Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

1. The Distribution and Areal Classification of the Gàn Dialects. The Gàn 贛 dialects are one of the major dialect groups of Sinitic. They are mainly spoken in the middle and lower reaches of the Gàn River, the drainage basin of the Fǔ 撫 River and the surrounding areas of Póyáng 鄱陽 Lake in Jiāngxī province, as well as the eastern part of Húnán province. Other Gàn dialect speaking areas can also be found in southeastern Húběi, southern Ānhuī, the northwestern corner of Fújiàn, and the southwestern corner of Húnán. According to Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Xíngzhèng Qūhuà Jiǎncè 中華人民共和國行政區劃簡冊 'A …

When linguists speak of "gay language", they may be talking about the way issues having to do with sexuality are encoded in a particular language, they may be referring to the "special language" associated with gay subcultures in a particular speech community, or they may be more interested in the strategic ways gays and lesbians use language for personal or political purposes, to communicate desire, for example, or negotiate social identity (Cameron and Kulick 2003). Although homosexual behavior has been practiced in China for thousands of years and in some periods of…

Generative linguistics was introduced to Hong Kong in the late 1960s, as part of the course "Introduction to Language and Linguistics" offered to language studies students at the University of Hong Kong and subsequently the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Individual courses on generative syntax, generative phonology, and semantics were not offered until the 1980s. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, several departments with “linguistics” as part of their title appeared in Hong Kong tertiary insti…

The first appearance of Noam Chomsky as a linguist in Mainland China was on a brief review of a critique of Syntactic Structures by a linguist from the former Soviet Union carried in Спутник ( Satellite, a journal for Chinese learners of Russian edited by Hēilóngjiāng Dàxué 黑龍江大學 Hēilóngjiāng University) in 1960. Due to the ideological confinement at that time, nobody in the linguistic community in Mainland China realized that the little …

1. A Brief History The founding of generative linguistics as a scholarly field in Táiwān should be accredited to the research and teaching of Ting-chi Tang (Tāng Tíngchí 湯廷池) and Kuang Mei (Méi Guǎng 梅廣) starting in 1973. Tang received a Ph.D. degree in linguistics in 1972 from the University of Texas at Austin (Tang 1972) and he has taught at National Taiwan Normal University, National Tsing Hua University, and various other institutions. Mei also received a Ph.D. degree in linguistics in 1972, fro…

Genericity is reflected in two rather different phenomena in natural language. One phenomenon involves noun phrases which refer to genera, or kinds, such as shīzi 獅子 ‘lions’, in sentences such as (1): 1. 我喜歡獅子。   Wǒ  xǐhuān  shīzi.   1sg  like         lion   ‘I like lions’. Such noun phrases are called generic or kind-referring NPs. The other phenomenon is exhibited by sentences which involve generic characterizations such as (2a) or habituals such as (2b).  2. a. 奇異果富含維他命C。     Qíyìguǒ  fùhán                  wéitāmìng C.     kiwi          richly.contain  vitamin C     ‘Kiwis are rich in…

1. Introduction Although no linguist has ever claimed that Chinese was a language isolate, its exact relationship was and is still controversial. The main reason behind this controversy is the limited quantity of morphology in Chinese. As Meillet put it:  si l’on est en présence de langues qui n’ont presque pas de grammaire, si presque toute la grammaire proprement dite tient en quelques règles de position relative des mots, comme dans certaines langues d’Extrême-Orient ou du Soudan…alors la question des parentés de langues est pratiq…

List of geographical names which appear in Volumes I–IV without characters. Provinces CharactersHéběi河北Shānxī [Shanxi]山西Liáoníng遼寧Jílín吉林Hēilóngjiāng黑龍江Jiāngsū江蘇Zhèjiāng浙江Ānhuī安徽Fújiàn福建Jiāngxī江西Shāndōng山東Hénán河南Húběi湖北Húnán湖南Guǎngdōng廣東Hǎinán廣西Sìchuān四川Guìzhōu貴州Yúnnán雲南Shǎnxī [Shaanxi]陝西Gānsù甘肅Qīnghǎi青海Táiwān臺灣 Autonomous regions [zìzhìqū 自治區 ] CharactersNèi Měnggǔ [Inner Mongolia]内蒙古Guǎngxī Zhuàngzú [Guangxi Zhuang]廣西壯族Xīzàng [Tibet]西藏自治區Níngxià Huízú [Ningxia Hui]寧夏回族Xīnjiāng Wéiwú’ěr [Xinjiang Uyghur]新疆維吾爾 Municipality [shì 市 ]…