Late Archaic Chinese

Description

The present work is a descriptive grammar of Late Archaic Chinese, a literary language of the fourth and third centuries B.C. in use in North China. LAC is the language in which certain works which later became canonical are written. The literature of the period as a whole became classical in the sense that it has been regarded in later periods as a model of both style and usage. The work has been undertaken with certain objectives in view. It is first of all an attempt to isolate a body of material from the vast corpus of “classical Chinese” (the language about which most Chinese grammars make statements) and to treat it exhaustively, that is, to account for all of the grammatical data in the material. It is secondly an attempt at strictly formal grammatical analysis, in which a categorical system is set up which is self-evident within and intrinsic to the material itself. No category has been recognized which identifiable only by exterior criteria. Title Dedication Preface Contents Aims and Objects Method and Analysis Method and Statement Features of the Analysis Features of the Statement Summary Lexic Word, Word Derivation Grammatical Word-classes Syntagma Verbal sentence Post-verbal Elements Agent Instrumental Subordinate Clause Anaphora in verbal sentence Sentential Mood Time and Place Emphatic Exposure Accentuation Verbal sentence in Summary Determinative sentence Sentences in distribution Substitution; Personal Pronouns Demonstratives, Anaphoric Pronouns, Interrogative Interrogative Substitute Indefinite Substitute Levels of Distribution Interrogative and Indefinite Miscellaneous Texts from LAC authors Mencius - On Justice & Humanity Mencius - Pleasures of Kings Mencius - Half-measures in Government Micius - Love that Embraces All Things Chuang Tzu - Perennial Philosophy Chuang Tzu - Chapped Hands Chuang Tzu - Mystical Journey Tso Chuan - Feudal States Abolish Resort to Arms Tso Chuan - Politician's Reward Orthography Phonological affinities among cenematic lexics 2nd person pronouns References Lexicon & Index of Words