The purpose of this article is to show that "sha" and "sha-si" are not identical and that there is no perfect correspondence between either word in Chinese and "to kill" in English. It is suggested that the closest Chinese equivalent is "nong-si." (Author/RM)

Data from 82 native speakers of Chinese were used to test a hypothesis about the topic in Chinese. The basic characteristics are those of being a nominal and serving as an interclausal link, and the hypothesis is revised to consist of these two as primary attributes. The Chinese prototype and the universal topic are compared. (Contains 20…

Presents the irregular distribution of stative co-occurrence with "zhe," and shows that the meaning of "zhe" is best elucidated under the framework of the Two-Component Theory. Properties that separate stage statives from others are examined, as is the interaction between the imperfective "zhe" and the stative…

Discussed the relationship between definiteness and word order (WO) from three aspects: the position of the unquantified noun phrases as related to their definiteness; effects of quantifiers on WO; and relative order of different noun phrases in the same clause. Data verify that the correlation between definiteness and WO is valid for larger…

Contrasts symmetrical and asymmetrical features of word order in Mandarin and English, focusing on the preverbal and postverbal positional contrast, and revealing several cognitive sources for similarities between the two languages. (53 references) (CB)

Paper presented at the Panel on Chinese Local Studies, Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, New York, N.Y., 1972. (DD)

This is a contrastive synchronic study. Scales and rules of conversion are set up whereby it is shown which non-cognate consonants appear in initial position in one dialect and what they become when converted to the other. A matrix of contrast to show consonantal feature differences is also used. (SC)

The see-saw pair is a technique for perceptually contrasting the two realizations of the third tone, viz. the low-level half third and the low dip full third. (DD)

Based on travel to the People's Republic of China, language changes and reform are reported. New meanings of old expressions and new expressions are listed and discussed. Language reform consists of: popularization of Putonghua, simplification of the characters, and romanization of the Chinese Language. (SW)

The difficulty in learning Mandarin Chinese is often attributed to the fact that it is a tonal language. This article reviews the tonal spelling approach of Gwoyeu Romatzyh ("G. R.") and Pinyin, the national romanization system of mainland China. (seven references) (LB)

Suggests an alternative to the traditional presentation of the tonal system in Chinese. Tones could be presented high-low (1,3) and rising-falling (2,4) instead of successively, since students have particular difficulty in this area. An acoustic and a statistical analysis is presented; the latter shows tonal distribution and frequency of…