Chinese: A Linguistic Introduction

by Chaofen Sun

Chinese is spoken by more people than any other language in the world, and has a rich social, cultural and historical background. This book is a comprehensive guide to the linguistic structure of Chinese, providing an accessible introduction to each of the key areas. It describes the fundamentals of its writing system, its pronunciation and tonal sound system, its morphology (how words are structured), and its syntax (how sentences are formed) - as well as its historical development, and the diverse ways in which it interacts with other languages. Setting the discussion of all aspects of Chinese firmly within the context of the language in use, A Linguistic Introduction will be of great benefit to learners wishing to extend their knowledge and competence in the language, and their teachers. It will also be a useful starting point for students of linguistics beginning work on the structure of this major world language.

Genres: Linguistics, China, Language

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2002

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good introduction to Chinese linguistics. It assumes some basic knowledge of Chinese or linguistics, but as a person who has both of those but has never studied the linguistics of Chinese it was an easy and informative read. I was hoping it would touch more on the historical development and regional variations of Chinese, but I found the sections on morphology and language and culture particularly interesting, and now I feel prepared to investigate the topics that it didn't cover on my own.

[Gary Bruff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short but sweet work, Chaofen Sun's Chinese: A Linguistic Introduction, furnishes the prepared reader with a concise overview of what makes Chinese Chinese. I would emphasize that the reader should be prepared, meaning that some background in either Chinese or linguistics (or both) is probably expected as a starting point. I came to this book after having been fortunate enough to have studied both some Mandarin and a great deal of linguistics, so I found this book to be both an interesting review of certain aspects of standard Chinese grammar as well as a well presented point of departure for topics in Chinese linguistics that I had not considered or been exposed to previously.

Although the book is brief and provides no more than a sweeping overview in most cases, there are many insights that can be gleaned from these pages. The historical development and areal diversity of Chinese (one would like to pluralize this to Chineses) are represented in concise chapters. Also discussed are topics in sociolinguistics such as borrowing, politeness, and metalinguistic attitudes of the folk toward their language(s). A sociolinguistic example among many would be the degree to which Hong Kong speakers of Cantonese associate their mother tongue (and un-simplified characters) with domestic intimacy and sense of familial belonging. But the meat and bones of this books lies in its treatments of 'morphology' and syntax. Chinese is often said to lack morphology, but here Chaofen Sun explores the rather complex ways in which Chinese words are formed through compounding, reduplication, affixation, and the use of aspectual and pragmatic particles. Syntactic phenomena such as serial verbs and cleft sentences are also treated along with the functions of different subordinating particles.

I really enjoyed this book. I only wish this introduction was not so brief. As my sole real criticism of the book, I would point out that there are a number of apparent typos where the characters do not match the pinyin gloss (simple mistakes like bu used for mei are common). If I knew more Chinese there is a possibility that I would be able to detect more flaws, which leaves me to doubt somewhat the accuracy of the entire presentation. Hence four stars instead of five. But if you are like me and know some linguistics and a little bit of a Chinese language, then this book is certainly worth an enjoyable read.

[Syd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nice concise overview. The history, writing, and phonetics parts are pretty generally accessible, but I don't think I would have enjoyed the syntax part much without having some knowledge of syntax and Mandarin (or at least one). That given though, since I've only been studying Mandarin a year it was a great overview and had some, "oh that's how that works" moments, and similarly helped reinforce what I've learned of syntax (undergrad ling major, so yeah). Generally good stuff, plenty of helpful examples to illustrate, and I'll definitely be keeping it around for reference.

[AJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has a very good content; however, as a non-Chinese speaker, I did not find it very elaborated in terms of semantics and pragmatics.

[Marie (find me on StoryGraph) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice read, but not as focused on the subjects I'd have wanted.