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Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper¹ I will first explore the issues centering around the evolution of the interrogative word 物 as a common source into its modern descendants mak7 and other forms in Hakka. In contrast to the more uniform form in Southern Min, varieties of Hakka boast more variants such as mak7, ma'/ and man3• Such a variation can be accounted for in terms of minor regional difference as well as types of phonological process. The retention of the bilabial nasal initial of the word 物 as a reflex of the Middle Chinese 微 pnonological category in Hakka lends support to the thesis of lexical diffusion that sound change is not phonologically independent but rather bears the result of interaction with lexicon. Second, on the basis of earlier Hakka texts I will examine the patterns in the distribution of the modern reflex of 物 often written as a demotic word せ in its capacity of a variable as a component of the complex interrogative words 'what', 'wno' (=what person) and 'why' (=do what kind) or universal quantifiers in Hakka. The finding of the patterns of the Hakka interrogative word will be brought to bear on the patterns oi its precursor in Early Modem Chinese colloquial texts. Close attention will be paid to the interaction of inherent lexical properties of the interrogative word ana the grammatical constructions in whicn it occurs. Last of all, an attempt is made to survey the distribution and evolution of the Hakka-related 物-based interrogative word in other dialectal areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers preliminary thoughts on the issue regarding the Chinese exegesis, philology and linguistics with traditional assumptions and contemporary explorations as discussed by language professor Geoff Sampson. The argument on whether Old Chinese is similar to modern European languages in terms of homophony is mentioned. Also it tackles the process of replacing a monomorphemic lexicon by a bimorphemic vocabulary of classical documents.

The author discusses the emphasis made by language professor Geoff Sampson stating that homophony in the Old Chinese (OC) may not have been greater than in modem European languages. The author states that text would have been fully intelligible in OC even with artificially constructed piece of prose, with an intention to show a maximum of homophony in Modem Mandarin pronunciation while using the grammar of Classical Chinese. Also discussed is the linguistic literature on Classical Chinese.

The article offers information on the combination of morphemes which may be generative or non-generative in modern Chinese language. It states that morphemes in non-generative combinations are not the basic grammatical unit but are the constituents of basic units. The argument that the simplification of phonology does not influence an increase of homophones if the vocabulary is limited is also stated.

The article presents evidence faborable to the functional load hypothesis, arguing that phoneme pairs that differentiate many words are unlikely to undergo merger. It states that homophony avoidance is one of the factors that impact the course of sound change, and does not by itself predict if a given pair of sounds will merge or not. The observation of language professor Geoff Sampson that many of the sound changes that have occurred in the history of Chinese involve merger is cited.

The author explores many different ways to resolve the paradox on language change prohibiting the creation of excessive homophony. The author considers why homophones happen even though humans attempt to show one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning based on the CELEX lexical database of English, the evolution of diatones in English, and its implication to Chinese. Also discussed is the number of homophones that decreases as the number of words in a homophone set increases.

The article offers information on the Chinese pattern discussed by language professor Geoff Sampson which is said to be not paradoxical and enigmatic. It states that morphological reactions to natural phonetic tendencies are met frequently in language change. The focus of Sampson on morpheme instead of lexeme is also cited.

