In: Studies in Chinese Historical Syntax and Morphology: Linguistic Essays in Honor of Mei Tsu-lin, [= Collection des Cahiers de Linguistique d'Asie Orientale], ed. by Alain Peyraube and Chaofen Sun. 1999. Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Pages 223-239.
Some Reflections on the Periodization of the Chinese Language
by James H-Y. Tai and Marjorie K.M. Chan
2.4. Lexical Periodization
The history of lexical changes in the Chinese language is very complex and still little understood. Admittedly, historical linguists have conducted research on the origin and development of individual and related words. At the same time, fairly systematic studies of historical changes in the Chinese lexicon exist (e.g., Wang 1958). Yet, thus far, there are only a few thorough and comprehensive studies that chart important patterns of lexical changes extending through the history of the Chinese language. One such study is conducted by Pan (1989), in which he posits four major periods of lexical change: Shanggu period (Old Chinese, the period from Shang to Qin dynasty), Zhonggu (Middle Old Chinese, the period from Han to Tang dynasty), Jindai (Pre-Modern Chinese, from late Tang to the Opium War), and Xiandai (Modern Chinese, from the 1919 May Fourth Movement to the present). It appears that Pan's four periods are posited based primarily on important periods in history rather than on major developments in the lexicon per se, as would have been desirable. Although such a periodization seems to elude us at this time, an initial attempt is made here.
For our purposes, we will first divide the Chinese lexicon into two kinds of vocabulary: native versus borrowed words. The native vocabulary is then further divided into basic (core) and non-basic vocabulary. Of the native words, basic vocabulary refers to the segment of the lexicon used in simple, everyday activities of the average person. The larger segment of non-basic lexical items then forms the remaining portion of the native vocabulary.
We turn first to borrowed vocabulary. During the course of Chinese history, the Chinese has had numerous contacts with non-Han Chinese peoples, and it is expected that foreign words would be borrowed into the Chinese language. Starting with the early Han times many foreign words entered the Chinese language via contact with Central Asia. Examples include putao 'grapes' and shizi 'lion'.
Then, with the introduction and growth of Buddhism during the period from later Han through early Tang, a large number of Buddhist terms were borrowed into Chinese; e.g., fo 'Buddha' and pusa 'Bodhisattva'. In addition, many new compounds were created based on Buddhist concepts, such as yinguo 'predestined fate' and yinyuan 'predestined relationship'. During late Ming to early Qing, China began to have contact with European countries, triggering another round of infusion of new borrowings that include yapian 'opium' and gongsi 'company'. After the Opium War (1839-42), the encroachment of Western powers convinced the Chinese to adopt Western science and technology, as well as Western military, political, and economic systems. This led to an extent of borrowing of new vocabulary that was unprecedented in Chinese history. Examples include such transliterations as shafa 'sofa' and kafei 'coffee', as well as loan translations such as tielu 'railroad' and wuxiandian 'wireless'. Equally significant are new compounds borrowed from Japan, such as shehui 'society', kexue 'science', and jiefang 'liberate'. In terms of large infusion of borrowed vocabulary for foreign terms and concepts, two major periods can be identified, the first from late Han to early Tang, and the second after the Opium War.
We now turn to the development of native vocabulary. There are at least four main areas that need to be considered in discussing the history and development of the lexicon of a language. These are: one, decay and vocabulary loss; two, semantic shift of lexical items; three, new word-formation through compounding; and four, absorption of vernacular vocabulary. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic study has been conducted with respect to the first two areas. Concerning the third area, it is generally accepted that pre-Chin Classical Chinese was largely monosyllabic (but cf. Kennedy 1951 and Mair 1994 for a different view). Polysyllabic words were restricted primarily to reduplicated forms and partially reduplicated forms (involving alliteration and rhyme). Han dynasty onwards saw various morphological processes becoming productive, yielding a large number of compound words in the language. Regarding the fourth area, an entirely new set of vernacular vocabulary items came into existence during the late Tang to Song period. After the Opium War, the Chinese lexicon underwent a dramatic increase, through both compounding and European-inspired affixation. From the above scenario, three major periods can be established with respect to the native vocabulary: one, the pre-Chin period; two, the period from Han to early Tang; and three, the late Tang-Song period. We consider the vocabulary increase after the Opium War to be primarily due to borrowing from Western concepts and word-formation processes.
A comparison between our periodization based on borrowed vocabulary versus that based on native vocabulary is given below.
| (2) | BORROWED VOCABULARY | NATIVE VOCABULARY |
| 1. Pre-Qin | ||
| 1. Late Han to early T'ang | 2. Late Han to early Tang | |
| 3. Late Tang to Song | ||
| 2. Post-Opium War |
As can be observed, there is very little overlapping of the periodization of native versus borrowed vocabulary. If we take borrowed and native vocabulary together, what they have in common is only one major period, roughly late Han to early Tang. This may not be coincidental, as this period reflects the greatest ferment in the history of Chinese civilization. On the one hand, massive migrations brought different peoples in China into close contact; on the other hand, with the introduction and spread of Buddhism, Buddhist concepts--along with products from Central Asia--enriched the indigenous vocabulary.
