Readings of The Compendium of Chinese Grammar

Author: Lü Shuxiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: The Mashiyutong is the first work in modern linguistic theory to study Chinese grammar, holding a revolutionary significance in the history of Chinese linguistics. This renowned grammatical work was written in 1898. As an pioneering work, it has always been difficult to read and use. The distinguished linguist Professor Lü Shuxiang devoted significant effort to annotating, introducing, and commenting on the entire Yutong, guiding readers on how to approach it, making the Mashiyutong more accessible and searchable. This revision incorporates the latest findings from the collation of the Yutong. Existing versions of the Mashiyutong were not user-friendly for reading or reference, so we compiled this reader to address this deficiency. The layout has been arranged to make it a "readable edition," and an index has been compiled to facilitate researchers in retrieving content. This book has made necessary adjustments to the original book's division into volumes and sections, with detailed chapters marked by fish-tail brackets〔〕. Titles have been added where needed. The original book's examples were continuous, but this edition starts each example on a new line and numbers them in parentheses(). The numbering restarts for each chapter, and when citing examples from other chapters, the chapter number is added in Chinese. Given the numerous examples, they have been categorized, with original explanations or newly compiled sentences highlighted for emphasis. Key words in examples are emphasized, and secondary keywords are enclosed in circles. Some examples in the original book were incomplete, making them difficult to understand, so this edition has supplemented them with full sentences. The collated edition by Zhang Xichen serves as the base text, with comparisons made against the Guangxu Jiachen edition published by the Commercial Press. However, Zhang only collated the examples, not the main text, leaving some errors uncorrected and introducing new ones. The original book contains many incorrect or missing examples, and Zhang's corrections were recorded in footnotes, which this edition does not reproduce in full. Despite Zhang's diligent work, many errors remained, particularly in the latter half. All errors we identified have been corrected without additional footnotes. Some examples in the Yutong do not align with the preceding explanations, and the supplementary notes are not entirely appropriate. The collated edition by Zhang includes many references to corrections from other scholars, which this edition selectively incorporates into the footnotes. In the footnotes of Zhang's collated edition, there are multiple comparisons between the Yutong's arguments and those of others, as well as critiques of the Yutong's grammatical system. This edition does not include these comparisons, as they extend beyond the scope of a specialized work and pertain to the history of linguistics. To assist readers new to the Yutong, we have written a detailed introduction explaining its grammatical system and added some comments.