Elements of Chinese grammar

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Preface

—rOte—

IN submitting to the public so large a work as this, with the view of its being merely a Key to a Language, the author begs leave to mention, by way of apology, certain circumstances relative to the work itself, and to the occasion which has led to its appearing in this extended form.

Qn completing the first volume of Confucius, early in 1809, it seemed desirable that it should be accompanied by some account of the language, which was accordingly given ina Prelimi- “nary Dissertation, of about a hundred pages. The research to which the writing of this dis- ’ gertation led the author, drew his attention to the formation and structure of the language in a peculiar manner, and induced him afterward to examine with close attention, both the language itself, and every thing written on the subject which fellin his way. The liberality with which the Chinese work was encouraged, rendering it necessary to print a second edition of the first volume and the Dissertation before the second appeared, the author, on examining the materials he had been collecting since the first edition was published, found it impossible to compress them within the limits of a preliminary dissertation, without suppressing the greater part of them; upon which he determined on submitting the whole to the candor of the public ina separate work, resembling the Preliminary Dissertation indeed in its arrangement, but containing more than five times its original quantity of matter.

Before an account be given of the work itself, however, the author anticipates a very natural query, namely, on what ground he, who, though a resident in India, is at the distance of at least two hundred leagues from China, can be supposed to possess those advantages which may authorize his attempting to unfold the nature of the Chinese language. To this query, a simple recital of the train of circumstances which led bim to engage in the study, though trifling in themselves, may possibly form at answer.

On the author's arrival in India in the year 1799, ideas which the perusal of accounts relative to the Chinese empire, history, &c. had excited in his mind even in his earliest youth, A oe ee et we eee eR ee ie ee Se ill et a ll PREFACE.

recurred anew; and he found it impossible, when so near China, to divest himself wholly of the wish to become fully acquainted with both its history, and its language. The study of Bengalee and Sungskrit, however, seemed a paramount duty, and it was not till nlore than three years after his arrival, that he found hithself at liberty to gratify his wishes relative to Chinese ; when his brethren, on reviewing the various languages into which it appeared possible to attempt translating the Scriptures, advised him to devote himself with that view to the Chinese language. Finding the way thus open for him to indulge those wishes so long felt, he made every inquiry in his power respecting the nature of the language, and the most effectual means of acquiring it. He was however able to do little more thau ascertain more clearly the object in view, till Mr. Lassar’s arrival in Calcutta in the year 1805, when the Rey. Dr. Buchanan propesed to the author to enter on a course of study under him, with a view to the translation of the Scriptures. On his acceding, Dr. Buchanan persuaded Mr, Lassarto remove to Serampore, where he generously supported him the first year at his own expense.

‘As Mr. L. brought with him the best authors in the language, and two natives of Chia, the author found his wishes relative to Chinese, as he then thought, gratified to the utmost. Here, however, ditliculties were to be surmounted: he had no dictionary or vocabulary of that language either in English or Latin; and Mr. L. knew little more of Euglish than he himself knew of Chinese : the labour therefore of beginning to study Chinese in Chinese, without being assisted by a single sentence from a Chinese author translated into any language, was such as sometimes nearly staggered his resolution. With these means however, he was at Jencth enabled to bring the first volume of Confucius through the press; three months after which he, for the first time, saw a Latin Chinese dictionary. This circumstance, which he owed to the politeness of the Catholic Missionary, P. Rodrigues, who, after spending twenty years in China, (and ten of them at Peking, as he informed the author,) was then proceeding to the Brazils, formed to him quite a new era in the study of Chinese. It cleared up numerous obscurities in the language, and removed a mutitude of doubts which unavoidably harrassed him in groping hisway in anunknown path with so littlelight. The assistance he thus obtained convinced him, that had he been furnished from the beginning with due helps, he should have made a greater progress in the language with far less labour. Still however he felt that the absence

~ of them was not without its advantages. It had compelled him to form his own judgment of

PREFACE. | it

‘the nature of the language: had he been favored from the beginning with the helps furnished by the labours of the Catholic missionaries, he should probably have been led to acquiesce implicitly in their ideas, and to tread precisely in their track ; but having previously acquired ’ some idca of the language, he was now enabled to appreciate what they had done, and to

~ avail himself fully of their labours, while he still examined things for himself. As the Misstonary, P. Rodrigues resided eight months in Calcutta, this enabled him to avail himself of his po-

liteness to the full extent of his wishes rolative to various points both in the grammar, and the prouuuciation of the janguage; which he gratefully takes this opportunity of achnowledging.