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The 6th International Conference in Evolutionary Linguistics (CIEL 6), jointly organized by Overseas Education College of Xiamen University and the Anthropological Society of China, was held in Xiang'an campus of Xiamen University, on November 22-23, 2014. A total of 45 scholars from China, U.S. and Estonia attended the conference. There were 7 keynote speeches, 22 oral presentations and 8 poster presentations featuring five major themes: language as a complex adaptive system; language and the brain; vertical and horizontal transmission of languages; language and population evolution in China; the ancestry of the Chinese Language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Workshop on Language and Human Complexity took place on October 25-28, 2014 at Peking University, with language change as the theme. This four-day workshop covered eight important topics of language change, i.e. the emergence of syllabic languages, special changes in Tibeto-Burman languages, Literal/Colloquial competition, formation of the Huihui language, bilingual development, phonemic load, dynamic studies of Chinese, and the Sino-Tai hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical overview of previously proposed etymologies involving the initial cluster *sr- between Chinese and other Sino-Tibetan languages. It puts forth one new etymology, which confirms the simplification of the cluster *sr- to 5 - in Kiranti and the preservation of this cluster in Rgyalrong languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norman (1979) proposes there are three strata dated from the Qin-Han, Southern dynasties and Late Tang period in the modern Min dialects respectively. Ting (1988, 1995) and Mei (1994, 2001) argue that the three strata also exist in the Wu dialects. Most of the previous studies focus on the comparison between the Southern Wu (SW) and Min and neglect the materials of Northern Wu (NW). Through comparative studies, strata analyses and referring to Chinese historical phonology, we assume that some phonological traits in NW, SW and Min all come from Qieyun or the Jiangdong dialect in the Southern dynasty. This paper also points out that although Wu dialects in southern Zhèjiâng are more similar to Min than Northern Wu, such places in NW as Danyáng, Chángshú and "Chóngqíhai" near Jinling geographically regarded as the center of the Jiangdong dialect, probably retain some early phonological traits in the Southern dynasties, which is also similar to modern SW and Min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to propose and prove that the well-known theory of markedness in language acquisition is also working in lexical borrowing. Principles of first language acquisition have widely been attested to operate in second language and/or foreign language acquisition. However, not much attention has been paid to the comparison between first language acquisition and lexical borrowing, although lexical borrowing also clearly involves similar processes and/or principles of foreign language acquisition in various forms. Specifically, we will show that fricatives of source language are changed to stops in target language, in parallel with the well-known phonological process that fricatives are realized as stops and that they are acquired later than stops in first language acquisition. Supporting evidence is provided from the comparison between general language acquisition data and strengthening of fricatives found in the lexical borrowing from Chinese by Vietnamese. In so doing, we will compare the alveolar fricatives in Chinese and their borrowed forms in Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Korean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, by briefly reviewing the keynote speeches and pre-conference workshops of Evolang10, we revisited the flourishing development of evolutionary linguistics in the past two decades, and gave three comments on Evolang conference series, including: (a) reconsideration of the repulsive attitude toward historical linguistics research; (b) future directions of modeling and experimental studies; and (c) necessity of pragmatics and neuroscience explorations in evolutionary linguistics. In the end, we summarized the key contributions from Chinese scholars to evolutionary linguistics, rich linguistic resources in China, possible facets where Chinese scholars can make significant contributions, and current status of evolutionary linguistics research in China. We welcome and encourage more Chinese scholars to step into evolutionary linguistics and make our contributions to this booming field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern Mandarin, zaishuo ... is used as either a modal particle (zaishuo1) or a conjunction (zaishuo2). Zaishuo1 and zaishuo2 can be traced back to the same historical source, i.e., the verbal phrase zai+shuo, formed by the adverb zai ...S 'again' and verb shuo ...ij£ 'to say.' The zai+shuo string has developed along two paths, characteristic of polygrammaticalization chains, with four stages each. One path leads to the emergence of zaishuou1 which occurs sentence-finally to indicate speaker/writer's subjective prioritization of the ordering of handling different matters, whereas the other path leads to the emergence of zaishuoi2, which occurs sentence-initially and is a discourse connector signaling further argument for a previously stated opinion, roughly equivalent to "besides" or "moreover" in English. The basis for the justification of the emergence of both uses of zaishuo ... Sift is pragmatic inferring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Standard Chinese, a low tone (Tone3) is often realized with a rising F0 contour before another low tone; this tone change is known as the 3rd tone sandhi. This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of the 3rd tone sandhi in Standard Chinese in telephone conversations and broadcast news speech. The sandhi rising tone was found to be different from the lexical rising tone (Tone2) in disyllabic words in two measures: the magnitude