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Language Arts & Disciplines Historical & Comparative

Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar

by (author) Edwin G. Pulleyblank

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2010
Category
Historical & Comparative, Grammar & Punctuation, Chinese
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774859851
    Publish Date
    Oct 2010
    List Price
    $49.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774805414
    Publish Date
    Jan 1996
    List Price
    $49.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774805056
    Publish Date
    Apr 1995
    List Price
    $67.00

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Description

Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar is a comprehensive introduction to the syntactical analysis of classical Chinese. Focusing on the language of the high classical period, which ranges from the time of Confucius to the unification of the empire by Qin in 221, the book pays particular attention to the Mencius, the Lúnyu, and, to a lesser extent, the Zuõzhuàn texts.

 

Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar starts with a brief historical overview and a discussion of the relation between the writing system and the phonology. This is followed by an outline of overall principles of word order and sentence structure. The next sections deal with the main sentence types – nominal predicates, verbal predicates, and numberical expressions, which constitute a special type of quasiverbal predication. The final sections cover such topics as subordinate constitutents of sentences, nondeclarative sentence types, and complex sentences.

About the author

Contributor Notes

Edwin G. Pulleyblank is a professor emeritus in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Editorial Reviews

By any measure the most important book-length work on Classical Chinese grammar to have appeared in a Western language since Gabelentz's comprehensive grammar of more than a century ago ... a very sophisticated and scholarly treatment of Classical Chinese grammar, it is all the same entirely appropriate for even a beginning-level class.

Journal of Asian Studies

Finally there is a comprehensive grammar of Wenyan in English. Here in one volume one has handy the major grammar references needed to approach Classical Chinese texts. This useful book is the first comprehensive treatment of the grammar of the ancient form of Chinese used by the great philosophers like Confucius and Mencius.... useful to all students of Classical Chinese language and philosophy.

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