Early in 1810, arrived at Calcutta from China, where he had resided for several years with the view of studying the language, Thomas Manning, Esq. who to an exquisite relish for the beauties of the Roman and Greek classics, adds a most respectable knowledge of Chinese. To the conversation and the frequent discussions he had with this gentleman, on tne nature of Chinese, during his stay in Calcutta, a period of six months, he feels himself indebted for many ideas respecting the language, particularly its Tones, which, but for these discussions, had perhaps for ever escaped his research. With Mr. Manning’s Chinese teacher, who had studied at Peking, he also had an opportunity of examining anew tiie monosyllables of the language with a view to the Peking pronunciation.

Such then was the way in whicli the author was led to engage in Chinese, and such, with the study of their best works, and daily conversation with his Chinese assistants, the means by which he has been enabled to collect and digest those ideas respecting the nature, origin, and peculiarities of the language, which he now submits to the judgment of the public.

The chief object of the following work is to iilustrate the Grammar and Construction of the Chinese language ; but ina language which differs so entirely from all others, it seemed impossible to do justice to either its Written or Colloquial medium, within the space generally allotted in other grammars to the letters and their various powers. To the author they seemed to deserve a separate essay: the grammatical part of the work is therefore preceded by a Preliminary Essay on the Characters and Colloquial medium of the Chinese. A 2

1V | PREFACE,

In the First Part of the PRELIMINARY Essay, which isdevoted to the Characters, an attempt is made to ascertain their Origin. Respecting thisthe documents are scanty ; but the probability is, that they must have been invented at an early period. In the six lines ascribed to the emperor Yu,* so many characters occur with the same sound, that had not the stanza been delivered in the written character,‘it is scarcely probable that it would have been preserved. The author has then endeavoured, he trusts with some decree of success, to trace the Formation of the characters, from the simplest of them to those most complicated in their form. It is pretty evident, that from certain delinations of the chief objects of nature, suflicicntly rude, it 1s true, but still such as a strong fancy might associate with the object, sprang the two hundred and fourteen Elements. Certain expressions of ideas once fixed upon, these formed a basis on which to erecta superstructure. Some of them were soon applied ficuratively; in other cases certain additions placed above, below, or within, the original character, were supposed capable of representing otherideas. Atlength two significant characters were combined with the view of representing by the union of the two, a third, which, in the opinion of the writer, partuok in some degree of the qualities of both. This once attempted, an almost boundless field presented itself to the view; each’ of these compound characters, became in its turn a primitive or root, to which an element, the licad, the hand, the foot; fire, water, earth, stone, air, &c. beingadded, another idea was presented to the mind, If to a thousand of these primitives, only a hundred of the elements had been added, the result would have been a hundred thousand characters, produced by the combination of only three elements; but in perusing this es-

say, the reader will find, that these triple compounds are still in many instances the primitive or root of a new character : in some cases this is extended to five, aud in a few even to six elements united in one character, which however, still expresses only one idea. Thus then the reader will find, that from two hundred and fourteen Elements, proceed about one thousand six hundred Primitives; which producing each from three to seventy four Derivatives, constitute the great mass of the Chinese written language.

rity of existence been regarded, the latter part of the Essay, which treats ofthe Colwould have preceded that on the Characters; as the Chinese, like other na-

Had prio loquial medium,

PREFACE.

tions, conversed with each other long before they began to write. But-.the superior importance of the written medium seemed to entitle it to the priority: in recurring to Chinese, our minds are naturally carried to the Characters, which, commensurate in number with the ideas they are intended to express, aud equally perspicuous in every age, as well as in every part of form the vehicle through which their best writers have conveyed instruction for the empire, ther than to the Colloquial medium, so contracted in its powers, nearly four thousand years, ra and varying ina certain degree in every province.

We are not however to infer that the Colloquial medium is unworthy of notice. Contracted as it may be, it has been from time immemorial the vehicle of oral communication throughout one of the largest empires in the world; and how a language containing little more than five hundred monosyllables, can have answered the same purposes as the most copious polysyllabic languages, may well form a subject of enquiry. Respecting them the mind seems naturally to ask, What are these monosyllables, which have, for thousands of years, performed so important a function? Have they been formed at random? or have they an intimate connexion with each other? Are they ofakind peculiar to themselves? or did they spring from any other language? These are questions which are treated pretty much at length in the Second part of the Preliminary Essay; the reader will there find the Sounds _ traced to their respective classes, the Initial and Final powers of the Colloquial medium fully detailed, and all the Monosyllables in the language given in Four Tables. After this, an enquiry is instituted respecting their probable origin, in which the fundamental sounds of the Chinese colloquial system are compared with those in the Hebrew alphabet, and the likeness shewn to be so faint, as to render it almost impossible that they could be derived from that source: this idea seems confirmed by an examination of the changes induced in forming various alphabetic systems from each other, as the Greck alphabet from the Phenician, and the Roman from the Greek. The fundamental sounds in the Chinese system are then compared with those in the Sungskrit alphabet, and a similarity evinced to exist, which may well furnish matter for enquiry. The author however, as he has no system to merely stating facts as they appeared to him, leaving bis readers to form their own judgment.

