Ancient Chinese Grammar and Its Development (Revised Edition)

Author: Yang Bojun / He Leshi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: The book is divided into three parts—Upper, Middle, and Lower—comprising approximately 800,000 words. The Upper Part provides an overview, offering a concise discussion of the characteristics, morphology, and syntax of ancient Chinese. The Middle Part focuses on parts of speech, incorporating the achievements of numerous scholars in the study of parts of speech and listing all identifiable members of each part of speech. The Lower Part delves into syntax, conducting a detailed analysis and research of various structures of predicates and the construction of complex sentences. Additionally, it briefly analyzes sentence segments. The book contains a total of 8,027 example sentences. The title of the book is Syntax of Ancient Chinese and Its Development. In terms of research and examples, we primarily focus on ancient Chinese from the Qin and Han dynasties. When discussing issues that require historical context, we trace back to oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions or extend the analysis to the Tang, Song, and Ming/Qing dynasties. This book is not a history of grammar; its purpose is not to comprehensively discuss the historical evolution of Chinese grammar. We approach it from the perspective of introducing the grammatical system of ancient Chinese, connecting its development and changes in certain key grammatical issues. In terms of parts of speech, we strive to introduce the historical forms of each type of word and the replacement of old and new members, rather than focusing on how they evolved.