Article published In:
Chinese Language and DiscourseVol. 8:2 (2017) ► pp.244–265
The challenge of a “lacking” language
The historical development of Chinese grammatics
In the eyes of early modern European scholars, Chinese was commonly regarded as a “lacking” language: lacking its own grammatical tradition or “grammatics”; lacking the complex morphology of the classical European languages; even lacking its own “parts of speech” or word classes. In the late 19th century Ma Jianzhong created a grammatics for Chinese by adapting the categories of Latin grammar - and with a good understanding of the similarities and differences between the two languages - but the Chinese grammarians who followed him have struggled with the question of what might be common to all languages and what might be distinctive to Chinese. Ma saw a Chinese grammatics as a way to fill a gap in the country's literacy education, and this applied focus has been shared by most Chinese grammarians since, something which has tended to put restrictions on their description and theorising. A historical perspective is thus absolutely essential for understanding the practical and ideological problems Chinese grammatics continues to face, and can also throw light on the general challenge of extending “European grammar” to non-European languages.
Keywords: Chinese grammatics, Ma Jianzhong, xu ‘void’ v. shi ‘full’, history of linguistics, ideologies of language
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Adapting a “imported good”: Finding equivalences across linguistic traditions
- 3.不東不西: Initiating Chinese grammatics
- 4.Ex nihilo res fit: The perils of being a pioneer
- 5.The limits of accommodation
-
References
References
Bai, Liming
2012 “Creating ‘‘Real Learning’’ for China’s Survival: Liang Qichao and the Ma Brothers, 1896–1898.” Twentieth-Century China, 371 2, May 2012: 101–120.
Chao, Yuen Ren
1976 “Rhythm and Structure in Chinese Word Conceptions.” in Aspects of Chinese Socio-linguistics: Essays by Yuen Ren Chao. ed. by Anwar S. Dil, 275–292. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Chen, Baoya
2015 20 shiji Zhongguo yuyanxue fangfalun yanjiu [A study of linguistic methodology in 20th century China] Beijing: The Commercial Press.
Chen, Wangdao
(ed.) 1939 / 1987 Zhongguo wenfa gexin luncong [Collection of papers on Grammar Reform]. Beijing: Commercial Press.
Dixon, R. M. W.
2010–12 Basic Linguistic Theory, Vols 1–31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elman, Benjamin A.
1984 From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. 
Gao, Mingkai
1953 “Guanyu Hanyu de cilei fenbie [On distinguishing word classes in Chinese]”. Zhongguo Yuwen 101: 13–16.
Gao, Yihong
(ed.) 1997 Collected Essays of Shen Xiaolong on Chinese Cultural Linguistics. Changchun: Northeast Normal University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K.
1996 On grammar and grammatics. in Functional Descriptions: Theory in Practice, ed. by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran & David G. Butt, 1–38. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Haspelmath, Martin
2009 “Framework-free Grammatical Theory.” in The Oxford handbook of grammatical analysis, ed. by Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog, 341–365. Oxford: Oxford University Press...
Li, Charles N., and Sandra A. Thompson
1978 “Grammatical Relations in Languages without Grammatical Signals.” in Proceedings of the XIIth International Congress of Linguists, ed. by W. Dressler: 687–691.
Liu, Lydia H.
1995 Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity – China, 1900–1937. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lu, Jianming
1989/1993 Bashi niandai Zhongguo yufa yanjiu [Chinese grammatical studies in the 1980s]. Beijing: Commercial Press.
Lu, Xun
1934 “Nalaizhuyi [Bring-here-ism]” in Zhonghua Ribao 1934.6.7. Reprinted in The Complete Works of Lu Xun 61, 38–40.
Lü, Shuxiang
1979 Hanyu yufa fenxi wenti [Issues in Analysing Chinese Grammar] Beijing: Commercial Press.
1986 “Hanyu jufa de linghuoxing [The flexibility of Chinese syntax]” Zhongguo Yuwen 1986.11:1–9.