of the F0 rise and the time span of the F0 rise. We also found that word frequency affected the realization of the sandhi rising tone. Specifically, the sandhi rising tone in highly frequent words exhibited a smaller F0 rise (i.e., a greater difference from the lexical rising tone) than that observed in less frequent words. This result suggests that different processes may be involved in producing high- vs. low-frequency words in Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term experience with a classifier language influences the speakers' similarity judgment of everyday objects. Previous studies found that speakers of a classifier language, but not speakers of a non-classifier language, judge two objects that can be categorized by a common classifier to be more similar (e.g. Zhang and Schmitt 1998; Saalbach and Imai 2007, 2012). In the literature, two hypotheses have been proposed to account for the classifier effect. The category-based classifier hypothesis emphasizes the classifier-noun collocation relationship as the factor influencing similarity judgment. The feature-based classifier hypothesis suggested that speakers pay more attention to features like shape and animacy that are explicitly expressed via classifiers. Nevertheless, these two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. In the present study, three experiments were carried out to test an integrated hypothesis that both collocation relationship and classifier feature contribute to the classifier effect interactively. Experiment 1 was a linguistic survey of the classifier-noun collocation in two classifier languages, Mandarin and Cantonese. Experiment 2A and 2B tested the category-based and feature-based hypotheses with similarity judgment tasks in Mandarin and Cantonese, which have different classifier-noun collocations but largely similar distribution of classifier features. Experiment 3 proposed and tested the gradient classifier model which emphasizes the integrated effect of collocation relationship and classifier feature. Findings of this study suggest that long-term language experience influences the speaker's preferred way of observing objects, and provide a finer interpretation of the nature of the classifier effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are four circumadverbials "zai(S)-"cou(Ü), "chongxin(M Iff)"' guo(ü), xian(7lc)",qi(Sö), si(JE)-"si(Jß)"in Yushan dialect. They can be put into two categories: fixed and semifixed, according to their successive capability in usage. The circumadverbials comply with their corresponding pre-adverbials and post-adverbials in meaning and function, but differ in emotional coloring, which is a blending phenomenon of literary terms and dialectal terms due to the superposition of pre-adverbials and post-adverbials. The post-adverbials within must be the primordiality of the post-adverbials in the southern ethnic peoples' languages. Most of the post-adverbials are weakening in pronunciation and function, which is different in Cantonese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic analysis was conducted to identify the acoustic correlates for the place distinction in Mandarin voiceless fricatives. Eleven spectral, amplitude, and duration measures that have been shown to classify fricatives in English were analyzed to evaluate whether they can similarly classify fricatives in Mandarin. The results showed that each place contrast was associated with at least two measures, but no single measure classified all fricatives. The measures that were most effective in classifying fricative place also differed between the two languages. These results were interpreted in terms of the articulatory-acoustic relationship in the context of the acoustic theory of speech production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported in this paper exploited the existence of a pair of semantically related Cantonese question particles (mel and aa4) to learn more about the forms and meanings of the tones that mark declarative questions in English. First each particle was defined using Wierzbicka's (1996) natural semantic metalanguage (NSM). Cantonese-to-English translations were then elicited from native-bilinguals to discover the English-equivalent forms of the particles. The NSM explications proposed for mel and aa4 are hypothesized to apply equally to their English-equivalent forms. The results of this study provide empirical evidence that suggests there are at least two forms of rising declaratives in English with distinct meanings. It is argued that high-rising (but not mid-rising) declaratives express a prior belief in the negative form of their propositional content. The conclusions of this study add some significant and meaningful details to Gunlogson's (2003) study, which, as far as the author knows, is the most thorough treatment of the meaning of rising declaratives to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors pointed out the defects in the definition of boundary tone by Crystal (1997). The observation on duration ratio and fluctuating scale of pitch shows that although boundary tone and focus tone are overlapped sometimes, they have different domain that can be separated from each other. For example, boundary tone prefers to raise the top line of the pitch interval, while focus tone prefers to lower the bottom line. Boundary tone appears at every boundary of the utterance while focus tone at given posi-tions only. The present paper demonstrated that it is necessary and feasi-ble to distinguish between boundary tone and focus tone in the analysis of intonation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the distribution of aspect marker -zhe in Chinese serial verb constructions (SVCs) with the aim of accounting for the factors that constrain its distribution. It is proposed that both event types and temporal structure should be taken into consideration. It has been pointed out that the occurrence of the aspect marker -zhe with in SVCs requires that V) denoted an unbounded eventuality. That is, when the first subevent of an SVC is an activity, a stage-level