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The Wu dialect of Chinese is used by 80 million people in eastern China.
Shanghai is the lingua franca of Wu, and is the least conservative among Wu
dialects.
This book is a descriptive grammar of Shanghai Wu, concise but
comprehensive. It covers various topics in Shanghai grammar: the
phonological system, morphology, and syntax. In addition, two special
topics in Shanghai grammar, tone sandhi and compounding, are included. Tone
sandhi in Shanghai is a morpho-phonological process to produce prosodic
words, while compounding is a syntactic means to make lexical words.
Like other Chinese dialects, Shanghai is an isolating language. There is no
grammatical agreement or case markers, nor tense, gender or numeral
differences, or anything like those called inflection in European
languages. That does not mean there are no morphological processes at all:
reduplication, tone sandhi, and affixation are common in Shanghai. Of
course, compounding is the most productive in making new words.
Morphologically and syntactically Shanghai has something different from
Mandarin. For example, adjective reduplication in Shanghai is AAB, while it
is ABB in Mandarin. The word order in Shanghai is 'V + direct O + indirect
O', different from Mandarin's 'V + indirect O + direct O'.
The author, Dr. Xiaonong Zhu, is currently teaching at the Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology. He published widely in Chinese
historical phonology, Chinese dialectology, and experimental phonetics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO
SYLLABLE AND PHONOLOGY
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Initials
2.3. Finals
2.3.2. Rhymes
2.4. Tones
2.5. Transcriptions
2.6. Phonotactics
2.7. Syllable
CHAPTER THREE
TONE SANDHI AND PROSODIC WORD
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Left-Dominant Sandhi
3.3. Right-Dominant Sandhi
3.4. Tone Sandhi And Stress
CHAPTER FOUR
WORD AND MORPHOLOGY
4.1 Introduction
4.2. Nominal Mophology
4.3. Verbs And Other Parts Of Speech
CHAPTER FIVE
COMPOUNDS
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Subject-Predicate Compounds
5.3. Coordinate Compounds
5.4. Subordinate Compounds
5.5. Verb-Object Compounds
5.6. Verb-Complement Compounds
5.7. Verb-Localizer Compounds
5.8. Complex Compounds
CHAPTER SIX
SYNTAX
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Word Order
6.3. Phrasal Structure
6.4. Sentence Types
6.5. Complex Sentences
6.6. Compound Sentences
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAMPLE TEXTS
7.1. A Story About The North Wind And The Sun
7.2. Father's Riddles
REFERENCES
ABBREVIATIONS
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