A Tentative Analysis of the Origin of Middle Chinese Grammar and Its Historical Position

• Main Authors: Liu Shizhen, Ji Yunxia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Learned Press 2007-10-01
• Series: Macrolinguistics
• Subjects: Middle; Chinese; grammar; origin; historical position
• Online Access: http://www.macrolinguistics.com/index.php?c=msg&id=542&

Middle Chinese is thelanguage used in the period from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty. Inrecent years researches of Middle Chinese have attracted scholars’ attention.While it inherited some characteristics from the grammar of Ancient Chinese,the morphology and syntax of Middle Chinese underwent obvious elimination andnew birth, an important content which laid the foundation for the furtherevolution of the Early Modern Chinese Grammar. Numerous grammatical phenomenonstarted to appear in Tang and Song Dynasties. The grammar was going through achange in which new forms replaced old ones, thus being the mediator ininheriting the archaic and beginning the early modern grammar, and thereforeoccupying an important position in the history of Chinese.