Ma, Jianzhong
1898 Mashi Wentong [Mr Ma’s Compleat Grammar]1953 Beijing: Commercial Press.
Mair, Victor
1997 “Ma Jianzhong and the invention of Chinese grammar.” Studies on the History of Chinese Syntax. Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series 101: 5–26.
McDonald, Edward (Ma, Aide)
1995 “Zhongguo wenhua yuyanxue yundong he hanyu de benzhi: guoqing de xin biaoxian? [The Chinese Cultural Linguistics movement and the nature of Chinese: a new manifestation of ‘national characteristics’?]”. Beifang Luncong / Northern Forum 1995.41: 91–104.
McDonald, Edward
2002 “Humanistic Spirit or Scientism?”: conflicting ideologies in Chinese language reform. Histoire, Epistémologie, Langage, 24.2. Politiques linguistiques 1.2: 51–74.
2005 “The Dangers of McDonaldisation: disciplinary and cultural pitfalls in the functional description of Chinese.” in Translation and Contrastive Studies: Proceedings of 2002 International Symposium on Contrastive and Translation Studies Between Chinese and English. ed. by Pan, W., Fu, H., Luo, X., Chase, M. & Walls, J., 261–282. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
McDonald, Edward (Ma, Aide) & Zeng Licheng
2002 “Yuyan de wenhua zhijiao yu qi shehui fuhao gongneng: yuyan bijiao zhong de jizhong gongneng yuanze [A Cultural View of Language compared with its social semiotic function: some functional principles in language comparison]”. In Yuyanxue: Zhongguo yu shijie tongbu, ed. by Qian Jun, 419–430. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
O’Neill, Timothy
2013 “Xu Shen’s Scholarly Agenda: A New Interpretation of the Postface of the Shuowen jiezi
.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.3 (July-September 2013): 413–440.
Peyraube, Alain
2001 “Some reflections on the sources of the Mashi Wentong
.” in New Terms for New Ideas. Western Knowledge and Lexical Change in Late Imperial China, ed. by Michael Lackner, Iwo Amelung and Joachim Kurtz, 341–356. Leiden: Koninklike Brill.
Prémare, Joseph Henri de
1831 Notitia Linguae Sinicae [An Acquaintance with the Chinese Language]. Malacca: Cura-Academia Anglo-Sinensis.
Shen, Xiaolong
1989a “Zouchu mamu yu beiliang [Making our way out of numbness and depression]”, Shulin 1989.21, 14–17. (English translation in Gao (ed.) 1997, 347–362.)
1989b Renwen jinshen haishi kexuezhuyi?: 20 shiji Zhongguo yuyanxue sibianlu [Humanism or scientism?: A critique of 20th century Chinese linguistics]. Shanghai: Xuelin.
Xu, Tongqiang
1997 Yuyan lun – yuyixing yuyan de jiegou yuanli he yanjiu fangfa [On language: principles and research methods for a semantic model of language structure]. Changchun: Northeast China Normal University Press.
2001 Jichu yuyanxue jiaocheng [Foundations of Linguistics: A Course Book]. Beijing: Peking University Press
Zhang, Zhigong
(ed.) 1956 Yufa he yufa jiaoxue: jieshao “Zhanni hanyu jiaoxue xitong” [Grammar and grammar pedagogy: introducing the “Provisional System for Teaching Chinese Grammar”. Beijing: People’s Educational Publishing House.
Zhu, Dexi
1982 Yufa jiangyi [Lecture Notes on Grammar] Beijing: Commercial Press.
1985 Yufa dawen [Answering questions on grammar] Beijing: Commercial Press.
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Coffey, Simon
2020. Introduction. In The History of Grammar in Foreign Language Teaching, 
Pellin, Tommaso
2019. Introduction − Aspects of the grammatization of the chinese language. Histoire Epistémologie Langage 41:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
Pellin, Tommaso
2019. The introduction of English grammar studies into China in the 19thcentury. Histoire Epistémologie Langage 41:1 ► pp. 79 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.