Elements of Chinese Grammar: With a Preliminary Dissertation on the Characters, and the Colloquial Medium of the Chinese, and an Appendix Containing ... Perspectives from the Royal Asiatic Society) - Softcover

Marshman, Joshua

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108055990 ISBN 13: 9781108055994

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Chinese, in its various forms, is spoken today by over a billion people, making it the most spoken language in the world. A member of the Sino-Tibetan family, it is a tone language with an analytic structure. First published in 1814, this grammar of colloquial Chinese was compiled by the Christian missionary Joshua Marshman (1768–1837), who was inspired to do so after preparing a Chinese translation of the Bible. It begins with a preliminary essay outlining the characters of Chinese, its tones, its system of monosyllables and its relationship to neighbouring languages. The grammar itself is extensive, covering all aspects of the language's structure, including case, agreement, pronouns, verbs, mood, tense, prosody, parts of speech and dialect variation. Illustrated with numerous examples and explaining each grammatical concept in detail, this work remains useful and relevant in historical linguistics.

About this title

Book Description

First published in 1814, this is an extensive grammar of colloquial Chinese, compiled by a Christian missionary. Illustrated with numerous examples and explaining each grammatical concept in detail, it covers all aspects of the language's structure, including case, agreement, pronouns, verbs, mood, tense, prosody, parts of speech and dialect variation.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108055990
• ISBN 13: 9781108055994
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 656