Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

1. Definition  Yànyǔ 諺語 is “a fixed sentence, prevailing among the common people, which in simple words expresses a profound truth” ( Xiàndài Hànyǔ Cídiǎn 2005:1573). The term yànyǔ was taken to be the equivalent of English ‘proverb’, French proverbe and German Sprichwort by Guō (1925:5). Rohsenow (2003:xiii) gives an extended definition: “ Yànyǔ, or ‘proverbs’ … are fundamentally an oral form consisting of complete sentences, which reduce the observations, experiences, and wisdom of ordinary people into short, pithy, colloquial statements and jud…

1. Definition In its most general form, the syntactic function of yě 也 can be defined as that of a postposition (pspt) marking a noun phrase (np) acting as predicate (pred) in a main or subordinate clause. 2. Yě as Postpositional Predicate Marker in Nominal Sentences The main type of sentence marked by yě is the "nominal sentence" (equational sentence) in all its variations (in English construed with the copula ‘to be’): 1. 子君也我臣也。   Zǐ              jūn              yě     wǒ            chén            yě.   np (sub)  np (pred)  pstp  np (sub)  np (pred)  pstp   squire       lord            [b…

1. Introduction Yě 也 (OC *lajʔ) is a highly frequent Old Chinese particle first appearing (sporadically) in excavated sources in the fifth century BCE and becoming widely used in fourth century excavated texts on bamboo strips. It follows, most prominently: nominal predicates (1)-(2) and nominal topics (3)-(4), initial clauses (5)-(6) and final clauses (7). In the glosses they will be referred respectively as PRT.NomPred, PRT.NomTOP, PRT.InitCl and PRT.FinCl. They can be either simple nominals (1), (3) or nominalizations (2), (4) and (6). As yě is very frequent, it often occur…

1. Introduction This article discusses yes/ no ( y/ n-) questions across varieties of Chinese, past and present. For reasons of space, this article is limited to surveying the modern surface structures, without making any attempt to track developmental pathways, chart out semantic or pragmatic distinctions, or review syntactic analyses. For instance, some types of such questions have implications for focus or imply presuppositions, while others are neutral without any presuppositions: we will generally not pay attention to aspects like these at all. Y/ n-questions, also called …