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ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
Chinese languages
Linguistic characteristics
All modern Sinitic languages--i.e., the "Chinese dialects"--share a number of important typological features. They have a maximum syllabic structure of the type consonant-semivowel-vowel-semivowel-consonant. Some languages lack one set of semivowels, and, in some, gemination (doubling) or clustering of vowels occurs. The languages also employ a system of tones (pitch and contour), with or without concomitant glottal features, and occasionally stress. For the most part, tones are lexical (i.e., they distinguish otherwise similar words); in some languages tones also carry grammatical meaning. Nontonal grammatical units (i.e., affixes) may be smaller than syllables, but usually the meaningful units consist of one or more syllables. Words can consist of one syllable, of two or more syllables each carrying an element of meaning, or of two or more syllables that individually carry no meaning. For example, Modern Standard Chinese t'ien "sky, heaven, day" is a one-syllable word; jih-t'ou "sun" is composed of jih "sun, day," a word element that cannot occur alone as a word, and the noun suffix t'ou; and hu-t'ier "butterfly" consists of two syllables, each having no meaning in itself (this is a rare type of word formation). The Southern languages have more monosyllabic words and word elements than the Northern ones.
The Sinitic languages distinguish nouns and verbs with some overlapping, as do Sino-Tibetan languages in general. There are noun suffixes that form different kinds of nouns (concrete nouns, diminutives, abstract nouns, and so on), particles placed after nouns indicating relationships in time and space, and verb particles for modes and aspects. Adjectives act as one of several kinds of verbs. Verbs can occur in a series (concatenation) with irreversible order (e.g., the verbs "take" and "come" placed next to one another denote the concept "bring"). Nouns are collective in nature, and only classifiers can be counted and referred to singly. Specific particles are used to indicate the relationship of nominals (e.g., nouns and noun phrases) to verbs, such as transitive verb-object, agent-passive verb; in some of the languages this system forms a sentence construction called ergative, in which all nominals are marked for their function and the verb stays unchanged. Final sentence particles convey a variety of meanings (defining either the whole sentence or the predicate), such as "question, command, surprise, new situation." The general word order of subject-verb-object and complement and modifier-modified is the same in all the languages, but the use of the preposed particles and verbs in a series varies considerably. Grammatical elements of equal or closely related values in various languages are very often not related in sounds.
The Sinitic languages fall into a Northern and a Southern group. The Northern languages (Mandarin dialects) are more similar to each other than are the Southern (Wu, Hsiang, Kan, Hakka, Yüeh, Min).
Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin)
Modern Standard Chinese is based on the Peking (Beijing) dialect, which is of the Northern, or Mandarin, type. It employs about 1,300 different syllables. There are 22 initial consonants, including stops (made with momentary, complete closure in the vocal tract), affricates (beginning as stops but ending with incomplete closure), aspirated consonants, nasals, fricatives, liquid sounds (l, r), and a glottal stop. The medial semivowels are y (i), (ü), and w (u). In final position, the following occur: nasal consonants, r (retroflex r), the semivowels y and w, and the combinations r (nasalization plus r) and wr (rounding plus r). There are nine vowel sounds, including three varieties of i (retroflex, apical, and palatal). Several vowels combine into clusters.
There are four tones: (1) high level, (2) high rising crescendo, (3) low falling diminuendo with glottal friction (with an extra rise from low to high when final), and (4) falling diminuendo. Unstressed syllables have a neutral tone, which depends on its surroundings for pitch. Tones in sequences of syllables that belong together lexically and syntactically ("sandhi groups") may undergo changes known as tonal sandhi, the most important of which causes a third tone before another third tone to be pronounced as a second tone. The tones influence some vowels (notably e and o), which are pronounced more open in third and fourth tones than in first and second tones.
A surprisingly low number of the possible combinations of all the consonantal, vocalic, and tonal sounds are utilized. The vowels i and ü and the semivowels y and never occur after velar sounds (e.g., k) and occur only after the palatalized affricate and sibilant sounds (e.g., tsh), which in turn occur with no other vowels and semivowels.
