Table Of ContentProsodic Syntax in Chinese
In the two volumes of Prosodic Syntax in Chinese, the author develops a new
model, which proposes that the interaction between syntax and prosody is
bi-directional and that prosody not only constrains syntactic structures but also
activates syntactic operations. All of the facts investigated in Chinese provide new
perspectives for linguistic theories as well as the insights into the nature of human
languages. The subtitles of the two volumes are Theory and Facts and History and
Changes respectively, with each focusing on different topics (though each volume
has both theoretical and historical descriptive concerns).
In this volume, the author first introduces the relevant theories and concepts of
Metrical Phonology, Prosodic Phonology and Formal Syntax, and formulates the
Government-based Nuclear Stress Rule in Chinese, which can explain how and
why Mandarin Chinese sentences are structured in a particular way. It is proposed
that prosody not only blocks the legitimate syntactic structures but also activates
the potential syntactic operations. The former can be seen from the u ngrammatical
sentences that are caused by the inoperable NSR in these structures, while the
latter can be seen from sentences that are derived from syntactic movements
which, however, are operable only when being motivated by prosody.
Feng Shengli is Professor of Chinese Linguistics at the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. His research interests include prosodic syntax, poetic prosody,
historical syntax and exegesis.
Chinese Linguistics
Chinese Linguistics series selects representative and frontier works in linguistic
disciplines including lexicology, grammar, phonetics, dialectology, philology and
rhetoric. Mostly published in Chinese before, the selection has had far-reaching
influence on China’s linguistics and offered inspiration and reference for the
world’s linguistics. The aim of this series is to reflect the general level and latest
development of Chinese linguistics from an overall and objective view.
Titles in this series currently include:
Prosodic Syntax in Chinese
Theory and Facts
Feng Shengli
Prosodic Syntax in Chinese
History and Changes
Feng Shengli
Modern Chinese Parts of Speech
Classification Theory
Guo Rui
The Experiential Guo in Mandarin
A Quantificational Approach
Ye Meng
Research on Functional Grammar of Chinese
Information Structure and Word Ordering Selection
Zhang Bojiang, Fang Mei
Research on Functional Grammar of Chinese
Reference and Grammatical Category
Zhang Bojiang, Fang Mei
For more information, please visit www.routledge.com/Chinese-Linguistics/
bookseries/CL
Prosodic Syntax in Chinese
History and Changes
Feng Shengli
Translated by Zhuang Huibing
and Ma Baopeng
First published in English 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Feng Shengli
Translated by Zhuang Huibing and Ma Baopeng
The right of Feng Shengli to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
English Version by permission of The Commercial Press.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Feng, Shengli, author.
Title: Prosodic syntax in Chinese : history and changes / Feng Shengli.
Other titles: Han yu yun lèu ju fa xue. English
Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Chinese
linguistics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018040441 (print) | LCCN 2018047463 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781351263245 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138578920 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Chinese language—Syntax. | Chinese language—
Prosodic analysis.
Classification: LCC PL1241 (ebook) | LCC PL1241 .F46813 2019 (print) |
DDC 495.15—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040441
ISBN: 978-1-138-57892-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-26324-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of tables vi
List of abbreviations vii
Preface ix
1 Word order change and stress shift 1
2 Prosodic structure and the origin of bei constructions 64
3 Prosodic structure and the birth of ba constructions 130
4 Prosodically constrained localizers in Classical and
Modern Chinese 221
Postscript to the Chinese edition 240
Bibliography 244
Index 251
Tables
2.1 The development of bei constructions 92
3.1 The occurrence of ba sentences between 800 ad and 950 ad 186
3.2 The occurrence of ba sentences between 800–950 ad and 900–990 ad 186
Abbreviations
AC Archaic Chinese
ASP Aspect
BA disposal marker, such as ‘把’, ‘将’, etc.
BEI passive marker
BNC Branching Node Condition
C Complementizer
CL classifier
CP Complementizer Phrase
D Determiner
de NP modification marker ‘的’
De VP modification marker ‘地’
DE Postverbal complement marker ‘得’
DP Determiner Phrase
DQP definite quantitative phrase
DS D-structure
Exp experienced aspectual marker ‘过’.
Foc Focus
FocP Focus Phrase
IP Inflectional Phrase
IQP indefinite quantitative phrases
LF Logic Form
MC Modern Chinese
N Noun
NP Noun Phrase
NSR Nuclear stress rule
Obj Object
OP Oparetor
P Preposition
PF Phonetic Form
PP Preposition Phrase
Pro Phonologically empty pronoun
PRO An empty pronominal element
pro An empty pronominal element
viii Abbreviations
Prog progressive aspectual marker, such as ‘在’, ‘着’, et.
Prt particle
QM question marker
Spec Specifier
SS S-structure
SUO a marker for nominalization in Chinese ‘所’, sometimes it is used together
with wei 为 to form wei . . . suo construction to express passive meaning.
TP Tense Phrase
V Verb
v Light verb
VP Verb Phrase
YU A particle (or a harmonic) in Old Chinese “于”
ZHE A pronoun in Old Chinese and modern written Chinese ‘者’
ZHI A particle (or a harmonic) in Old Chinese and modern written Chinese ‘之’
Preface
Prosodic Syntax in Chinese is concerned with the new facts that the interaction
between syntax and prosody is bi-directional and that prosody can not only con-
strain syntactic structures, but also activate syntactic changes. All of the facts
investigated in Chinese provide new perspectives for linguistic theories as well as
insights into the nature of human languages. This book, with the subtitle History
and Changes, is actually the companion volume of the book Prosodic Syntax in
Chinese: Theory and Facts, which was published by Routledge at the same time.
Of particular note is that the theoretical issues of this book are all presented in the
first book. It is thus necessary for the readers to refer to the first three chapters of
the first book in order to understand such prosodic issues like the Government-
based NSR, disyllabification and prosodic words, which are shown to be highly
involved in the diachronic development of Chinese.
This book shows that prosody has played a crucial role in triggering many
changes in the diachronic development of Chinese. Chapter 1 concerns the two
SOV orders in Early Archaic Chinese. It is proposed that they are actually the
‘remnant’ of SOV order of Proto-Chinese, which is an SOV language and that the
change from SOV to SVO is caused by a stress shift from preverbal to postverbal
position. Chapter 2 has argued a prosodic account of the origins of the bei passives
in Archaic Chinese. From the diachronic perspective, it is argued that the [bei-V]
passives in Archaic Chinese were born as Prosodic Words and compounds moti-
vated by the disyllabic foot formation. When disyllabic verbs developed in the
Eastern Han Dynasty, [bei V V ] forms began to appear. These trisyllabic forms
σ σ
were analyzed as phrases by the prosodic system at that time, giving rise to the
[bei VP] and [bei [NP V]] structures, which has further developed into the present
bei passives in Mandarin Chinese. Chapter 3 has spared a lot of efforts to discuss
the birth of the ba construction in terms of the prosodic structure. It is argued that
the ba sentences that have originated from the ba sentences of purpose which
requires the sentence-final verb to be de-stressed and the stress of the purposive
sentences can be shifted to the end of sentences in the poetic environments, giving
birth to the original ba construction. Chapter 4 discusses the localizers in Chinese
from the perspective of prosody. It argues that the development of localizers in
Classical Chinese was a typological change from a synthetic to an analytic lan-
guage type, conditioned on the “multi-syllabic constraint” which is a sub-case of