support, has contented himself with a

For much of the latter part of this Preluminary Essay the author has to apologize, as not comvi . ) PREFACE.

ing strictly within the limits of his work. It is, the inquiry into the prevalence of the Chinese colloquial system in the alphabetic systems of certain surrounding nations, as the Tibet or Bootan alphabetic system, the Rukhung, the Burman, the Siamese, &c. which ends in shewing, that in the two latter and the former, the Sungskrit alphabetic system meets, and is greatly modified by the Chinese colloquial system, the Sungskrit alphabet appearing to have gone eastward to the precise point where the Chinese characters are disused ; where, probably by the previous prevalence of the Chinese colloquial medium, it is compelled to assume sounds, and subject itself to tones, quite unknown in Hindoosthan. This examination led the author farther to enquire respecting the means by which the Sungskrit alphabet was thus carried towards China; and as it appeared highly probable that Boudhism was the medium, he could not resist the wish to avail himself of the advantages afforded by his situation and connections, for resuming the enquiry relative to the period in which this celebrated Hindoo Heresiarch lived, the result of which, the reader will perceive, affords presumptive proof, that this adversary of the Brahmans, the celebrated Chinese sage, the philosopher Pythagoras, and possibly Vyasa, the collector of the Vedas, lived within a few years of each other. To this digression suceeds an account of the Chinese Tones, which, with a few remarks on the Canton pronunciation, concludes the Preliminary Essay. .

This brings the reader to the GRAMMAR, which forms the great body of the work. In treating of the language grammatically, some dithculty occurred: the Chinese have in reality no ideas of grammar corresponding with ours; and while the Sungskrit language abounds with grammatical works, the author has not been able to obtain the least idea of any treatise of this nature in the Chinese language. - The plan therefore, and the mode of execution, remained to be formed : and to him the most likely method of illustrating the language, seemed to be, that of confirming cach position by examples from their best works, and of noticing carefully under each of the parts of speech any thing peculiar to the language. = These are arranged under the five general divisions of Substantives, Adjectives, Pronouns, Verbs, and Particles, under which last are included the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunction, and the Interjection. To these is subjoined a sixth upon Chinese Syntax.

In selecting Examples for the elucidation of the parts of speech, the nature of the language

PREFACE, : Vil seemed to the author far more likely to be unfolded by including various authors in the selection, than by confining it to one, however excellent. Hence although Confucius is esteemed and férhaps with justice, the standard of Chinese style, recourse is had not only to all his works, but to Tsung-tse, his disciple, the author of the Ta-Ayoh ; to the sage’s grandson Tse-se, who compiled the Choong-ycung ; and above all to Mung, who lived nearly two bhundred years afier the sage. Nor did it seem advisable to confine it to the works produced in one age, or one period of literature ; recourse has been had, herefore, to the whole of the Five King; to the £e-king begun by Fooh hee, (Fo-hi;) and elucidated by the remarks of the great Tchycu, and of the sage himself ;—the Shoo-king which treats of Yao, Shun, Yu, and Thang, the ancient Chinese emperors,—-the Shee-king, the Collection of Odes so much extolled by Confucins,—the Lee-khee, the great pattern and directory for Chinese manners and government; as well as tothe Tchin-ts’'hyeu, written by Confucius. Nor is it restricted indeed to the writings of those two periods : the commentaries of Chyu-hee and others, which owe their origin to the revival of literature under the Soong dynasty, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian ara, and which in bulk far exceed the original text of Con- Jucius and Mung, appeared too valuable to be overlooked ina erammar of the language: if the style of them be less concise and energetic than that of Mung, Confucius, and the more,ancient authors, it is still pure and perspicuous in a high degree, and well calculated to illustrate the genius of the language. Recourse is also had to the ‘Annals of China,’ a work in forty two small vols. which extends upward to the period when the invention of fire was not as yet applied to the purposes of life, when the Chinese covered themselves with raw hides, and dwelt inthe woods ignorant of marriage and the ties of blood; and downward to the accession of the present dynasty in A.D. 164). The Koo-2cun, also, a work in ten volumes, written by various hands, and often quoted in the Imperial Dictionary, has furnished its quota of examples; and the Koo se-tshin-yuen, a valuable work intwo volumes, written in the fifteenth century, has been occasionally quoted. Nor have the works of the present day been overlooked; a modern and very copious Comment on the Four Books, has furnished several useful examples ; and even the lichter pieces, &c. which contain forms of construction not esteemed admissible into graver compositions, have been occasionally used to illustrate a more familiar mode of expression: and where it appeared necessary, recourse has been had to correct modes of Colloquial expression. As the various parts of speech, and the syutax of the language, are thus illustrated

