“Classical Chinese lexicon”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Classical Chinese lexicon is the lexicon of Classical Chinese, a language register marked by a vocabulary that greatly differs from the lexicon of modern vernacular Chinese.

In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese dialects, in which two-syllable words are extremely common. This phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes. This is similar to such phenomena in English as the pen–pin merger of many dialects in the American south: because the words "pin" and "pen" sound alike in such dialects of English, a certain degree of confusion can occur unless one adds qualifiers like "ink pen" and "stick pin." Similarly, Chinese has acquired many polysyllabic words in order to disambiguate monosyllabic words that sounded different in earlier forms of Chinese but identical in one region or another during later periods. Because Classical Chinese is based on the literary examples of ancient Chinese literature, it has almost none of the two-syllable words present in modern Chinese varieties.

Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular. In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to the first-person pronoun ("I"/"me"), Literary Chinese has several, many of which are used as part of honorific language (see Chinese honorifics), and several of which have different grammatical uses (first-person collective, first-person possessive, etc.).{{Citation needed|date=October 2010|reason=What are some examples of these pronouns? Do all linguists agree in so classifying them?}}

In syntax, Classical Chinese is always ready to forego subjects, verbs, objects, etc. when their meaning is understood (pragmatically inferable). Also, words are not restrictively categorized into parts of speech: nouns used as verbs, adjectives used as nouns, and so on. There is no copula in Classical Chinese, "是" ({{zh|p=shì}}) is a copula in modern Chinese but in old Chinese it was originally a near demonstrative ("this"); the modern Chinese for "this" is "這" ({{zh|p=zhè}}).

Beyond grammar and vocabulary differences, Classical Chinese can be distinguished by literary and cultural differences: an effort to maintain parallelism and rhythm, even in prose works, and extensive use of literary and cultural allusions, thereby also contributing to brevity.

The Muslim Hui people developed Jingtang Jiaoyu for representing Arabic sounds with Chinese characters. Classical Chinese has had influence of Jingtang Jiaoyu.{{Clarify|date=February 2011}} Rather than using Standard Chinese grammar, they use the grammar of their dialect and Classical Chinese to read the Arabic sounds out loud.{{Clarify|date=February 2011}} The Classical Chinese word order is often the reverse of Mandarin; for example, Mandarin 饒恕 ({{zh|p=ráoshù}}, "forgive") is Classical 恕饒 ({{zh|p=shùráo}}).^[1]

Many final particles ({{zh|t=歇語字|p=xiēyǔzì|w=hsieh1-yü3-tzu4}}) and^[2] interrogative particles are found in Literary Chinese.^[3]

Function words

Usage

Example

Translation

1. Used as a conjunction, which is equivalent to "also" 「又」, "and" 「而且」, "but" 「卻」, "if" 「如果」, and "followed by" 「接著」

學而時習之，不亦悅乎。 (From Analects by Confucius and his disciples)

Learn and practice often (what you have learned), is it not a pleasure?

2. Used as a pronoun, which is equivalent to "your" 「你的」

3. An alternative for "can" 「能」

Further reading

{{cite book|url=|title=Lessons in elementary Wen-li|author=Baller, Frederick William, China Inland Mission|year=1912|publisher=China Inland Mission|edition=|location=|page=|isbn=|pages=|accessdate=}}

{{cite book|url=|title=Wenli particles|volume=|year=1929|author=Brandt, J.|editor=|publisher=The North China Union Language School|edition=|location=|isbn=|quote=|page=|pages=|date=|accessdate=}}

{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoli00branuoft|title=Introduction to Literary Chinese|volume=|year=1936|author=Brandt, J.|editor=|publisher=Frederick Ungar Publishing Company|edition=|location=New York|accessdate=2015-08-23}}

{{cite book|url=|title=Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method, Volume 1|author=|editor=Creel, Herrlee Glessner|year=1938|publisher=University of Chicago Press|edition=|location=|page=|isbn=|pages=|accessdate=}}

{{cite book|url=|title=Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method, Volume 2|author=|editor=Creel, Herrlee Glessner|year=1939|publisher=University of Chicago Press|edition=|location=|page=|isbn=|pages=|accessdate=}}

{{cite book|url=|title=Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method, Volume 3|author=|editor=Creel, Herrlee Glessner|year=1952|publisher=University of Chicago Press|edition=|location=|page=|isbn=|pages=|accessdate=}}

{{cite book|url=|title=A New Introduction to Classical Chinese|volume=|year=1984|author=Dawson, Raymond Stanley|editor=|publisher=Clarendon Press-Oxford|edition=2nd|location=|isbn=0-19-815460-7}}

{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kXguAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false|language=German|title=Chinesische Grammatik: Mit Ausschluss des niederen Stiles und der heutigen Umgangssprache|volume=|year=1881|author=Gabelentz, Georg von der|editor=|publisher=T.O. Weigel|edition=|location=Leipzig|accessdate=10 February 2012}} (Original from Harvard University) (Digitized 2008-10-13)

{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2wUJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false|language=French|title=Syntaxe nouvelle de la langue chinoise fondée sur la position des mots: suivie de deux traités sur les particules et les principaux termes de grammaire, d'une table des idiotismes, de fables, de légendes et d'apologues traduits mot à mot, premier volume|author=Julien, Stanislas|year=1869|publisher=Librairie de Maisonneuve|location=Paris|accessdate=2015-08-23}} (Original from Oxford University) (Digitized 2007-07-03)

{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QrAxAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false|language=French|title=Syntaxe nouvelle de la langue chinoise fondée sur la position des mots: suivie de deux traités sur les particules et les principaux termes de grammaire, d'une table des idiotismes, de fables, de légendes et d'apologues traduits mot à mot, second volume|author=Julien, Stanislas|year=1870|publisher=Librairie de Maisonneuve|location=Paris|accessdate=2015-08-23}} (Original from the University of California) (Digitized 2007-05-02)

{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rJAUAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false|language=French|title=Éléments de la grammaire chinoise, ou, principes généraux du kou-wen ou style antique: et du kouan-hoa, c'est-à-dire, de la langue commune généralement usitée dans l'Empire chinois|author=Rémusat, Abel|year=1822|publisher=Imprimerie Royale|edition=|location=Paris|accessdate=2011-05-15}} (Original from Harvard University)

Function words

See also

Sources

Further reading

External links