“A Course in Theoretical Chinese Grammar”: Principles and Contradictions

Abstract

The paper explores the basic principles of “A Course in Theoretical Chinese Grammar” published in Russia as a schoolbook (2005, 2006). Theoretical Grammar is an obligatory course, and the challenge was to create a complete integral conceptual grammar: to show the essence of the language in its unity. And the main problem: existing courses are based on traditional approaches describing adequately the surface structures of inflectional languages, but not applicable for exploring the essence of isolative ones. Chinese syntax is primarily based on the Topic-Comment structures, and the understanding of this point may be viewed as conceptual basis of the language theory at all; Chinese morphology is “positional”: lexical units may fill Positions or “fluctuate” in a Range between several part-of-speech meanings. So the publishing and use of such course may not only improve the theoretical understanding of Chinese and the Language as whole, but also enhance the quality of teaching Chinese as a comprehensive university specialty.