1、Topics in Chinese Linguistics: Introduction to Chinese,Unit 1: The Chinese Language,Nomnclature, Mandarin - Guanhua, an official language used in the court, the language of officials Guoyu - National language. Putonghua - Common Speech, Common Language Huayu or Huawen Singapore or overseas Hanwen us
2、ed in Korea and Japan Zhongguohua Languages in China Zhongwen alternative to Hanyu, focusing on written language,Current status and Future,Hanyu is used by 720 million people 70% of the population of China speak Hanyu One fifth of world population speak Hanyu (885 million ) 12.18.1973, U.N. General
3、Assembly, 28th Session resolution: Chinese is one of the working languages of U.N. Mandarin belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family Mandarin will become the major language in Asia in the 21 century.,Varieties,Northern (Mandarin)-Beijing Wu-Shanghai Min Southern - Fuzhou Min Northen - Xiamen Yue
4、(Cantonese)- Guangzhou Kejia (Hakka) Xiang - Changsha Gan - Nanchang,Features and characteristics,Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammar,Pronunciation,The number of syllables are limited: 432. There are 1376 syllables if all tonal variation is taken into account. (Liu, 1957) Vowels are predominant. There
5、are four tones in Mandarin.,The number of syllables are limited,The total number of syllables is 432 if tones are not taken into consideration. There are 1376 syllables if all tonal variation is taken into account Examples: a, ma, ba, ren, nong, ti, shang (See Xiandai Hanyu Cidan, the syllable table
6、, pp. 7-12),Vowels are predominant,Vowels are predominant lo, mio, li One syllable has at most two consonants nng consonants: n and ng There are no consonant clusters sp speak st steak kst text,Four tones in Mandarin,m m m m妈 麻 马 骂 mmother hemp horse to scold,There are five tones in Shanghai dialect
7、.There are nine tones in Cantonese dialect.,An interesting story written by Chao Yuenren using one syllable,石室詩士施氏嗜獅誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時適十獅適市。是時適施氏適市。氏視是十獅恃矢勢使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅尸適石室。石室濕氏使侍拭石室。石室拭氏始試食是十獅。食時始識是十獅屍實石獅屍。試釋是事。(趙元任語言問題商務印書館1980. p.149)Sh sh sh sh sh sh, sh sh, sh sh sh sh. Sh sh sh sh sh sh sh. Sh sh
8、, sh sh sh sh sh. Sh sh, sh Sh sh sh sh. Sh sh sh sh sh, sh sh sh, sh sh sh sh sh sh. Sh sh sh sh sh sh, sh sh sh. Sh sh sh, sh sh sh sh sh sh. Sh sh sh, sh sh sh sh sh sh sh. Sh sh, sh sh sh sh sh sh, sh sh sh. Sh sh sh sh.,Translation of “SHI” story,The poet Mr. Shi who lived in a stone house like
9、d to eat lions. He swore that he would eat ten lions. He went to the market often to look for lions. At ten oclock, it happened that ten lions were in the market. At that time, Mr. Shi happened to arrive in the market too. Mr. Shi looked at the ten lions and he shoot the ten lions with arrows. He pi
10、cked the dead bodies of the ten lions and returned to his stone house. The stone house was wet. He made the servant to clean the room. After the room was cleaned, he began to try to eat these ten lions. Only by the time of eating, he found that these dead bodies of lions were actually stone lions. T
11、ry to explain this story.,Vocabulary,Morpheme the smallest meaningful unit of a language. A morpheme in Chinese is a syllable (may or may not be a word.) Free Morpheme can be used as a word by itself Bound Morpheme used only as an attachment to another morpheme,Most words in morden Chinese are disyl
12、labic,Most words in ancient Chinese were monosyllabic,衣 y, clothing, to dress 車 ch, vehicle 人 rn, person 日 r, sun 見 jin, to see 者 zh, er 之 zh of,Script,Non-phonetic: a character has no clue to its pronunciation Ideographic or pictographic: characters are derived from the pictures The writing unit is
13、 character. Characters can be written vertically or horizontally, from left to write, from right to left, or from top to bottom,A character has no clue to its pronunciation,豳,A character has no clue to its pronunciation,豳 bn,Characters are derived from pictures,Characters can be written horizontally
14、, from left to write or from right to left,Characters can be written vertically from top to bottom,Guwen Guanzhi An Anthology of Ancient Chinese,Various styles of writing,Grammar,Topic-prominent No inflection The word order is important S+V+O The use of measure words (classifiers) Left-branching,Top
15、ic-prominent,John, w rnshi . John, I know.Zh bn sh, w kn le sn bin. This book, I read three times.,No Inflection,English work, works, working, workedChinese gngzu 工作,The word order is important S+V+O,S V O Mma i w. 媽媽愛我。 Mother loves me.W i mma. 我愛媽媽。 I love mother.,Large quantity of measure words,y
16、 g pngyou a friend y zhng zh a sheet of paper y b do a knife y tio qnzi a skirt y jin chnshn a shirt,Language in Contact,Influence from Altaic: SVO order Power to form new words Load words,Influence from Altaic,The word order SOV is influenced by Altaic language,Power to form new words,When new word
17、s were introduced to Chinese, most words were translated into Chinese and the new words were coined based on the meaning of each character. telephone 電話 dinhu electric speech television 電視 dinsh electric vision computer 電腦 dinno electric brain laser 激光 jgung activated beam railway 鐵路 til iron road,l
18、oad words,radar lid 雷達 model mtr 模特兒 pound bng 磅 shock xik 休克 humor yum 幽默 cola kl 可樂 sofa shf 沙發,Words borrowed form other langauges,From Miao-Yao炕 kng a brick bed虎 h tiger From Altaic犢 d little cow From Proto-Thai象 xing - elephant From India: 葡萄 pto - grapes Modern Persian: bda wine Iranian protot
19、ype budwa or bdwa From India: 茉莉 ml jasmine flowerSanscrit: mallik,Reading assingments,Norman Chapter 1 Chinese Profile http:/www.lmp.ucla.edu/profiles/profm02.htm The Chinese Languages http:/ questions for Unit I,1. Explain the following terms:Guanhua, Mandarin, Putonghua, Guoyu, Hanyu, Zhongguohua
20、, Zhongwen, Huayu 2. How many people speak Mandarin? Where are they? 3. What language family does Chinese belong to? 4. Is Chinese language a unique language? What are the varieties of Chinese? 5. What are typological characteristics of Chinese? 6. Give some examples to show the linguistic features of Chinese in terms of pronunciation, words and grammar. 7. In what way is Chinese influenced by other languages?,