state, or a semelfactive, the aspect marker -zhe must occur in the SVC, whereas when the first subevent of an SVC is an accomplishment, an achievement, or an individual-level state, the aspect marker -zhe must not occur. In addition, the aspect marker -zhe is obligatory when the two subevents have full overlapping temporal structure, while it is prohibited when there is no or partial overlap in temporal structure. Moreover, we have explained why an SVC without -zhe may have multiple readings, but the ambiguous readings disappear when it occurs with the aspect marker -zhe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conception of language as a multi-level system is widely accepted in modern linguistics. However, due to the absence of operational methodology, there has been no empirical characterization of any language as a multi-level system in the current body of linguistic research. The present study attempts to fill this gap by examining modern Chinese as a multi-level system from the complex network approach. Based on the same body of corpus data, four levels as language sub-systems along the meaning-form dimension of the language are modeled as linguistic networks. On the basis of topological analysis of the four linguistic networks, the organizational patterns of the four language sub-systems are described and compared quantitatively and the results are interpreted from an interdisciplinary perspective. To varying degrees, the four network models exhibit a series of non-trivial statistical patterns, which shed light on different aspects of the organization of the four sub-systems. The similarities and differences of the four sub-systems in organizational patterns reflect the relationships between them. In more than one way, the results of this study point to the close connection between relevant properties of the language and human cognition, which facilitates linguistic performance of different types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Names of body parts have an extremely important value not only in historical linguistics, but also in grammar of which they are the cognitive basis. Some of the concept of spatial orientation is the result of extension of body-parts. Similarly, many names of things have a relationship with names of body-parts. By examining words of spatial orientation and time, we conclude that Hakka has "zoomorphic model" and "anthropomorphic model" in space and time cognition, but She used "human model" and "astronomical reference" to understand the spatial orientation, and we also found that there are some problems in studying etymology. By examining some of the names of things, we identified that there are many similarities when She and the Hakka naming things. They are guided by these mechanisms--" Top-down strategy ", " Part-to-whole strategy " and sometimes refer to the shape of things, character, function and other factors. We point out that the classification and the naming of things of Hakka is different from the nomenclature and classification of systematic biology. It is influenced by traditional culture, following indigenous mechanisms in classification and naming of things. There are similarities and differences of the cognitive models obtained by studying body-part names of Hakka and She. They reflected the same characteristics and also unique features of cognition of human beings. The unique features confirm the "Sapir - Whorf Hypothesis". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do Mandarin and English speakers think about time differently? The seminal work by Boroditsky (2001) claimed they do, but the claim did not stand in three failed replications (Chen 2007; January and Kako 2007; Tse and Altarriba 2008). Recently, new data from different tasks were interpreted as further support of the claim (Boroditsky, Fuhrman and McCormick, 2011; Fuhrman et al. 2011). We evaluate the claim, its logical ground, and the existing evidence, including results from the original spatial priming task, the spatial projection (of temporal events) task, and the temporal judgment task. A reasonable conclusion from this line of research is that there might be a relationship between temporal cognition and specific language experience, but the relationship is a complex one which varies with the task, the language of instructions, the cultural shade of the materials, the location of test, the nature and extent of bilingualism, in addition to language and directionality of print. Some of the tasks are easier to replicate than others, and when replicable, the evidence they yield requires careful evaluations, interpretations, and qualifications. Under scrutiny, the evidence appears weak that Mandarin and English speakers think about time in a categorically different way because they use spatial metaphors differently to express time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to prove that counterfactual reasoning was accessible without contextual cues in Chinese, further demonstrating developmental differences in mastering counterfactuality in this language. This study challenged the traditional view that counterfactual thinking is exclusively available through discourse in conversational Chinese due to the lack of a subjunctive mood. It was argued that without morphological inflections, Chinese counterfactual reasoning could be reached through unique coercive tactics with negative linguistic expressions. The sentence-verification paradigm (Carpenter and Just, 1975) was employed to probe counterfactual comprehension by comparing mental representations of contrary-to-fact sentences. It was predicted that successful counterfactual reasoning would be observed in these coercions. Meaning-based representations would be formed in mental models, rather than structural ones. Because of the discrepancy between linguistic form and meaning in counterfactuals, extra time was required to process counterfactual clauses. The results confirmed the predictions. It was concluded that the same cognitive concept is reached in distinct linguistic ways. Developmental differences in mastering Chinese