Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

The bǎ-construction, generally recognized as one of the most studied constructions in Mandarin or Chinese more generally is the neutral term for the pattern containing the morpheme bǎ 把 (the DP following bǎ is referred to as the bǎ nominal). 1. Subject + … +   bǎ + DP +… V … The following examples illustrate some of the possibilities: 2. a. 我把他騙/打了。     Wǒ  bǎ   tā     piàn/dǎ    le.     1sg   bǎ  3sg  cheat/hit  asp     ‘I cheated/hit him.’   b. 他把菜炒爛了。     Tā    bǎ  cài              chǎo-làn          le.     3sg  bǎ  vegetable  stir.fry-mushy  asp     ‘He stir-fried the vegetable mushy.’   c. 我把他愛得…

Báihuà 白話, lit. ‘clear speech’ or ‘unadorned speech’ refers to Vernacular Chinese, a written language that is opposed to wényán 文言, lit. ‘literary speech’ or ‘ornate speech’, Literary Chinese or Classical Chinese. The term báihuà mainly denominates: 1. A non-standard vernacular style found in written sources from the Táng until the Qīng dynasty which is thought to have been closer to the spoken language than the dominant literary standard at the time ( wényán). In this sense, the meaning of báihuà overlaps with "Early Modern Chinese" ( Jìndài Hànyǔ 近代漢語). 2. A written language clo…

1. General 1.1 Geographic distribution The Bái 白 language is primarily spoken by the Bái people in Yúnnán Province, chiefly located in Dàlǐ 大理 Autonomous Prefecture. It is also spoken by other ethnic groups (such as the Lìsù 傈僳, Yí 彝, Nàxī 納西) living in that area with the Bái. Besides the majority of the Bái people, there are two other important groups of Bái speakers, the Lèmò 勒墨 and the Lāmǎ 拉瑪. The Lèmò people mainly live along the Nù 怒 river, while the Lāmǎ people are primarily found along the Lá…

1. Introduction Sentences marked with the morpheme bèi 被 in Mandarin are known as “ bèi-sentences”, which are to some extent comparable to passive sentences in English. The morpheme bèi occurs before the agent NP, such as (1), where Lǐ Sì 李四 is the agent NP and Zhāng Sān 張三 is the patient NP. When the agent NP is absent, bèi precedes the verb, as in (2). In what follows, the former is referred to as a long bèi-sentence while the latter is referred to as a short bèi-sentence, and bèi is glossed as “bei” in all the examples. 1. 張三被李四批評了。   Zhāng Sān  bèi  Lǐ Sì  pīpíng     le.   Zhāng Sān  bei  Lǐ Sì  critic…

1. General Běijīng Mandarin (Běijīnghuà 北京話, Pekingese, hereafter BM) is a language spoken in the city of Běijīng (Peking) by its natives. The development of BM in this definition is essentially influenced by two factors: the special status as capital that the city enjoyed almost uninterruptedly for nearly a millennium, and the normative language(s) of its successive ruling elites. Situated for many centuries in the borderlands between China proper and the Altaic peoples to its north, the predecessor cities of present-day Běijīng served as capital to m…