Princeton/Cambridge Studies in Chinese Linguistics – serie

A study and translation of Tou O Yüan, a traditional Chinese drama by Kuan Hanch'ing, the leading playwright of the Yüan period (1279-1368). The play remained a popular favourite and is still performed in the Peking opera theatres in a revised version, under the title Snow in Midsummer. In her very full introduction Professor Shih discusses the literary and historical background to the play - the language and conventions of Yüan drama and its remarkable emergence under Mongol rule. The format used for the play itself represents an innovation in the presentation of materials for the students of Chinese literature and language. Each section of text (in Chinese characters) has an interlinear transliteration and literal translation, with a free translation, notes and commentary on the facing page.

A comprehensive account of the Sino-Tibetan, a language stock comparable in size and diversification to Indo-European and comprising Chinese, Karen and over a hundred Tibetan-Burman languages. Dr Benedict presents a systematic analysis of the morphology and phonology of the main descendants of the stock, traces their family relationships and reconstructs in outline the parent language, Sino-Tibetan. There is a glossary of Tibeto-Burman index, which should prove of especial value as a working tool for scholars. Although the book was first drafted many years ago, Dr Benedict made extensive annotations on the original manuscript and Professor James A. Matisoff added many notes on bibliography and the Burmese-Lolo group of languages. The scope and original theses of the work, however, remain unaltered and the editors present it as a major and original contribution to the study of oriental linguistics.

Originally published in 1973, this was the second in a series of dialect studies planned and produced by the Princeton Chinese Linguistics Project. Professor Hashimoto, Director of the Project, describes the formation and distribution of the Hakka dialects, gives a synchronic analysis of the phonology and syntax, and carries out a systematic comparison with Ancient Chinese, providing the readers with an exhaustive list of words and phrases arranged according to all the known phonological categories of Ancient Chinese. The twenty pieces of dialogue included in this book for syntactic analysis, with their extensive grammatical notes and glossary, can be used as a manual of Hakka. The appendix includes an extensive bibliography of Hakka studies. The series represented the most systematic and detailed linguistic analysis ever attempted for the Chinese languages. It made available to specialists an indispensable working-tool and a comprehensive library of reference.

Originally published in 1976, the sixth book in the Princeton-Cambridge Studies in Chinese Linguistics series was one of the first in any language to apply the techniques of acoustic phonetics to Mandarin Chinese. The present volume describes the acoustic cues for the perception of nine vowels and four tones (that is, patterns of voice pitch that serve to distinguish words). The description is based on an analysis of the speech of one male speaker of the Peking dialect, the results of which were used to determine the dimensions of a set of synthetic vowels and tones. In a series of perception tests these synthetic speech samples were presented to a group of twelve Mandarin speakers for identification with Mandarin characters. The series represents a systematic and highly detailed linguistic analysis of the Chinese languages. It provides a sophisticated working-tool and a comprehensive library of reference.