counterfactual reasoning were observed, and the function of negation in Chinese counterfactuals was discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for an account of Chinese syntactic structure that takes both structure and function into consideration. It argues that Chinese syntax can be given a rather neat and natural account if we take iconicity and information status into account and if we look at the following three orders separately: the order of the head and its NP or clause complements, the order of the head and its PP complements, and the order of the head and the adjuncts. It points out that Chinese is head-initial in terms of the order of the head and its NP or clause complement. However, when the complement is a PP, it typically precedes the head except that it can also occur after the head if such an ordering conforms to the unfolding of the event in the real world. As for the order of the head and the adjuncts, Chinese is head-final except when the adjunct is used to provide new information about degree or result or new (evaluative) information in terms of quality or quantity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apical vowels have been subjected to two stages of sound changes. In the first stage, lasting from the period of late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties to the Ming Dynasty, the sound change was conditioned originally by the Jiwg-initial group in the kaikou (open) finals of the rime group Zhi. The main vowel has undergone centralization from [i]>[щ]. Then the change gradually spread in the same rime group to those bearing the Zhuang and Zhang initial groups, and the Ri-initial as well, which results in the formation of the ┌Zhi-Si┘ Rime category in Zhongyuan Yinyun, the Rhyme Dictionary compiled in Yuan. The second stage probably spans from the Ming Dynasty up to the present. Conditioned by the emerging retroflex initials and triggered by push-chain sound shift of front vowels, the central high vowel underwent further raising, and, together with the high-front vowel, changed ultimately into the apical vowels in the phonology of the diverse dialects of modern Chinese. The paper addresses the origin of the apical vowels in Chinese, with its focus mainly on the first stage of sound change process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study investigates English speakers' comprehension of count mass classifiers in L2 Chinese. The participants for the study were 62 English-speaking adults learning Chinese in Taiwan. The results of the study indicate the following: (1) In early stages of L2 acquisition, English speakers do not seem to honour the count mass distinction in Chinese, contrary to suggestions made by studies investigating English-speaking and Chinese-speaking children (Soja 1992, Soja et al. 1991, Chien et al. 2003). (2) The predominant use of the general classifiers ge suggests that it does not require the noun which it denotes to be of a particular type. (3) There are between-groups developmental differences probably due to lexical learning. (4) An asymmetrical development between the interpretation of count-mass classifiers and the CLP structures with de modifying count classifiers raises a question concerning the source of variability in L2 acquisition. Two theories, namely the Full Transfer/ Full Access hypothesis and the Partial Availability of UG hypothesis, in relation to parameter-resetting in SLA within the framework of Principles and Parameters are set out to explain the divergence. It coheres with what Hawkins and Hattori (2006) suggest that the apparent native-like L2 performance may not be equal to the underlying properties in the grammar of native speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nasal vowels are widely attested in the sound inventories of the world's languages. It is usually assumed among phoneticians and universalists that the historical development of distinctive vowel nasalization consists of two ordered processes, i.e. vowel nasalization and nasal deletion, that is, the vowels become contextually nasalized before a nasal consonant at some stage in history; then the nasal ending is subsequently lost and vowel nasalization on the preceding vowel becomes distinctive and phonological. However, not much work has been done to reconsider or to provide phonetic evidence for or against this two-step account. For instance, the manner and motivation of the process of nasal deletion, which is generally assumed as a simple and one-step change, has not been studied in any detail. In this connection, we examine in the present study the aerodynamic characteristics of vowel nasalization in Xiangxiang Chinese, a representative of the Old Xiang Dialects of Chinese, which has a rich set of nasals, nasalized and nasal vowels (both monophthongs and diphthongs) and allows combinations of oral and nasal consonants and vowels, and discuss the implications of the current results as well as those from studies on vowel nasalization in other languages for the theories of sound change. In particular, our intention is to test the two-step account and to reconstruct the processes involved in the historical development of nasal vowels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates classifiers from the Han Dynasty to the Period of Wei and Jin Kingdoms and Northern and Southern Dynasties, especially the general classifiers "mei2" and "ge4". It is found that the two classifiers have been used as general classifiers as soon as they became to be classifiers from nouns; and they have been used mainly with the nouns that did not have specific classifiers. The general classifiers matured at the time when classifiers were emerging in Chinese. They also increased the scale of classifiers used and showed that the grammatical category of classifier has existed in Chinese since the Han Dynasty although there were not too many classifiers at that time. Motivation of classifiers used in Chinese is grammar not semantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the acquisition of the ba-construction by English-speaking learners of