Foreign Language Books : Chinese

Combines clear grammar explanations and useful exercises in one book and is an ideal reference and practice tool for beginners in the language. more...

Price: $37.95

By arranging frequently used characters under the phonetic element they have in common, rather than only under their radical, the dictionary encourages the student to link characters according to their phonetic. It helps to fix in the memory the link between a character and its sound and meaning. more...

Price: $44.95

This book is a full reference grammar of Qiang, one of the minority languages of southwest China, spoken by about 70,000 Qiang and Tibetan people in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern Sichuan Province. It belongs to the Qiangic branch of Tibeto-Burman (one of the two major branches of Sino-Tibetan). The dialect presented in the book is the Northern Qiang variety spoken in Ronghong Village, Yadu Township, Chibusu District, Mao County. This book, the first book-length description of the Qiang language in English, is the result of many years of work on the language, and is as typologically comprehensive as possible. It includes not only the reference grammar, but also an ethnological overview, several fully analyzed texts (mostly traditional stories), and an annotated glossary. The language is verb final, agglutinative (prefixing and suffixing), and has both head-marking and dependent marking morphology. The phonology of Qiang is quite complex, with 39 consonants at seven points of articulation, plus complex consonant clusters, both in initial and final position, as well as vowel harmony, vowel length distinctions, and a set of retroflexed vowels. The grammar also more...

Price: $207.20

The fully revised edition of San Duanmu's popular introduction to Chinese phonology reflects recent research and theoretical advances in particular work in feature, syllable, and stress. The author has also added a chapter on rhythm in poetry. Reviews of the first edition. 'Every phonologist and student of Chinese linguistics will find something valuable from the book because of its wealth of data and insightful analyses.' Yen-Hwei Lin, Phonology. 'Approachable by anyone with the slightest interest in Chinese languages or phonology.' Jie Zhang Linguist. 'A flowing, integrated approach that addresses - and solves - some of the thorniest perennial problems in Chinese phonology.' Edward J. Vajda Language - ;This is a new and revised edition of the title first published by OUP in 2000. From the reviews of the first edition:. 'This book is a comprehensive study of the phonology of Standard Chinese. Not only is it rich in detailed and amazingly accurate factual description, it also proposes elegant theoretical solutions to many long-standing problems in Chinese phonology, such as word length variation, word order, and the application of the third tone sandhi. Another great strength of the book is that in every chapter, the generative literature on related issues is carefully reviewed. Therefore it can also serve as. a great reference book for the past advances in Chinese generative phonology. Moreover, the book is written in a down-to-earth fashion and is very approachable by anyone with the slightest interest in Chinese languages or phonology but relatively little training in either area.' Jie Zhang, Linguist. 'Because of its accessibility, this book can be used as an introductory textbook for Chinese phonology or Chinese linguistics.... Every phonologist and student of Chinese linguistics will find something valuable from the book because of its wealth of data and insightful analyses.' Yen-Hwei Lin, Phonology. 'Explanation more...

Price: $60.00

This new interpretation of the early history of Chinese argues that Old Chinese was typologically a 'mixed' language. It shows that, though its dominant word order was subject-verb-object, this coexisted with subject-object-verb. Professor Xu describes the typological changes that have taken place since the Han period and shows how Chinese evolved into a more analytic language, supporting her exposition with abundant examples from recently discovered texts. She focusses on syntactic. issues, but pays close attention to closely related changes in phonology and the writing system. - ;This new interpretation of the early history of Chinese argues that Old Chinese was typologically a 'mixed' language. It shows that, though its dominant word order was subject-verb-object, this coexisted with subject-object-verb. Professor Xu demonstrates that Old Chinese was not the analytic language it has usually been assumed to be, and that it employed morphological and lexical devices as well as syntactic means. She describes the typological changes that have taken place since. the Han period and shows how Chinese evolved into a more analytic language, supporting her exposition with abundant examples. She draws where possible on archaeological findings in order to distinguish between versions of texts transmitted and sometimes modified through the hands of generations of. copyists. The author focusses on syntactic issues, including word order, verbs, causative structures, resultative compounds, and negation, but also pays close attention to what she demonstrates are closely related changes in phonology and the writing system. The book will interest scholars and graduate students of Chinese linguistics, philology, classical literature as well as general linguists interested in word-order typology and language universals. It may be also be used as a text for advanced courses in Classical Chinese and Chinese diachronic syntax. - more...

Price: $140.00