This paper aims to clarify different connotations of the paratactic grammar, reveal the cognitive mechanism and the operational process of Chinese paratactic grammar, and then establish a descriptive system for the paratactic mechanism of the Chinese grammar. First of all, a low-level parataxis puts emphasis on the inadequacy of grammatical expression, whereas a high-level parataxis puts emphasis on the incompleteness of linguistic expression. This shows that intersubjectivity and experiential embodied cognition are supportive of the paratactic grammar. On this basis, attempts are made to establish a descriptive system for the Chinese grammar. This descriptive system is based on interactive multi-layered conceptual structures, which include argument structure, qualia structure, skeletal construction structure, tense and aspect structure and epistemic structure. Finally, this paper illustrates that the neural-mental dynamics of paratactic grammar originates in an operational layered pattern recognition adopted in the mind. Therefore, human language is an “encoding-decoding” and “ostensive-inferential” two-way opportunistic system.

This is a review of Yu-lin Yuan 2015—The Cognitive Mechanism and Descriptive System of Chinese Paratactic Grammar—, which insightfully claims that the way Chinese grammar operates is strongly paratactic. It means that the grammar which describes Chinese grammar must inevitably be a system which describes its paratactic mechanism explicitly. Yu-lin Yuan 2015 calls it “the Chinese paratactic grammar description system with lexicon-construction interaction based on conceptual structure”. The review mainly discusses the following three points based on Yu-lin Yuan 2015: (1) the details of low-level parataxis and high-level parataxis in Chinese grammar; (2) the methodological problems for the description of high-level parataxis; (3) the reason why Chinese grammar can be strongly paratactic.

This study attempts to reconstruct the word shao 少 in Old Chinese phonology. Preceding studies have considered the reconstruction of shao to be a controversial issue. It is argued that shao has Xie Sheng connections with miao 杪 and xiao 小, and as illustrated in the Shuo Wen Jie Zi, some scholars have reconstructed the voiceless nasal [m̥] or consonant cluster [^hm]; however, other scholars have rejected the Shuo Wen analysis. Moreover, excavated documents and Min dialects indicate that there is no phonetic relationship between them. In this study, we use excavated documents and Mǐn dialects. The word shao is reconstructed as *st-.

The aim of this paper is to show which base dialect Manchu used when they translated Chinese words of Romance of The Three Kingdoms. The translation was published in Shunzhi 7th (1650) was an early Manchu literature. In that text, translators used Manchu alphabet to transcribe Chinese word such as names of people, places, occupations and so on. The features of those transcripts are different from Beijing dialect in the late period of Ming dynasty. Through the analysis of transcripts and historical background, it shows that the base dialect on transcripts has connection with Jiaodong (胶东) dialect.

This study explores the process of change for monosyllabic Chinese tones, with a focus on the Jiaokou dialect of Qinyuan County, Shanxi Province. In this study, research on speakers of different ages reveals that tonal merger is currently occurring in the tone system of Jiaokou.

In Old Chinese, due to a variation in pronunciation during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the representation of yu changed from 于 to 於. This study examines bamboo scripts from Chu and Qin to elucidate that the Chu dialect almost only used 於, but the Qin dialect used 于 together with 於. It is assumed that the cause of this difference is the frequency of yu usage in these two dialects. Moreover, there is a possibility that the usage of 於 to represent yu did not originate from the Qin.

Using the methodology of linguistic geography, this paper analyzes the function of the modifier yang (洋) in the formation of words that denote “soap” in modern Chinese dialects. Yang is added to the heads of existing word forms as the distinctive component, on which occasion the existing word form and the new word are situated in binary opposition. The degree of fixity of yang-type word forms is related to the necessity of distinction and word structure; the use of yang is sometimes maintained in areas where the two analogous yang-type word forms are adjacently distributed.

This paper aims to analyze the meaning of the substantive verb “leda”, “ledoŋ” and “lehaŋ” in Shaoxing dialect from the view of evidentiality and modality. The conclusions are as follows: “leda” presents the entities visible to the speaker. “Ledoŋ” presents the entities invisible to the speaker. And “lehaŋ” presents the entities which are out of the speaker and hearer’s range of visibility. When the utterance is based on non-visual evidences, the usage of “leda”, “ledoŋ” and “lehaŋ” depends on how confident the speaker is about the location of the entity.

This research applies Semantic Map Theory to draw the semantic map of the connections between interrogative pronouns. First, I delineate the relationships between the terms in the two categories of my study—between space, identification, person; and between time, classification, and object. Next, I show how the two categories create a discrete conceptual spaces that are internal to the vocabulary structures of Chinese dialects. We draw the semantic map to categorize them into two types. Following this, we elaborate and extend Lushuxiang’s (1985) thesis on the difference in word formation in dialects.

This study considers the grammatical function and constructional meaning of “A le (了) B, B le (了) A” (after doing A, do B, and after doing B, do A), clarifying that this structure typically describes a situation of an “event that progresses with difficulty.” While the AABB verbal reduplication is a form describing an event as one “state,” understood from the summary scanning, “A le (了) B, B le (了) A” is considered a form describing an event as one “situation,” understood from the sequential scanning.