Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

object (bīnyǔ 賓語), term: Complement (and Object) object extraction: Relative Clause Comprehension, Neurolinguistic Studies | Sentence Processing: Relative Clauses object fronting: Focus | Pivot Construction object marker: Bái 白 Language object marking, Xīníng 西寧: Xīníng 西寧, The Language of object placement, Yuè 粵: Yuè 粵 Dialects object relative: Relative Clause Comprehension, Neurolinguistic Studies | Sentence Processing: Relative Clauses object shift, accusative case: Old Chinese Syntax: Basic Word Order object, role in inner aspect: Aspect, Modern object-dual: Metaph…

Old Chinese (OC; also "Archaic Chinese" in the terminology of Bernhard Karlgren, c. 1250 BCE to 206 BCE) was an isolating language lacking the inflectional morphology that characterizes Indo-European (IE) languages (e.g., declensions of nouns for case/number, conjugation of verbs for person/number/tense/mood). In OC only word class and word order determine a word’s role and meaning in a sentence. Attempts to classify the OC lexicon in terms of IE word classes (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, transit…

1. Background Broadly speaking, Old Chinese phonology ( Shànggǔ yīn 上古音) is the sound system of Old Chinese, the language of the early first millennium BCE that underlies the rhymes (=rimes) of the Shījīng 詩經 (the Book of Odes) and the system of phonetic elements in the early Chinese script. An early stage of this language can be assumed to be the ancestor of all later attested forms of Chinese. Scientific investigations into the phonology of Old Chinese began in China as early as the Sòng period (960–1279), undergoing brilliant developments in the Qīng dynasty (1…

This lemma summarizes the principle characteristics of Old Chinese word order from the late Spring and Autumn period to the end of the Warring States period (c. 6th-3rd centuries BCE), with special attention to those characteristics which differ noticeably from modern Chinese varieties. It also touches upon some changes which are in evidence in early Middle Chinese texts of the Hàn period. 1. Basic Word Order Old Chinese had the same basic word order found in the modern varieties. Unmarked declarative clauses were SVO, with objects and other internal arguments…

This lemma expands on the information provided in the complementary account by Aldridge (Old Chinese Syntax: Basic Word Order), which addresses a Greenberg-style concept of “basic phrase order” (viz. VO vs. OV), citing data from major clausal (e.g., questions) and phrasal constructions (NP modification, nominalizations, etc.). Here, we elaborate on that description of Old Chinese phrase ordering, decoupling it from Greenbergian concerns to treat other areas of the syntax, those concerned with re…

Onomatopoeia ( nǐshēngcí 擬聲詞 or xiàngshēngcí 象聲詞) are mimetic or “echoic” words (Chapman 1984:38) and expressions like hiss (in Mandarin xū 噓), snort ( háo 嚎), and bang ( pēng 砰) that are used to imitate the things or, more accurately, the sounds they refer to (Preminger and Brogan 1993:860). Classifications according to type of sound distinguish between the mimicry of human vocalizations, such as the ejections eek! and ow! ( āiyō 哎喲), bodily sounds like groan or grumble ( gūlūlū 咕嚕嚕) and the pitter-patter of running feet ( jījīgāgā 嘰嘰嘠嘠), sounds produced by animals, such as woof or bow-wow …