Vill PREFACE.

by nearly Five Hundred examples, selected from the writings of above three thousand years, the author feels a hope, that if the real nature of the language be not fully laid upon, there is yet such a foundation laid, as will eventually secure its being done. It was with this view that he preferred the labour of selecting examples from written works, to that of forming verbal ones; which method, though far more easy, would have carried in it less of sterling evidence; as verbal examples, formed on the spur of the occasion, must depend on the fancy and taste of the speaker, while examples from works which have stood the test of ages, remove all doubt, and, when accurately cited, place it withinthe power of others to detect any error in their application to the rule in question.

It may perhaps be urged, that a language so simple as the Chinese, surely needed nota grammar of above three hundred pages to lay it open; to which it may be replied, that had the olject beenmerely that of affirming things, instead of substantiating them, a far less number of pages would have sufficed ; and an Abridgement of this work, which will merely state grammatical positions explained at large elsewhere, may perliaps be brought into a fourth of the letterpress included in this work. But when it was necessary to substantiate every position, it seemed desirable that this should be done by examples from the best writings in the language. Further, as in so great a body of examples, many historical facts, and allusions to the manners, customs, and peculiar ideas of the Chinese, are necessarily brought before the reader, it appeared desirable to introduce them by some brief account of the context, in order to render them intelligible. Besides, in a language so singular in its construction, the mind seems to require something like an examination into the nature of the positions adduced, and some kind of enquiry respecting the analogy they bear to those in other languages, or to general grammar: the fact is therefore, that brevity has been studied to keep the volume from swelling toa much larger size,

On examining the various parts of speech, the reader will perceive, that the whole of Chinese Grammar turns on Position. Inflection, which constitutes so important a part of the granimar of other languages is wholly excluded by the nature of the Chinese language, Were

PREFACE. a inflections to the number of only seren,* the utmost number an English verb admits, to be added to, (say) ten thousand characters, it would increase them to seventy thousand ; and were they added to thirty thousand, the number would be swelled to above two hundred thousand, which would render the language too unwieldy for use. A Chinese character, therefore, simply expresses an idea; but whether that idea shall represent a Thing, a Quality inherent in some other thing, or an Action, must be ascertained wholly by its position, as in the English word sound, which, if preceded by an article, isa substantive, (a sound;) by 4 personal pronoun, a verb, (I sound, they sound;) if it receive an object, it becomes an active, or even a causal verb, (they sound the bell;) and lastly, if we adda substantive to the word with the article prefixed, by the caprice of the English language it becomes an adjective, (a sound vessel.) Thus does position alone, or, its being surrounded with certain other words, | vary a word even in English, though custom renders us almost insensible to the fact. But while position thus imparts to numerous Chinese characters the force of divers parts of speech, there are many which either constant use, or the nature of the idea they represent, restrict almost wholly to one part: thus some characters, as aN yin, a man, &e. are seldom used but as substantives, and a few others are-on the same principle seldom found but as verbs. The alternate use of characters as sien le and adjectives admits of fewer exceptions; ize had, ‘good,’ is also * goodness; 5) EF kao, ‘high,’ is also ‘ heighth ;’ and Ee foo, ‘rich,’ is occasionally ‘ riches ;’and on the other hand A= yin, § goodness,’ is also ‘ good ;’ and eH chee, ‘ wisdom,’ is often ‘wise:’ so little difference do the Chinese observe indeed between the quality in the abstract and as existing in some subject, that it is often doubtful which of the two ideas a character was primarily intended to express. | With this exception, which by no means affects the general principle, the whole of Chinese Grammar depends on position.

