We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2023
This chapter discusses phonological motivations for morpho-syntactic changes in history. In general, Old Chinese was monosyllabic, which means that the overwhelming majority of words were represented by a single syllable, regardless of whether they were content or function words. In Middle Chinese, the phonological system was dramatically simplified; the number of consonants and vowels was reduced, and the syllabic structures were simplified. To restore the phonological distinctions of lexical items, the language increased the number of syllables for words, typically by adding one syllable to originally monosyllabic words. This disyllabification tendency has lasted nearly two millennia since then. This new sort of prosodic unit stimulated the fusion of two monosyllabic items, a key factor for the emergence of the resultative construction and other grammatical morphemes.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