Many alternative interpretations of the distinctive sounds of Chinese have been proposed; the interaction of consonants, vowels, semivowels, and tones sets Modern Standard Chinese apart from many other Sinitic languages and dialects and gives it a unique character among the major languages of the world. The two most widely used transcription systems (romanizations) are Wade-Giles (first propounded by Sir Thomas Francis Wade in 1859 and later modified by Herbert A. Giles) and the official Chinese transcription system today, known as the pinyin zimu ("phonetic spelling") or simply Pinyin (adopted in 1958). For a comparison of these romanization equivalents, see the table. In Wade-Giles, aspiration is marked by ' (p', t', and so on). The semivowels are y, yü, and w in initial position; i, ü, and u in medial; and i and u (but o after a) in final position. Final retroflex r is written rh. The tones are indicated by raised figures after the syllables (1, 2, 3, 4).
The Pinyin system indicates unaspirated stops and affricates by means of traditionally voiced consonants (e.g., b, d) and aspirated consonants by voiceless sounds (e.g., p, t). The semivowels are y, yu, and w initially; i, ü, and u medially; and i and u (o after a) finally. Final retroflex r is written r. The tones are indicated by accent markers, 1 = , 2 = , 3 = , 4 = (e.g., ma, má, ma, mà = Wade-Giles ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4).
Wade-Giles is used in the following discussion of Modern Standard Chinese grammar.
The most common suffixes that indicate nouns are -erh (as in ch'ang-erh "song"; compare ch'ang "sing"), -tzu (as in fang-tzu "house"), and -t'ou (as in mu-t'ou "wood"). A set of postposed noun particles express space and time relationships (-li "inside," -hou "after"). An example of a verbal affix is -chien in k'an-chien "see" and t'ing-chien "hear." Important verb particles are -le (completed action), -kuo (past action), -chih or -che (action in progress). The directional verbal particles -lai "toward speaker" and -ch'ü "away from speaker" and some verbal suffixes can be combined with the potential particles te "can" and pu "cannot"--e.g., na-ch'u-lai "take out," na-pu-ch'u-lai "cannot take out"; t'ing-chien "hear," t'ing-te-chien "can hear." The particle te indicates subordination and also gives nominal value to forms for other parts of speech (e.g., wo "I," wo-te "mine," wo-te shu "my book," lai "to come," lai-te "coming," lai-te jen "a person who comes"). The most important sentence particle is le, indicating "new situation" (e.g., hsia-yü-le "now it is raining," pu-lai-le "now there is no longer any chance that he will be coming"). Ko is the most common noun classifier (i "one," i-ko-jen "one person"); others are so (i-so-fang-tzu "one house") and pen (liang-pen-shu "two books").
Adjectives can be defined as qualitative verbs (hao "to be good") or stative verbs (ping "to be sick"). There are equational sentences with the word order subject-predicate--e.g., wo-shih Pei-ching-jen "I am a Peking-person (i.e., a native of Peking)"--and narrative sentences with the word order subject (or topic)-verb-object (or complement)--e.g., wo ch'ih-fan "I eat rice," wo chu tsai Pei-ching "I live in Peking." The preposed object takes the particle pa (wo ta t'a "I beat him," wo pa t'a ta-le i-tun "I gave him a beating"), and the agent of a passive construction takes pei (wo pei t'a ta-le i-tun "I was given a beating by him").
Standard Cantonese
The most important representative of the Yüeh languages is Standard Cantonese of Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau. It has fewer initial consonants than Modern Standard Chinese (p, t, ts, k and the corresponding aspirated sounds ph, th, tsh, kh; m, n, ; f, s, h; l, y), only one medial semivowel (w), more vowels than Modern Standard Chinese, six final consonants (p, t, k, m, n, ), and two final semivowels (y and w). The nasals m and occur as syllables without a vowel.
