aspect markers in 
Xiang have become pure aspect markers, there are still some aspect 
markers that bear the same phonetic forms as their original verbs and 
can thus be used as free verbs.

Chapter 8 The Evolution of Structural Particles in the Xiang Dialects. 
This chapter describes the forms that are used to express the 
subordinating relation between a modifier and a modified head. In 
Mandarin, a structural particle (SP) with the same phonetic form, ie., 
DE, may be used to indicate the modifying relation between an 
attributive and a head, or between an adverbial and a head, or 
between a verbal complement and a head that precedes the relevant 
particle. It is shown in this chapter that the situation of the SP with the 
above grammatical functions in the Xiang dialects is more complex 
than that in Mandarin. For instance, the SP DE occurring before a 
nominal head in Mandarin can be represented by three different forms 
in the Xinhua and Lianyuan dialects: a plural suffix, a classifier or a 
structural particle. What is interesting with these two dialects is that, if 
the nominal head refers to people, the plural suffix must be used, 
whether the modifier has plural reference or not. The author proposes 
that there are at least four layers of attributive particles in the Xiang 
dialects, and in layer one, there was a distinction between the 
attributive SP and the nominalizer. It is claimed that this distinction can 
still be found in some parts of Qiyang and Xinhua. 

Chapter 9 The Modal Particles in the Xiang Dialects and Their 
Evolution. The first part of this chapter describes the modal particles in 
the Changsha dialect, which can be classified into phrase particles 
and sentence particles according to the author. It is pointed out that 
the Xiang dialects differ from Mandarin in that, whereas Mandarin 
uses intonation or adverbs to indicate the speaker's intention and 
willingness, the Xiang dialects often use modal particles instead in 
natural utterances, and that modal particles usually have a stressed or 
prolonged tone in the Xiang dialects. The second part of this chapter 
discusses the evolution of modal particles of interrogative sentences 
in the Xiang dialects. It claims that the basic structure of the Yes/No 
questions in the Xiang dialects is in the form of [V + Neg + (MOD)], 
which is a construction that can be traced back to Archaic Chinese, 
and now, this structure has begin to shift to [V + FF(fusion form)].

Chapter 10 The Evolution of Double-Object and De Constructions in 
the Xiang Dialects. The first part of this chapter describes the double-
object construction. It shows that the double-object construction takes 
the form of [V + DO + IO] in Xiang, as opposed to the form of [V + IO + 
DO] in Mandarin. As regards the above form in Xiang, a dative marker 
is not required in some dialects, but compulsory in others. It is 
proposed that the difference between Mandarin and the Xiang 
dialects with respect to the double-object construction may be related 
to the fact that the double-object construction in Mandarin evolved 
from the form [V + Dative M + IO + DO], whereas that in the Xiang 
dialects evolved from the form [V + DO + Dative M + IO] and [V1 + DO 
+ V1 + IO]. The second part of this chapter discusses the evolution of 
[DE + V] and [V + DE] constructions in the Xiang dialects. It suggests 
that DE in these two structures evolved from the same lexical source, 
though they did not undergo the same path of development. In the first 
structure, it developed from the active meaning of 'to obtain', while in 
the second structure, it developed from the passive meaning of 'to be 
obtained' and can still be used as a verb indicating the completion of 
an action. 

Final Remarks. This chapter summarizes the distinctive grammatical 
features of the Xiang dialects that have been revealed in this book. 

EVALUATION

This is the first book in international Chinese linguistics that describes 
the grammar of the Xiang dialects spoken in Hunan. Both synchronic 
and diachronic methods have been used in its description and 
analysis of the Xiang data which came from not only existing 
publications, but also the author's own field work. It shows 
convincingly that the Xiang dialects keep different layers of specific 
grammatical forms in different localities, which in fact offers an 
excellent mirror to view different stages of grammaticalization of 
function words in Chinese. The investigation into the Xiang dialects 
from the diachronic perspective demonstrates not only the possibility 
of tracing the grammaticalization path of the function words, but also 
that of reconstructing earlier layers of grammar on the basis of the 
modern Xiang data. The author points out that this is possible mainly 
because the speed of evolution of grammatical forms varies in 
different localities of Xiang. For instance, in Archaic Chinese, there 
exists a contrast between attributive and nominalizer, and this contrast 
can still be found in a few Xiang localities, though it has been lost in 
most localities. 

