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People have long had different views about LI Jinxi's grammar. These views differ in the following ways: (i) the understanding of LI' s "imitation" of the Indo European grammar; (ii) influence from one' s own "istic" approach; (iii) "political" intervention; (iv) ignorance of its characteristics asa teaching grammar; (v) the present perspective toward the "classical"; and (vi) nonobjective attitude. It is therefore obligatory to put forward the following principles: (I) clarification of the notion of "imitation"; (ii) abandon of alternative "-istic" approaches; (iii) eradication of "political" intervention; (iv) observation of "system" difference; (v) taking an appropriate "stance"; and (vi) embracing an "objective" perspective. Only such principles are acknowledged can proper evaluations be made about LI' s grammatical system and his contributions to modern Chinese studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct compositionality is a property of empirical data (and of grammatical frameworks) where the meaning of an expression can be reliably computed from the meanings of its parts (Jacobson, Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 601-626, 2002). Using empirical data from Kam and Northern Zhuang, two Kam-Tai languages spoken in the P. R. of China, I define the notions of compositional and constructional reduplication rules. A rule is compositional if the host construction does not manifest selectional restrictions on the embedded output of the rule. By contrast, a reduplication rule is constructional if there are selectional restrictions. Based on the descriptive insights of this study and on Jacobson's two types of (direct) compositionality, I define four different degrees of compositionality that a morphosyntactic operation may exhibit: strong compositionality, weak compositionality, weak constructionality (non-compositionality) and strong constructionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of ci poetry at the joint of Ming and Qing dynasties was embodied not only in its composition and respective theories, but in its pattern and rhythm. Ci experts, represented by Wan Shu, characterizes the rise and fall of ci in the Ming dynasty, commented on Shiyu tupu and Xiaoyu pu,and set up the norms on ci's composition. Such studies were mostly seen in the first thirty years of the Qing dynasty, which can be considered as an important sign of the evolution of ci poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]