Chinese. Written sentences produced by CFL learners at three proficiency levels and NSs were examined. The findings show that, although some learners at the elementary level were able to produce the ba-construction, their production on average was much lower than that of NSs. Three characteristics have been revealed. First, learners are in the process of conceptualizing the function of the ba-construction as shown by their generally correct word order and semantic organizations on one hand, and misplacing or missing components of the verbal complement on the other. Second, when given a choice, learners at the lower levels uniformly used the simpler structures of the verbal complement that present more transparent form-meaning mapping. Native-like variations only started to appear at the advanced level. Third, pragmatics and discourse also played a role, which may partially explain the verbal complement errors made by learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zhuang language is divided into two main varieties, the northern variety and the southern variety. This paper describes the lexicology of the northern variety of the Zhuang language, and its focus is on word formation, and especially Chinese loanword formation. Based on syllable structures, words are classified into monosyllabic word, disyllabic word, and tri-syllabic word. Words are formed by compounding, affixing and reduplicating. The Chinese loanwords for everyday use account for 30-40 per cent of the total vocabulary and the Chinese loanwords for culture, education, current affairs, politics and so on amount to 60-70 per cent. The paper discusses loan processes and the classification of loanwords into old loanwords and new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors such as preceding or following tone, pitch range, and prosodic position have been found to have an impact on phonetic tonal realization (Gandour et al. 1994; Shih 1988; Liberman & Pierrehumbert 1984; Pierrehumbert & Beckman 1988; Peng 1997). The present study used Rugaohua, a Southern Mandarin dialect, as a testing ground for some of the theoretical claims and tonal realization models. It was found that preceding tone and pitch range, as well as underlying tonal specification for target syllable, were important factors in a tonal realization model for Rugaohua. In particular, a preceding tone with a L target downsteps a following tone, and different L targets may have different downstepping effects. When pitch range was manipulated by increasing and decreasing voice volume, high tones were affected more than low tones. The data suggest that there may also be following tone and prosodic position effects, calling for further investigation on these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the disambiguation of Mandarin CHA-DIAN-MEI (CDM) 'miss-bit-not' + V structure, which has either a positive or negative interpretation. I present data to illustrate the interpretational effects caused by post-verbal objects and the perfective-marker LE, which have not been discussed in the literature. I conclude that CDM + V, like Mandarin passive voice, is an adversity structure with a default negative interpretation and M is an expletive negator. Also, when V is desirable, CDM + Vdesirable should be segmented as CD + MVdesirable. I also argue that CAI and JIU are syntactic cues for segmentation and that CDM + V is one of the very few counterfactual expressions in Mandarin, similar to cases in Russian, Spanish, and French where expletive negators appear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hakka is one of the main dialect families of the Chinese language. Most Hakkas live in southern China, but some have historically immigrated to several countries in Southeast Asia, including Thailand. Although there are some reference works on the Hakka language, there has not yet been any acoustic study of Hakka tones. The acoustic study of tone is used for a clear comprehensive analysis of the tonal system. The purpose of this paper is to present an acoustic analysis of the tonal system of Hakka as spoken in Bangkok Thailand. Previous studies which have been based on auditory analyses (Pratoom: 1984, Jurairat: 2001, and Wandee: 2003) have identified only four tones in Hakka as spoken in Thailand. Furthermore, there were differences in the tone values described in these three studies. The results of acoustic analysis in this study show that there are six contrastive tones, viz, mid level, mid-low falling, mid falling, mid-high level, short mid falling, and short mid-high level in the Hakka language as spoken in Bangkok. Differences in the duration of live and dead syllables were found, with the former twice the duration of the latter. There are only two tone contours of level and falling. The differences between the start and end of FO on syllables distinguish between a falling tone and a level tone. In addition, there are two allotones produced through tone sandhi The first one occurs on Tone 1 Mid Level; its contour changes from ...33 to ...325 when it is followed by lower tones. The second allotone occurs on Tone 4 Mid-High Level; its contour changes from ...44 to ...53 when it is followed by another level tone. The acoustic measurement of Hakka tones provides a clearer and more comprehensive analysis of the Hakka tone system than the previous auditory descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features the Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) at Peking University in Beijing, China which was approved as a key research institute of national universities in China. It states that CCL was founded in January 2000 wherein Lu Jianming served as its director and Jiang Shaoyu as deputy director. It mentions that CCL aims to achieve international standards and advance research in Chinese linguistics. It says that the organization published the journal "Yuyanxue Luncong/Essays on Linguistics" which features all types of papers concerning Chinese linguistics. It adds that CCL conducted workshops and conferences that discussed topics related to Chinese linguistics.