The synchronic study of the Xiang dialects in this book consists of not 
only the analyses of the modern data of Xiang, but also the 
comparative study of Xiang with Mandarin as well as other dialects 
surrounding Xiang. As to its synchronic study demonstrated in this 
book, I find that the author is much influenced by the research 
methods adopted by the Chinese linguists in Hunan Normal University. 
The typical characteristics shown by the above-mentioned linguists in 
their study of the Xiang dialects are that they tend to combine the 
synchronic study with the diachronic study. It is true that this method 
has a lot of advantages in revealing the evolutionary picture of a dialect, 
but its description of the synchronic data may not satisfy those 
linguists who are more interested in the grammatical facts of the Xiang 
dialects from the perspective of theoretical linguistics and linguistic 
typology. For instance, its discussion of interrogative pronouns does 
not include a description of the facts related to the indefinite use of 
them. Hence, one cannot know from this book whether those 
interrogative pronouns can be used as indefinite pronouns, or under 
what conditions they can be used as indefinite pronouns. One also 
cannot find from the discussion of passive constructions the relevant 
facts concerning the retained object phenomenon in the Xiang dialects 
or the syntactic difference between Xiang and Mandarin with respect 
to passives. For instance, in Mandarin, the following sentence is 
grammatical:

John bei tufei   sha  le  fuqin
John PSV bandits kill ASP father
Lit: 'John was killed father by the bandits.'

But, according to my knowledge of the Xiang dialects, not all of them 
allow the occurrence of the retained object like the one above in their 
passive constructions. Another important aspect of Chinese grammar 
that is not explored in its description of the Xiang dialects is the topic-
comment constructions that characterize Chinese, known as a topic-
prominent language. Although the Xiang dialects share many 
similarities with the Wu dialects as both are southern dialects, they 
may not have the kind of topic or sub-topic structures in the Wu 
dialects as discussed in Liu (2003) and Xu and Liu (1998). If this is 
true, then it will become a very interesting research issue from the 
typological point of view. 

As the first comprehensive study of the Xiang dialects, the book offers 
an excellent survey of the Xiang grammar in different localities. It 
benefits not only in its comprehensive overview, but also in its 
demonstration of the grammaticalization path of function words as 
exhibited in different Xiang localities. Given this, some minor 
restrictions are not an issue.

REFERENCES

Bao, Houxing and Yong Ming Li. 1985. Hunan Sheng Hanyu Hanyu 
Ditu San Fu [Three Chinese Dialect Maps of Hunan Province]. 
Fangyan 4: 273-276.

Cui, Zhenhua. 1998. Yiyang Fangyan Yanjiu [A Study of the Yiyang 
Dialect].  Changsha: Hunan Education Press.

Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva. 2002. World Lexicon of 
Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Liu, Danqing. 2003. Yuxu Leixingxue yu Jieci Lilun [Word Order 
Typology and the Theory of Prepositions]. Beijing: The Commercial 
Press.

Luo, Xinru. 1998. Xinhua Fangyan Yanjiu [A Study of the Xinhua 
Dialect]. Changsha: Hunan Education Press.

Wu, Yunji. 2001. The Development of Locative Markers in the 
Changsha Xiang Dialects. In Hilary Chappell (ed.), Sinitic Grammar: A 
Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective, 31-55. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press.

Xu, Liejiong and Danqing Liu. 1998. Huati de Jiegou yu Gongneng 
[The Structure and Function of Topics]. Shanghai: Shanghai 
Education Press.

Yuan, Jiahua. 1983. Hanyu Fangyan Gaiyao [An Outline of Chinese 
Dialects] (2nd edition). Beijing: Wenzi Gaige Chubanshe. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jianhua Hu is Professor of Linguistics at the Department of 
Linguistics, Hunan University. His research interests include syntax, 
semantics, Chinese linguistics, language acquisition, and linguistic 
typology.





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