Book Title

Parts of Speech in Mandarin: The State of the Art

Author

Candice Chi-Hang Cheung (Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies)

Publisher

Springer

Year of Publication

2016

ISBN

9789811003981

Introduction

This book offers a comprehensive survey of the major parts of speech in Mandarin. Seeking to identify the sets of universal and language-specific categories, it compares the range of categories available in Mandarin and the Indo-European languages and establishes six universal categories – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions – and three language-specific ones, namely classifiers, localizers and sentence-final particles. Incorporating insights from recent research findings and the diachronic development of the language, the book sheds new light on the factors that contribute to the long-standing debate on the categorical status of adjectives, prepositions and localizers in the extant literature. Bringing together the earlier general descriptions and the latest advances, it is broadly accessible to non-native and native speakers of the language and offers an ideal reference source for all students and scholars who are interested in studying the parts of speech in Mandarin.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Part I Categories Found in Mandarin and the Indo-European Languages

2. Nouns

3. Verbs

4. Adjectives

5. Prepositions

6. Adverbs

7. Conjunctions

Part II Categories Uniquely Available in Mandarin

8. Classifiers

9. Localizers

10. Sentence-final Particles

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