A Grammar of Southern Min


Book Description

Southern Min (also known as Hokkien or Minnan) is a major branch of Chinese spoken mainly in Fujian and Taiwan, but also in Guangdong, Hainan and Hong Kong, as well as in many countries of Southeast Asia. Highly conservative in its linguistic profile, it is considered by many scholars to be a living language fossil due to the preservation of many archaic features that reflect its long-lasting history and culture. Yet to date there has been no comprehensive study of Southern Min using a typological framework, as the tendency is to base analyses on the model of Mandarin Chinese, the standard language. This grammar aims to present a systematic description of the Hui'an variety of Southern Min, mainly based on data collected via naturally occurring conversation. The volume includes four parts: nominal structure, predicate structure, clause structure and complex sentences, as well as a brief overview of phonology. It will have great appeal for heritage speakers, graduate students and scholars in both Chinese linguistics and typology.




A Grammar of Southern Min


Book Description

Southern Min (also known as Hokkien or Minnan) is a major branch of Chinese spoken mainly in Fujian and Taiwan, but also in Guangdong, Hainan and Hong Kong, as well as in many countries of Southeast Asia. Highly conservative in its linguistic profile, it is considered by many scholars to be a living language fossil due to the preservation of many archaic features that reflect its long-lasting history and culture. Yet to date there has been no comprehensive study of Southern Min using a typological framework, as the tendency is to base analyses on the model of Mandarin Chinese, the standard language. This grammar aims to present a systematic description of the Hui'an variety of Southern Min, mainly based on data collected via naturally occurring conversation. The volume includes four parts: nominal structure, predicate structure, clause structure and complex sentences, as well as a brief overview of phonology. It will have great appeal for heritage speakers, graduate students and scholars in both Chinese linguistics and typology.




Taiwanese Grammar


Book Description

Taiwanese Grammar: A Concise Reference is an unprecedented guide delivering clear, straightforward explanations of Taiwanese grammar while offering insightful comparisons to Mandarin. Designed to be both functional and accessible, the text makes searching for topics quick and easy with fully cross-referenced entries and a comprehensive index. Topics covered range broadly from parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc.) to grammatical topics (aspect, negation, passive voice, etc.) to special topics (terms of address, pronunciation, time, etc.). This text is ideal for self-study and enables students at all levels to learn Taiwanese by building a solid foundation in grammar. Taiwanese (also known as Hokkien, Fookien, Amoy, Southern Min, or Fukienese) along with its variants is spoken by over 40 million people worldwide and is a member of the Chinese language family. Features of this text include: • Easy-to-use reference guide with cross-referenced entries and a comprehensive index • 1000+ example sentences using everyday vocabulary rendered in Taiwanese, Mandarin Chinese, and English • Character script for Taiwanese in accordance with the official selection of Taiwanese Characters by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education (2007) • Romanization provided for both Taiwanese (Pe̍h-ōe-jī) and Mandarin Chinese (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn) • In-depth guide to pronunciation using English approximations and full explanations on rules for changing tones (tone sandhi) Tags: Taiwanese, learn Taiwanese, learning Taiwanese, Taiwanese language, Taiwanese grammar, Hokkien, learning Hokkien, Amoy, Southern Min, Fukienese, Fookien, Min nan




Southern Min (Hokkien) as a Migrating Language


Book Description

This book presents multilingualism as a social phenomenon, which arises when speakers of a different language move to a new society and learn to speak the dominant language of the society. It offers case studies of Hokkien migrating families when they encounter new languages in Burma, Macao and San Francisco, showing how a family changes across generations from monolingual to bilingual/multilingual and back to monolingual. In the process language shift occurs as a result of transitional bilingualism. The dynamic status of Hokkien is also attested at the societal level in Singapore, Taiwan and south Fujian, the homeland of Hokkien.




The Mainland Southeast Asia Linguistic Area


Book Description

This book lies at the crossroads of areal typology, language contact and genetic affiliation. Concerned with mainland Southeast Asia in particular, the various grammatical sketches lay emphasis on characteristics shared by unrelated languages.




The Language of the Sangleys


Book Description

An incisive, multi-faceted study of a Spanish-Chinese manuscript grammar of the seventeenth century, The Language of the Sangleys presents a fascinating, new chapter in the history of Chinese and general linguistics.




The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire field from a multi-disciplinary perspective. All chapters are contributed by leading scholars in their respective areas. This Handbook contains eight sections: history, languages and dialects, language contact, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, socio-cultural aspects and neuro-psychological aspects. It provides not only a diachronic view of how languages evolve, but also a synchronic view of how languages in contact enrich each other by borrowing new words, calquing loan translation and even developing new syntactic structures. It also accompanies traditional linguistic studies of grammar and phonology with empirical evidence from psychology and neurocognitive sciences. In addition to research on the Chinese language and its major dialect groups, this handbook covers studies on sign languages and non-Chinese languages, such as the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan.




Chinese Grammar at Work


Book Description

Chinese Grammar at Work adopts a cognitive-functional approach and uses a corpus-based methodology to examine how Chinese syntax emerges from natural discourse context and what the evolving grammar at work looks like. In this volume the author weaves together an array of fresh perspectives on clause structure, constructions, interactional linguistics, cognitive science and complex dynamic systems to construct a grammar of spoken Chinese. The volume contains discussions of a large number of topics: contiguity relation, the roles of repair strategies in the shaping of constituent structure, non-canonical word order constructions, pragmatics of referring expressions, classifier constructions, noun-modifying constructions, verb complementation, ethnotheory of the person and constructions specific to the language of emotion, sequential sensitivity of linguistic materials, meaning potential in interaction, the nature of variability and stability in Chinese syntax from the perspective of complexity theory. The result is a volume that highlights the connections between language structure, situated and embodied nature of cognition and language use, and affords a true entrée to the exciting realm of Chinese grammar.




The Languages of China


Book Description

An incredible source of information about the Chinese language and China’s minority languages In this accessible and informative book, S. Robert Ramsey lucidly explains what the Chinese language is—its social and geographical situation, its history, its range of dialects, the structure of the modern standard language, and the writing system. He goes on to describe the languages of China’s national minorities, showing how they interrelate with each other and with Chinese. Readers learn about the peoples who speak the languages of China, what China is like linguistically, and the cultural and historical settings of the country’s languages. For those who want more linguistic detail, Ramsey provides lists, maps, charts, and descriptions along with technical references in notes at the end of the book. Invaluable to general linguists and Sinologists alike, The Languages of China is an excellent introduction to Chinese and East Asian linguistics.




Current Issues in Chinese Linguistics


Book Description

Chinese is the most commonly spoken language in the world and one of the very few contemporary languages whose history is documented in an unbroken tradition extending back to the second millennium. Compared with Western languages, Chinese has a typology with distinguished features in sound system, syntax, and discourse that have a strong impact on Chinese linguistics studies and language learning. Drawing on theoretical models from formal and functional linguistics, discourse analysis, computer-assisted corpus studies, language socialization, and second language acquisition, this volume presents new advances and addresses a broad range of current issues in the study of Chinese linguistics with research studies that originated from the proceedings of the 21st North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-21). As globalization presses on, more and more people are interested in Chinese – its history, structure, research, and new developments. This volume aims to be instrumental. Written in a coherent and structured style, each section is concentrated on a particular linguistic area, and each chapter is self-contained with a clear focus and theoretical framework. It will be valuable to linguists, educators, administrators, specialists, teachers and students of Chinese as a native, second, heritage, or foreign language.