Making some progress on the progressive aspect zài in Mandarin Chinese Waltraud Paul, Shanshan Yan ABSTRACT: Taking into account data hitherto neglected, this article examines the progressive aspect zài 在in Mandarin Chinese and related issues. We argue in favour of the constituency [AspP zài在 [V-zhe着]] and demonstrate important syntactic and semantic differences between the progressive aspect zài 在and the durative aspect -zhe着. Importantly, unlike ‘zài在 V’, ‘V-zhe着’ is only acceptable as the sole predicate in a root sentence when interpretable as a (derived) state. Otherwise, the presence of the progressive aspect zài在 is required: ‘zài在 V-zhe着’. This crucial role of zài在 is often obscured by its

Visualizing cross-linguistic reading brains: Universality and interactive specificities Jun Ren Lee, Wen-Jui Kuo, Rose Ru-Whui Lee and Ovid J. L. Tzeng ABSTRACT: The universality and specificity of cross-linguistic reading have always been a topic of interest to researchers. The earliest controversies started with the issue of whether speech recoding is required for reading non-alphabetic scripts, for example, Chinese and Kanji, whether it is possible to directly access the semantic meaning of a word from orthography without speech recoding, and whether reading non-alphabetic scripts relies on the right rather than the left brain. The abatement of these controversies began with a series of experiments by Ovid Tzeng

Insight Article Exploring the Low Applicative Hilary Chappell Abstract:Tone morphemes are used in the coding of a variety of grammatical functions in Sinitic languages: These include plural formation of personal pronouns, the diminutive forms of nouns, as well as different kinds of perfective and completive aspect marking, reported for dialects located in non-contiguous areas of China in the north and the south. With respect to verbal morphology, we first examine the different processes and stages of morphologization between the Yue and Hakka dialects, on the one hand, and Northern Sinitic on the other. Second, we propose the pathway of evolution that leads to the pluralization of Sinitic

The "graphic design" for 旅 'troops' and 車 'chariot' in oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions Chrystelle Maréchal    Ken-ichi Takashima Abstract:This paper argues that there were in the minds of the creators of Chinese characters what we refer to as “graphic designs” (abbreviated as “GD”—for the other acronyms used hereinafter, see “Symbols and Abbreviations of the Frequently Used Terms and the Authors’ Names” at the end of the paper). The GD is generally inseparable from the underlying lexeme, and this paper is a case study of the two, and other related, words, in connection specifically with their graphic representations. The GD for the OBI graphs,and,which appear to

Ten cases of continuum in language Feng Shi    Dazuo Wang Abstract：Continuum is a one-dimensional pattern with a concise form and the significance of universality. “Prototype Theory” considers the members with the most common characteristics as the core members of one category, and all members of that category share some similar family features. Furthermore, quantum logic revised the classical logic law of “excluded middle” to the law of “included middle”, which provides us with a new perspective in the linguistic study. Based on the above theories and ideas, this paper lists ten cases of continuum in language: 1) the continuum of language similarity; 2) the continuum

Quest for the essence of Chinese grammar James H-Y. Tai Abstract：Some key issues in the analysis of Chinese grammars in the past five decades are identified and discussed from typological perspectives. They include 1) the wordhood in「字」and 「詞」, and word formation; 2) parts of speech; 3) syntactic pivots (topic, subject, and object); 4) active vs. passive voice; 5) cognitive principles of word order; 6) SOV vs. SVO. Typological characterizations of Chinese are also summarized, pointing to the importance of understanding Chinese from perspectives of creole and sign language. Mental lexicon of「字」,「詞」and four-character idioms should be constructed with syntactic structures for the processing of reading Chinese.

The role of the copula 是 si7 in the construal of focus structure in early Southern Min Chinfa Lien Abstract：The paper explores the role of the copula 是 si7 in the interpretation of the focus structure in early Southern Min playscripts. I examine the configuration of 是 si7 with respect to a range of functional/lexical categories such as kinds of adverbs, types of modals, voice (featuring causativity and passitivity), aspect, and negation as well as verb and noun phrases. I also put forward tree structures showing how focus vis-à-vis topic in cleft and pseudo-cleft clauses with 是 si7 as the pivot are derived. In a nutshell,

A semantic-syntactic analysis of Chao's sentences with a verbal subject and a nominal predicate (in Chinese) Zhongru Xiong Abstract:The clause can be divided into three layers: the thematic layer, the inflectional layer and the discourse layer, within which there exist the corresponding logical subject, grammatical subject and psychological subject. Topicalization belongs to A'-movement which involves an argument and an adjunct. For Chao's sentences with a verbal subject and a nominal predicate (CS, for short), the topicalized elements are complement clauses and adverbial clauses. The complement clause is the nominal predicate's argument in CS, acting as the predicate's logical subject, such as 'bu xiayu' in 'bu xiayu

On the raison d'être of the notion of Sprachbund, with special reference to languages in China Pui Yiu Szeto 摘要:語言聯盟 (Sprachbund) 泛指沒有親緣關係 (或關係疏遠) 的語言之間，在同一區域長期接觸下產生的結構趨同現象。雖然學界不乏關於語言聯盟的研究，但以往的研究未有具體及劃一的標準去界定何謂語言聯盟。因此，語言聯盟的概念時而模糊不清，甚至令人質疑其存在意義。有見及此，本文建議以歷史證據為基礎，去建立清晰嚴謹的標準來辨識語言聯盟。以此方法界定的語言聯盟具有相似的形成背景，從而確保彼此之間的可比性，令學者得以將研究重心置於語言接觸的機制及結果。中國歷史悠久、地大物博、族群紛雜、語種繁多，為語言聯盟的研究提供了一個重要平台。目前，中國境內最少有兩個符合嚴格標準的語言聯盟，分別為華南地區的西嶺南語言聯盟，以及西北地區的安多語言聯盟。區域內各語言族群間的密切接觸互動，不僅導致語言結構和文化風俗上的相互滲透，甚至對群體遺傳結構造成一定程度的影響。此等發現反映了語言聯盟內的族群互動現象複雜多變，故對語言學及人類學等學科皆有重大研究價值，非常值得深入探索。

Insight Article Wh & Self: On Correlating Wh-conditionals and Reflexive Doubling Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai Abstract: Chinese wh-conditionals hold a very special status in linguistic typology. Cheng and Huang (1996) argues that the construction can be properly analyzed by treating a pair of identical wh-expressions as syntactic variables unselectively bound by an implicit necessity operator. Over the years, this line of thinking has been challenged by various proposals based on the comparison with indefinites, correlatives, E-type pronouns and questions. This Insight article argues for the unselective binding approach to this particular type of donkey sentences by alluding to quantificational reflexive doubling. Our findings not only lend support to