Children have been shown to acquire path satellite constructions early in development across a number of different languages. One possible explanation is that children start to form concepts of path of motion before they even begin to speak. It is also possible that path satellites are highly frequent in parents' language to children. To explore the role of frequency, we examined how path, manner, and resultative satellite constructions were used by Chinese-English bilingual children and adults. By looking at bilingual children, we can dissociate how the children's linguistic knowledge and age factor in their acquisition. Four Chinese-English bilingual children between the ages of 1;9 and 3;3 were videotaped in free-play sessions in both English and Chinese. It was found that the adults used motion + path constructions more often than any other kind of verb complexes and the children encoded motion + path earlier, too. In Chinese, the children heard more resultatives than manner constructions whereas the reverse was true in English. The children's production of these constructions followed the frequency in the input. The adults' use of lexicalization patterns was not uniform with the children's age and/or linguistic level. We conclude that researchers must look at how adults use lexicalization patterns with their children in order to understand children's acquisition of these patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present a proposal for a relevance-theoretic description of the use of the particle ba in Mandarin Chinese. The result of the analyses of the data shows that ba is a pragmatic marker with a similar function in declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives, i.e. to indicate hearer-oriented weak commitment towards either the proposition expressed (declaratives, interrogatives) or the speech act expressed (imperatives). The results also indicate that ba can be compared to tags such as English yeah, right? and innit? and that it is often used more generally to engage the hearer in the conversation and expressing politeness with no real intention of allowing for a response or confirmation from him/her. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two groups of Chinese sentences involve LF wh-movement in the same fashion but contrast sharply in grammaticality. We demonstrate in this article that this systematic contrast constitutes a significant puzzle for the well-known claim that LF movement of adjuncts is constrained by the applicable locality conditions whereas that of arguments need not obey those conditions in the wh-in-situ languages like Chinese. We argue that this contrast can be accounted for naturally by appealing to a general condition on the positioning of the Chinese focus marker shi, which has nothing to do with the locality conditions on movement in any form. Furthermore, a reasonable solution of the problem argues for a Pied-Piping approach to deal with the language facts that have been under consideration by many authors but have not received a satisfactory treatment. That is, what is being LF-extracted in those superficially island-violating sentences in fact is the whole island that contains the questioned or focused element rather than the questioned or focused element alone. The LF movement of arguments is subject to the locality conditions very much in the very same fashion as that of adjuncts in the Chinese language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews various sources of literature on the languages of the She minority. Previous scholarship can generally be divided into three aspects: those that study the genetic affiliation of the She language (Sheyu); those that study the relation between the She speech (Shehua) and Chinese dialects, or between Shehua and Zhuang-Dong languages; and those that study languages of the She people as an endangered language. The paper points out the future development of She research, which will aim at safeguarding languages of the She minority. The status of Sheyu and Shehua and their interrelationship will be better clarified when studies proceed with the perspective of basic core vocabulary. Furthermore, studies on languages of the She minority require interdisciplinary methodologies that combine language competition and mathematical modeling to explore factors contributing to the endangerment of She people's languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the necessity of the separation of written Chinese from spoken Chinese after the May Fourth Movement by examining the formal function of these languages. It is then shown how modern formal Chinese has newly developed and what principles formal grammar must observe. Finally, a quantitative method is developed for measuring the degree of formality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]