Chinese's (almost) minimal structure

[Unmundisto]

We live far from the nearest bookstore, and we don't get there often. So I hope you'll forgive me for asking about these things that maybe any good student of Chinese would know. What I know about Chinese, I found out from a very general and not-in-depth grammar section of a popular book on Chinese, and from a Quick-Study laminated 6-page set of statements about Chinese grammar. They leave some unanswered questions.

I don't know much about Chinese. That's why I'm asking these questions. Let me introduce my questions in this way:

Advocates of Interglossa, or Glossa, or both, said that Chinese doesn't have any grammer. Of course they were wrong. Chinese, as must any language, has structure. But it's a minimal kind of structure.

With modifiers (nearly) consistently preceding what they modify, Chinese is nearly consistently head-final. With beautifully-elegant consistency, clauses that modify other clauses or words are put ahead of them, and followed by the same "de" particle. ...just like any other modifier.

The SOV word-order can be said to violate head-final, because the object is a modifier of the verb. But the verb's main modifier is the subject, and SOV puts it ahead of the verb, as it should be.

Maybe the SOV word-order is because of an intention to represent chronological order?:

First exists the subject. S/he does an actiion, and then the object is affected by that action.

Is that the justification for SOV word-order, even though it violates consistent strict head-final word-order?

The sometime use of prepositions instead of postpositions is another exception to head-final order. Can someone explain the reason for prepositions, as opposed to postpositions, in Chinese. I realize that postpositions are used too.

The prepositions seem to be used for broader positioning, while the postpositios are for finer positioning--Is that right? ...such as "at house-inside"?

The adverbial prepositional phrases that come before the verb make head-final sense. But the book describes other adverbial prepositional phrases that come _after_ the verb. It justifies them by saying that they connect the verb to an object.

It could be said that it also could be said to follow chronlogical order--which, I guess is just another way of saying the same thing.

That doesn't bother me. Neither do the other things I've mentioned so far--But please tell me if the explanations for them are as I've asked, or if there are different explanations.

Can the speaker/writer just use hir (his/her) own discretion in deciding whether an adverbial prepositional phrase should be put ahead of the very because it's a modifier, or after the verb because it connects the verb to an object, in chronologicl order?

Ok, then what bothers me more? How about this:

A construction that Quick-Study refers to as "Predicative Complement":

"... a descriptive complement that tells more about the verb or the results of te verb."

Doesn't that duplicate the same sort of thing, used before the verb? Is there a rule specifying that it should be after the verb under some specified conditions? What are they? Or does the speaker/writer have the discretion to choose whether s/he wants it after or before the verb?

If I were designing an international auxilliary language, I'd suggest that it imitate Chinese's relatively minimal structure, but that the structure be made _more_ minimal. I'd suggest that that IAL imitate Chinese's relatively consistent head-final order, but that the IAL be _thoroughly_ consistently head-final. Any departures from SOV word order could be accompanied by function-marking particles. For example, sometimes someone would want to emphasize the object (as when in a store and telling what item you're looking for).

I fully admit that I don't claim to understand the above Chinese constructions--I understand them only to the degree that my two sources describe them (and that isn't very thoroughly).

Can anyone answer some (or preferably all) of these questions for me?

I appreciate your help.

Unmundisto

[Unmundisto]

At the end of my posting, I said that if I were designing an international auxilliary language (IAL), it would be SOV. In that instance, I meant what I said.

But earlier in my post, I kept referring to Chinese as being SOV. Of course, in those instances, I'd meant to write "SVO".

So, the things that I said about Chinese word-order were intended to refer to Chinese's actual SVO word order, not to my typo "SOV" word order.
I realize that Chinese, like English, is SVO.

Sorry about the typo.

Unmundisto

[linguoboy]

There's actually a lot of good material on Chinese grammar on the web. You don't have to be reliant simply on what you can find in books.

You seem to be starting from the assumption that every deviation from strict head-final word order is a deviation which craves explanation. But it isn't: all languages show some degree of typologically mixing. Chinese syntax is simply the way it is; most of its features fit well into a head-final descriptive model, but some don't. Crucially, it is a topic-prominent language, which means that virtually any constituent can be placed first when it represents previously known information.

And contemporary Standard Chinese shows both SVO and SOV word order. Read up on the so-called bǎ construction, which allows one to prepose some (but not all) direct objects to the main verb. It's become so common in recent years that some linguists view Chinese as in transition from predominately SVO to predominately SOV.

[Unmundisto]

Thanks for the reply.

Of course I realize that the structure of natural languages is influenced by expressive convenience for native-speakers, and that their structure is not designed for the convenience, easiness or aesthetic preferences of foreign students of the language.

Nevertheless, Chinese points the way to an ideal. It shows some remarkable consistency and minimalism. It points the way to the ideal international auxillary language (IAL) that fully maximizes that consistency and minimalism.

It's my feeling that a simplified and streamlined Chinese, with its structure made even more minimal, with scupulously simplified consistency designed for foreign students, and with the addition of some of Esperanto's ingenious invented features, and with an international vocabulary, would be the ideal IAL.

As the proponents of Dunia suggested, it would be natural to use Chinese grammatical particles (but optional Japanese noun-function markers "ga" and "o" for optional use when reversing the order of subject and object. And might not the Japanse "wa" be useful. Wouldn't it sometimes be handy in English too? I often find myself having to say "Regarding..." before a long or complicated noun phrase, in order to get it out of the way so that I can replace it with "it" in a complicated predicate--one that would be unacceptably complicated if the long noun phrase had to be spelled out in the predicate.


I like Esperanto's correlatives. Japanese has them too, but not as many. Esperanto's correlatives cover more meanings. Dunia offered the Japanese correlatives, with some additions. I agree with doing that. Maybe, for the categories not covered by Japanese correlatives, the Esperanto correlative-morphemes should be used.

I mentioned, in connection with a book's description of Chinese prepostion and postposition use, the saying of "at house-inside" with the English translation of "in the house". The book cited that combination of a preposition and a postposition.

Japanese says it elegantly consistently head-final: "On the table" is spoken as "Table of top at",
In other words, "at the top of the table".

Unmundisto