It is stated that the study of Chinese grammar began after Ma Jianzhong
published his Ma’s General Grammar which is considered as the very first book of
Chinese grammar in 1898. It was the first time that a complete Chinese grammatical
system was introduced and its influence was tremendous. Scholars in China started
to pay attention to the study of Chinese grammar, and a number of Chinese grammar
books were published at the beginning of 20th Century.
These Chinese grammar books introduced grammatical systems similar to that in
Ma’s General Grammar. Within these books, New Chinese Grammar by Li Jinxi
was the most influential one.
As scholars learnt more about grammar, they found the grammatical systems
introduced by these two books and also other Chinese grammar books not perfect.
They pointed out that these systems were established base on imitation of Western
grammatical system and neither of them could fit Chinese language perfectly.
Therefore scholars asked for a reform of Chinese grammar in 1930s.
A group of scholars in Shanghai, represented by Chen Wangdao, started to
discuss how to reform Chinese grammar in October 1938. Chen started the
discussion by pointing out that the criterion of distinguishing between a verb and an
adjective in Chinese should be different from that in Western languages as an
adjective could be used as a predicate in Chinese sentences, while most Chinese
grammar books at that time were using that criteria. This reflected defects of these
Chinese grammatical systems. Fu Donghua and Jin Zhaozi then announced their
own designs of Chinese grammatical system and aroused the attention of other
scholars like Fang Guangdao and Zhang Shilu. They joined and contributed a lot in
the discussion.
The whole discussion had lasted for 4.5 years, and a number of grammatical
issues were covered, for example, the object of the study of Chinese grammar, the
morphology, the syntax and the establishment of Chinese grammatical system, the
criticism of Chinese grammatical systems at that time, and also the relationship
between the study of Chinese grammar and other branches of linguistics such as
exegesis, etymology and lexicology.
The thesis sets to examine different aspects of this Chinese grammar reform.
Firstly the thesis discusses how and why this Chinese grammar reform took place,
then introduces scholars who took part in it. Next the thesis looks into what scholars
discussed, and looks into their proposals in reforming Chinese grammar together with
other grammatical issues raised in their discussion. For example, is it practical to
combine morphology and syntax of Chinese? Is it appropriate to design one
grammatical system for both ancient and modern Chinese languages? How to
categorize Chinese words? What should be considered in establishing a better
Chinese grammatical system? Scholars shared different opinions on these issues.
The thesis comments and criticizes these opinions.
The thesis also examines the contribution and the influence of this Chinese
reform in order to assess its importance in the history of the study of Chinese
grammar. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/161535 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Chang, Lui, 張蕾 |
| Contributors | Tse, YK |
| Publisher | The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) |
| Source Sets | Hong Kong University Theses |
| Language | Chinese |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PG_Thesis |
| Source | http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B47869574 |
| Rights | The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License |
| Relation | HKU Theses Online (HKUTO) |
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