Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!scramble.lm.com!news.math.psu.edu!news.cse.psu.edu!uwm.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!newshub.nosc.mil!pegasus!wing
From: wing@pegasus.com (Wing Ng)
Subject: Re: Chinese (was: Native speakers and second language learners)
Organization: Pegasus Information Systems
Message-ID: <DqD5sJ.JLL@pegasus.com>
References: <4k9api$714@agate.berkeley.edu> <4l6hf0$d5q@netsrv2.spss.com> <4l976c$frs@news.ccit.arizona.edu> <rte-2204961436460001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:12:19 GMT
Lines: 51

In article <rte-2204961436460001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
>In article <4l976c$frs@news.ccit.arizona.edu>, hlu@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu
>(Hung J Lu) wrote:
>
>> In article <4l6hf0$d5q@netsrv2.spss.com>,
>> Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>> > 
>> >>Dave's statement is quite correct, in my opinion. He is referring 
>> >>to pre-Han, pre-Qin era. What was recorded was not spoken Chinese. 
>> >>The vocabulary might derive from spoken Chinese, but the style 
>> >>cerntainly was not.
>> >
>> >How do you know?  We don't know what spoken Zhan4guo2 Chinese sounded
>> >like, do we?  You're not assuming it worked like modern spoken Chinese,
>> >are you?  That would be like assuming that vulgar pre-imperial Latin
>> >must have worked like modern colloquial French.
>> 
>> Most particles (or whatever equivalent devices you may call them)
>> are omitted from the writing, which makes the distinction of 
>> verb/nouns/adjective extremely hard. New functions are attributed 
>> for the words depending on the writer's mood.
>> 
>
>Here's an interesting thought experiment.  What if Romance languages were
>written with abstract symbols, and there were no record of Latin
>inflections.
>Would we make the same assertions about Latin?  Latin also looks more compact.
>Of course some grammatical functions are still marked by suffixes, but
>fewer than in Latin.
>
>Disclaimer- I know nothing of Chinese grammar.  The question is, how well
>in the phonology of Ancient Chinese recorded or reconstructed?  Are there

The sounds of ancient Chinese were reconstructed from rhymes
in poetry, quite reliably to some 1000 B.C.

>related languages that mark grammatical function?

I believe that the Tibetan language have lots more particles that
mark grammatical function, perhaps indicating that ancient Chinese
also did.

Wing

>
>-- 
>R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
>


