Essay

Chinese Syntax in a Nutshell

Chinese has got along without grammar for well over two thousand years.

G

Gerent (subject). A gerent is one that rules or manages. From Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (1 Mar. 2005).

F

Factor-Functive (a bivalent term designating either a 'pre-predicate' i.e, a 'factor' or a 'finite-predicate', an intransitive verb terminating a syntactical unit, i.e., a 'functive'.

A factor is one who "transacts business for another", like agent or deputy. Also,"something (as an element, circumstance, or influence) that contributes to the production of a result". ibid Finally, "a quantity by which a measure must be multiplied or divided in order to express it in other terms" ibid

'Functive' is not quite English, a term coined by Boodberg probably to straddle the noun and verb sense of 'function'. As a noun, it's synonyms are role, duty, work, use, operation, activity etc.; as an intransitive verb, serves, operates, works, acts.

E

Effective (a transitive predicate).

D

Destinate. As an adjective, "set apart for"; as a verb, "to design or intend " ibid

C

Complement. "An added word by which a predication is made complete (as president in "they elected him president" or white in "he painted the house white")" ibid

Boodberg continues:

Among syntagms preposed to a gerent ('G'), we may have a 'hypothematic' ('H'), the 'logical' subject of discourse, not infrequently a preposed destinate repeated later on, in its normal post-predicate position, in the form of a 'resumptive' pronoun ('R'); or a 'topological' ('T'), that is a topotactical term or phrase indicative of the location of the action in space or time.

'Syntagms', also spelled syntagmas or syntagmata, is a syntactic element. ibid

H

Hypothematic. The 'logical' subject of discourse not infrequently a preposed destinate repeated later on, in its normal post-predicate position, in the form of a 'resumptive' pronoun ('R').

Greek 'hypo', 'under, below, partial'.

R

'Resumptive' pronoun. [More on this later.]

T

'Topological', i.e, a topotactical term or phrase indicative of the location of the action in space or time.

Greek 'top', 'place' and 'tact/tax' 'arrange, order'.

Now Boodberg broaches his target, the application of this concise analysis of Chinese syntax to the beginning of an actual Chinese sentence. He first introduces a hypothetical sentence beginning with either BOAT MAN or BOAT INSIDE MAN. The Chinese characters are not given in the original Cedule 017, but most likely they are: 舟人 and 舟裏人 although nèi 內or even zhōng 中 might also be intended for INSIDE.

As the Chinese language has no genuine prepositions, but only topological nouns (postpositive) and verbs (prepositive), used mostly in nude juncture, it is not always easy to distinguish a hypothematic from a topological. As a principal, the first member of the main syntactical body may also be preceded by a modificative ('M'), and we often face the problem of weighing the relative merits of an 'H' vs. 'T' vs. 'M' interpretation of the head item of a sentence.

Thus the sequence BOAT MAN... (舟人...) or BOAT INSIDE (topological noun) MAN... (舟裏人...), beginning a sentence might mean: 1. "As for the BOAT, the MAN..." / "As for the INSIDE of the BOAT, the MAN..." 2. "In the BOAT, the MAN..." / "INSIDE the BOAT, the MAN..." 3. "The BOAT-MAN..." / "The MAN INSIDE the BOAT...", that is it might be construed as: 1. H--G, or 2. T--G, or 3. M--G. In the translation of Chinese prose, common sense and the context will prescribe the choice among the three possibilities. In poetry, however, where key syntagms are often called upon to perform more than one function, the architectonic subtleties of parallelistic syntaxis frequently present a situation demanding the closest analysis of the structure of the poem as regards the interplay of 'H'/'T'/'M'.

The key point, that there are no genuine prepositions in Chinese, has to be on the short list of things most neglected or abused by Chinese-to-English translators, both domestic and foreign. Again and again, a full-bodied topological noun is translated as if it were merely a preposition while the implied preposition in a topological verb is nonchalantly ignored. (See Boodberg's discussion of shǎng/shàng (上) in Cedule 005: Philology in Translation-Land.)

By "postpositive" and "prepositive", I think Boodberg means that Chinese topological nouns, nouns that include prepositional value, are positioned after their object and topological verbs, verbs with prepositional value, are positioned before their object. "Nude juncture" means that there is nothing, no other character or sign, between these topologicals and their objects. As is generally the case throughout classical Chinese, positioning alone indicates the character's syntactical role.

Now the focus has moved to the real target of the analysis, Chinese poetry. In disambiguating the "architectonic subtleties of parallelistic syntaxis" from the laconic lines of traditional Chinese verse, the 'H'/'T'/'M' analysis will prove its mettle.

One would presuppose that in formal parallelization, once the poet's intention in the basic stichos (BS) of a parallelized distich (DS) is ascertained, the syntaxis of the basic should be faithfully mirrored in the parastichos (PS). This seems to be a safe rule to follow. We did so in our translation of the DS of RIVER SNOW (CBWAP 013) by reading: BS "A thousand hills:..."//PS "A myriad paths..." (H//H), ignoring for the moment what may be called the principle of 'stereoscopy' in parallelism.

Boodberg is referring to his analysis and translation of Liu Tsung-yuan's (Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元) quatrain, River Snow (江雪) in Cedule 013: On Fishing Snow.

Reading left to right, the parallelized distich (DS), of which Boodberg has discussed and translated the first two characters of each line above, runs:

BS 千山鳥飛絕 A thousand hills:...

PS 萬徑人蹤滅 A myriad paths:...

Reading left to right, the whole poem:

千山鳥飛絕

萬徑人蹤滅

孤舟簑笠翁

獨釣寒江雪

Boodberg brings Cedule 017 to its finale with this.

Indeed, parallelism is not merely a sytlistic device of formularistic syntactical duplication; it is intended to achieve a result reminiscent of binocular vision, the superimpostition of two syntactical images in order to endow them with solidity and depth, the repetition of the pattern having the effect of binding together syntagms that appear at first rather loosely aligned. Structurally, 'H'/'T'/'M' represents a progressive scale of juncture, and the parallelistic juxtaposition of 'H' to 'H' should have the stereoscopic effect of elevating the reiterated 'H' in the PS (its appositive function having lost its novelty) to the status of 'T'. From that point of view, a better rendering of the hemistichs would be: BS "A thousand hills..." (H); PS "On myriad paths..."(T). A premature 'TT' construction ("Above the hills... // On the paths...") would be too prosaic, and would not give us the satisfaction of re-experiencing the 'build-up' step-by-step, first viewing the panorama presented by the poet from one syntactical angle, then from another, and fully savoring the stereoscopic aftersensation or afterimage.

The better translation runs:

BS 千山鳥飛絕 A thousand hills:...

PS 萬徑人蹤滅 On myriad paths:...

Here is a random list of examples of three topological nouns, 內 ,裡 (=裏), 中 which can often be construed as a Gerent followed by a Topological:

心內 心裡 體內 窗內 口內 房內 海內 市內 境內 國內 月內 室內 屋內 河內 客位內 車內 衙內 園內 湖舫內 銀河系內 盤內

那裡 這裡 心裡 嘴裡 日裡 懷裡 口裡 肚裡 眼裡 在手裡 櫃臺裡 房裡 香裡 湯裡 演藝界裡 大學裡 信仰裡 夜江霧裡闊

水中 都中 心中 山中 意中 軍隊中 夢中 口中 進行中 雪中