A Linguistic Comparison of Chinese and English : Structural, Functional, and Typological Perspectives.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Li, Chao.

Series:

Studies in Language Companion Series

Studies in Language Companion Series ; v.239

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Typology (Linguistics).

Chinese language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (417 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam/Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2026.

Summary:

The book examines similarities and differences between Chinese and English from structural, functional, and typological perspectives. The linguistic comparison undertaken covers various aspects of the two languages.

Contents:

Intro

Table of contents

Preface and acknowledgements

List of figures

List of tables

Abbreviations

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Typological features of Chinese and English

2.1 Tonal or not?

2.2 Isolating language or not?

2.3 Monosyllabic language or not?

2.4 Subject prominence and topic prominence

2.5 Dominant word order

2.6 Summary

Chapter 3 Phonemic inventory, tone, and intonation

3.1 Phonemic inventories of Chinese and English

3.2 Tone, intonation, and their functions

3.2.1 Tone

3.2.2 Intonation and tone

3.2.3 Functions of intonation

3.3 Summary and conclusions

Chapter 4 Syllable structure and stress

4.1 Syllable structure

4.2 Stress

4.3 Summary and conclusion

Chapter 5 Writing system

5.1 Chinese and English in the typology of writing systems

5.2 Development and influence of Chinese and English writing systems

5.3 A further comparison of Chinese and English writing systems

5.3.1 Degree of difficulty in learning

5.3.2 Efficiency for use

5.3.3 Degree of transcending time and space

5.3.4 Role in disambiguation

5.4 Summary and conclusions

Chapter 6 Notion of "word" and word classes

6.1 Notion of "word"

6.2 Word classes

6.2.1 Noun, verb, adjective, and adverb in Chinese and English

6.2.2 Other word classes in Chinese and English

6.2.3 Comparison and discussion

6.3 Summary and conclusions

Chapter 7 Numeral classifiers and measure words

7.1 Notions of "numeral classifier" and "measure word"

7.2 Distinction between numeral classifiers and measure words and its typological significance

7.3 Cognitive, semantic, and cultural basis of Mandarin numeral classifiers

7.4 Summary and conclusions

Chapter 8 Word structure and word formation

8.1 Core concepts in the analysis of words

8.2 Word formation.

8.2.1 Derivation

8.2.2 Compounding

8.2.3 Amalgamation

8.2.4 Conversion

8.2.5 Shortening

8.2.5.1 Clipping

8.2.5.2 Blending

8.2.5.3 Abbreviation

8.2.6 Back-formation

8.2.7 Reduplication

8.2.8 Borrowing

8.3 Further discussion and conclusion

Chapter 9 Tense and viewpoint aspect

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Tense

9.2.1 Simple present tense

9.2.2 Simple past tense

9.2.3 Simple future tense

9.3 Viewpoint aspect

9.3.1 Perfective

9.3.2 Durative

9.3.2.1 Progressive aspect

9.3.2.2 Enduring aspect

9.3.3 Experiential

9.3.4 Habitual

9.3.5 Perfect

9.4 Summary and conclusions

Chapter 10 Subject, topic, subject prominence, and topic prominence

10.1 Notion of subject

10.2 Notion of topic and its relationship with subject

10.3 Subject prominence and topic prominence

10.3.1 Li &amp

Thompson's (1976) typology

10.3.2 Liu's (2004) criterion for topic prominence

10.3.3 Towards alternative criteria

10.4 Summary and conclusions

Chapter 11 Zero anaphora

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Environments of NP ellipsis in English and/or Mandarin

11.2.1 Control verb construction

11.2.2 Relative clauses

11.2.3 Imperatives and directives

11.2.4 Continued topic construction144

11.2.5 General reference

11.2.6 Subject of a finite object clause

11.2.7 Lexical licenser

11.2.8 Summary and comparison

11.3 Constraints on zero anaphora

11.4 Zero anaphora and language typology

11.4.1 Null subject and language typology

11.4.2 Topic prominence and zero anaphora

11.5 Summary and conclusion

Chapter 12 Information structure

12.1 Topic and focus

12.2 Topic and focus in English

12.3 Topic and focus in Mandarin

12.4 Comparison and conclusions

Chapter 13 Phrase structure and word order

13.1 Key notions of phrase structure.

13.2 English phrase structure

13.2.1 Order of the head and its non-subject-semargument in English

13.2.2 Order of the head and the adjunct in English

13.3 Chinese phrase structure

13.3.1 Order of the head and its non-subject-semargument in Chinese

13.3.2 Order of the head and its adjunct in Chinese

13.4 Summary and comparison

Chapter 14 Conclusions

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

ISBN:

90-272-4424-3

9789027244246

OCLC:

1569120617