Grammar and Miscellaneous Essays

Author: Bai Zhaolin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: This book consists of two parts: one is a concise grammar, and the other is miscellaneous essays on grammar. The Concise Grammar was published in 1990. The original grammar section had ten chapters, and during revision, two additional chapters were added: "Special Forms of Phrases" and "Grammatical Analysis of Classical Poetry." The content and order of the original chapters were also adjusted, making the overall structure more rational. Chapter 1 serves as the framework for classical grammar, primarily explaining the grammatical phenomena of ancient and modern Chinese. Chapters 2 to 10 discuss classical Chinese's nouns, function words, phrases, and simple sentences, mainly clarifying the unique phenomena of classical grammar; the last two chapters actually elaborate on the phenomena to be noted when grammatically analyzing prose and verse. As mentioned above, the title "grammar" in this book refers to "classical grammar." In the first half of the 20th century, "grammar" also meant "grammar," as seen in works like Li Jinxi's A New Grammar of Modern Chinese and Lü Shuxiang's Essentials of Chinese Grammar. Even as late as 1977, when Chen Wangdao wrote A Concise Discussion of Grammar, the term was still used. Later, because "grammar" referred not only to written language but also to spoken language, and was easily confused with "writing techniques," academia gradually shifted to using "grammar." However, the object of study in this book is the "classical Chinese" of ancient written language, making the term "classical grammar" more appropriate.