There are three tones (high, mid, low) in syllables ending in -p, -t, and -k; six tones occur in other types of syllables (mid level, low level, high falling, low falling, high rising, low rising). Two tones are used to modify the meaning of words (high level º, and low-to-high rising *), as in yinº "tobacco" from yin "smoke," and nöy* "daughter" from nöy "woman." Some special grammatical words also have the tone º. There is no neutral tone and little tonal sandhi.
There are more than 2,200 different syllables in Standard Cantonese, or almost twice as many as in Modern Standard Chinese. The word classes are the same as in Modern Standard Chinese. The grammatical words, although phonetically unrelated, generally have the same semantic value (e.g., the subordinating and nominalizing particle k, Modern Standard Chinese te; m "not," Modern Standard Chinese pu; the verbal particle for "completed action" and the sentence particle for "new situation," both le in Modern Standard Chinese, are Standard Cantonese ts and l, respectively). A classifier preceding a noun in subject position (before the verb) functions as a definite article (e.g., tsek sün "the boat").
Min languages
The most important Min language is Amoy from the Southern branch of Min. The initial consonants are the same as in Standard Cantonese with the addition of two voiced stops (b and d) and one voiced affricate (dz), developed from original nasals. There are two semivowels (y, w), six vowels and several vowel clusters, plus the syllabic nasal sounds m and functioning as vowels, the same finals as in Standard Cantonese, and, in addition, a glottal stop and a meaning-bearing feature of nasalization, as well as a combination of the last two features. There are two tones in syllables ending in a stop, five in other syllables. Tonal sandhi operates in many combinations.
Fuchow is the most important language of the Northern branch of Min. The very extensive sandhi affects not only tones but also consonants and vowels, so that the phonetic manifestation of a syllable depends entirely on interaction with the surroundings. There are three initial labial sounds (p, ph, m), five dental sounds (t, th, s, l, n), three palatal sounds (tsh, tshh, n), and five velars (k, kh, h, , and ). Syllables can end in -k, -, (glottal stop), a semivowel, or a vowel. The tones fall into two classes: a comparatively high class comprising high, mid, high falling, and high rising (only in sandhi forms) and a rather low one, comprising low rising and low rising-falling (circumflex). Certain vowels and diphthongs occur only with the high class, others occur only with the low class, and the vowel a occurs with both classes. Sandhi rules can cause tone to change from low class to high class, in which case the vowel also changes.
Other Sinitic languages
Hakka
Of the different Hakka dialects, Hakka of Mei-chou (formerly Mei-hsien) in Kwangtung is best known. It has the same initial consonants, final consonants, and syllabic nasals as Standard Cantonese; the vowels are similar to those of Modern Standard Chinese. Medial and final semivowels are y and w. There are two tones in syllables with final stops, four in the other syllabic types.
Süchow
Süchow is usually quoted as representative of the Wu languages. It is rich in initial consonants, with a contrast of voiced and voiceless stops as well as palatalized and nonpalatalized dental affricates, making 26 consonants in all. (Palatalized sounds are formed from nonpalatal sounds by simultaneous movement of the tongue toward the hard palate. Dental affricates are sounds produced with the tongue tip at first touching the teeth and then drawing slightly away to allow air to pass through, producing a hissing sound.) Medial semivowels are as in Modern Standard Chinese. In addition, there are also 10 vowels and 4 syllabic consonants (l, m, n, ); -n and - occur in final position, as do the glottal stop and nasalization.
Shanghai dialect
The Shanghai dialect belongs to Wu. The use of only two tones or registers (high and low) is prevalent; these are related in an automatic way to the initial consonant type (voiceless and voiced).
Hsiang languages
The Hsiang languages, spoken only in Hunan, are divided into New Hsiang, which is under heavy influence from Mandarin and includes the language of the capital Ch'ang-sha, and Old Hsiang, more similar to the Wu languages, as spoken for instance in Shuang-feng. Old Hsiang has 28 initial consonants, the highest number for any major Sinitic language, and 11 vowels, plus the syllabic consonants m and n. It also uses five tones, final -n and -, and nasalization, but no final stops.
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