3. CONCLUSION
Two key questions that were raised at the end of section 2.1 will be addressed in turn here. The first question is: do the three components--phonology, grammar, and lexicon--carry equal weight in the periodization task, or is there a hierarchy among them? Wang Li (1958:34) argues for the primacy of grammar in periodizing the history of the Chinese language. He views grammar and the basic, or core, vocabulary as constituting the foundation of a language, with grammatical changes occurring more slowly than changes in the basic vocabulary. He believes that great changes in grammar necessarily entail major, qualitative changes in phonology. This is because grammatical changes occur more slowly than vocabulary changes and much slowly than phonological changes. Thus, Wang appears to use the pace of change among the three components as the index for his hierarchical ranking, placing grammar first, basic vocabulary second, and phonology third. Therefore, non-basic vocabulary, which changes the most rapidly, is least important. For Wang Li, the pace of change reflects the degree of stability and permanency of a component of a language. On that view, the core component of a language should be most stable, permanent, and most resistant to change. As a corollary, the more peripheral the component, the more susceptible it is to change.
Two main assumptions appear to underlie Wang's argument. The first assumption is that grammar and basic vocabulary are more central than phonology and the remainder of the lexicon. The second assumption is that grammar and basic vocabulary are more stable over time. Both assumptions can be questioned. The centrality of grammar--or more precisely, syntax--in modern linguistics has been justified on the ground that phrase structure rules are recursive, as initiated by Chomsky's generative grammar. Certainly, the property of recursiveness is unique to syntactic structures, but that should not necessarily place syntax in a more central position vis-à-vis the overall structure of a language. From the point of human communication, sound and meaning via vocabulary are at least as important, if not more so, as grammatical rules. There is ample evidence that people can communicate without proper grammatical rules, as long as the words are understood. Furthermore, one could equally argue that phonological structures are much more fine-grained than syntactic structures. The latter consists primarily of linear order and constituent structures of coordination and subordination. Consequently, grammatical changes appear to occur more slowly than phonological changes, and hence seem more stable over time. Contrary to Wang's second assumption, the reason for the apparent stability of grammatical changes has less to do with their slower pace of change and more with their lesser degree of complexity of structures. With regard to his assumption about the stability of the basic vocabulary, we still do not have a systematic way to analyze their underlying semantic structures, not to mention their systematic semantic changes over time. What we do know is that the semantics of lexical items are readily susceptible to changes. Even a cursory look at Wang's (1958) study of vocabulary changes would reveal how rapidly and unpredictably a vocabulary item can undergo meaning change. Therefore, we are inclined to argue for the centrality of phonological changes for the periodization of the Chinese language.
We will now address the second question raised in section 2.1, namely, can the periodization of the history of one component of the language be co-extensive with that of another component? The question can be answered differently depending on whether we recognize only one stage of Middle (or Ancient) Chinese, as reconstructed by Bernhard Karlgren, based on the Qieyun, or two stages, an Early Middle Chinese period (represented by the Qieyun), and a Late Middle Chinese period (represented by Yunjing), as proposed by E.G. Pulleyblank. If there is only one stage, then it would be very difficult to argue for the co-extensiveness of phonological and grammatical periodization. However, if we follow Pulleyblank in positing two stages--an Early Middle Chinese period, as represented by the Qieyun, and a Late Middle Chinese period, representing late Tang (and perhaps early Song), then we can entertain the possibility of co-extension of grammar and phonology in the history of the Chinese language in late Tang and early Song. In this period, Chinese grammar and Chinese phonology both evolved and matured into a totally new stage, referred to in phonology as "Late Middle Chinese" and in grammar as "jindai Hanyu",
as in Mei Tsu-lin's (1994) seminal proposal of a common grammar existent in the late Tang to early Song period.
The view here is that in the post-classical period, the watershed in both phonological and grammatical development of the Chinese is late Tang, extending to early Song. Given this view, we would like to further propose that there are two major periods of the Chinese language--with respect to both phonology and grammar--Gudai Hanyu (Classical Chinese) and Jindai Hanyu (Premodern Chinese), with Xiandai Hanyu (Modern Chinese) a subperiod of the latter. This proposal is in agreement with that made by Lü Shuxiang (1985), but we are presenting this view based on two additional, important considerations. The first consideration is based on Mei's (1994) conceptualization of a Tang-Song gongtongyu-de yufa (grammar of Tang-Song common language). The second consideration is predicated on the desirability of a possible co-extension of the maturation of the phonological and grammatical systems of the Chinese language.
In the above, we are suggesting the possible co-extension of phonological and grammatical periodization. With respect to the native vocabulary, as can be observed in section 2.4, late Tang to Song constitutes the last of the three major periods. Hence, the late Tang to Song is a period where one can entertain the co-extension of all three components of the language. With the co-extension of phonological, grammatical, and lexical periodization in late Tang to Song, it would be justifiable to consider this period the most important watershed in the history of the Chinese language, coinciding with the golden age of Chinese culture (Reischauer and Fairbank 1960:183ff.).
Acknowledgement
A preliminary version of this paper was presented by James Tai at the First Symposium of the Chao Yuen Ren Center for Chinese Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, 18-19 February 1994. We are very grateful to the participants of the symposium for their comments and suggestions. We have also benefited from discussions with Roxana Fung, Wenze Hu, and Shu-fen Chen. We are particularly indebted to Professor Victor Mair, who read an earlier version and gave us valuable comments. Needless to say, we are solely responsible for any infelicities that remain.
(Note added to this webpage on 22 April 1998: One additional source that was
brought to our attention is the article, "Issues of Periodization in Historical Chinese Phonology" (in Chinese),
by Prof. Cheng Tsai-fa, published in the
Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (1966) 36: 635-648 (thanks to Prof. Lien Chinfa, 4/22/98 email
correspondence with the second author).)
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