A brief view of the various parts of the Grammar may not be useless. In examining the Substantives, the reader will find, that with Prepositive characters, so essential to the perspiculty of language, the Chinese are suthciently furnished, Even here, however, the grand sent of the Chinese language is apparent: there are scarcely three of these prepositives which are not rendered so by position, and which have not another meaning when they do not precede a

* Love-est-s-cth ; lov-ed-st-ing. &B x | PREFACE.

substantive. A little reflection indeed will convince us, that this in Chinese results from necessity: if a character be prefixed to another, it must be, to express a certain idea; but if this idea were not previously associated with the prepositiye character, it could convey none when prefixed.—lIn treating of the Adjectives, the Numerals appeared too important a class to be passed over in silence: an enquiry is therefore made respecting their probable antiquity. To this enquiry, and the examination of the various modes of Notation among the Chinese, the reader will find above twenty pages devoted.

In the Pronouns, which in Chinese form the various persons of the Verb, the reader will find the language by no means deficient." ‘The chief of these are also pronouns ab origine, which is substantiated by quotations from their most ancient works. He will also find all the different classes of pronouns in Chinese, which exist in the most polished Western languages, as Personal, and Interrogative pronouns ; Demonstratives, Possessives; the Distributive, the Indefinite, and Collective pronouns, in which latter class the language is rich beyond many others.—Relative to Number as applied to the pronouns, however, he will find a considerable variation between the style of conversation, and that of their best works; in the latter, the characters used in conversation to mark the number, are almost entirely unknown: an attempt is therefore made to trace the period of their introduction, which may possibly not be displeasing to the reader.—The feature which distinguishes the pronouns in the Indian lan-

guages, that of expressing Superiority by one class of pronouns, and Inferiority by another, is carried to a much greater length in Chinese, but in a different manner: to this part of the subject therefore, a separate section is allotted.

In treating of the Verbs, their various kinds are first considered, in examining which the reader will perceive the Chinese deficient in scarcely any one kind found even in the Greek language. But the Passive verb he will find to be formed in a manner peculiar to the genius of the Chinese language: the character which forms the passive verb, becomes either the verbal noun, or the participle; that is, either a substantive, or an adjective. In the former case the passive verb is formed by causing another verb which denotes receiving, &c. to govern this ' verbalnoun, as ‘I receive his beating ;’ in the latter, by admittiug with the passive participle

PREBACE. | - xi a verb denoting existence, ability, &c. As this mode of construction however, is not always concise, the best Chinese writers, who knew nothing of verbs active or passive, have adopted it in comparatively few instances.—Respecting Moods, the reader will find that the Chinese language, without expressly naming the thing, contains examples of nearly every mode of action occurring in the Western languages: the Indicative, the Imperative, the Subjunctive, the Optative, &c. are exemplified by examples drawn from their best works.—Nor will the Tenses appear scarcely less clear. ,.The simple verb is an Aorist, and has occasionally a past and a future meaning, as well as that of the present; the Present Definite is characterized by an adverbial character marking the present; the Preterperfect is formed by auxiliary verbs, and the addition of the time of the action constitutes what is termed, The Past connected with Time, which occasionally supplies the place of our Imperfect and Pluperfect. Inthe Future there is a degree of variety, there being one form to express the mere futurity of an action, and another to denote will or determination. | On the head of Person and Number, the reader will find little more than the pronouns have furnished, as it is wholly the application of these to a character which forms both these distinctions. A view is then taken of the Substantive verbs, and of certain verbs which properly deserve the title of Auxiliary or Helping verbs. These, with a few observations on the nature of Chinese verbs, finish the fourth part of the grammar.

The Chapter on Particles includes the various kinds of Adverbs; the Prepositions and Postpositions ; and the Conjunctions, which are arranged in three classes, as Copulative, - Continuative, aud Disjunctive. | Aview of the Interjections as expressing admiration, surprize, anger, grief, pity, concludes this part of the grammar. A sixth division embraces Syntax. | Under this head, the reader will find.a section on Compound Words, which are a class of words highly important in Chinese: among the first of these, are certain Particles, styled generic, for want of amore appropriate name: they are such as are applied to certain substantives, to mark the class or kind to which they belong; to which our ‘piece, suit, case, pair, &c.’ bear some resemblance. <A few such are found in the Bengalee and other Indian languages; but in the Chinese they amount to more than eighty, which are here given, and exemplified by suitable sentences. After these follow Compounds used to express rank or pro-

B 3 xil > PREFACE.

fession in life; certain formed by repeating the same character ;' those formed by uniting two synonyms, and compounds formed by two characters differing from each other in meaning. Then follow remarks on the Syntax of Nouns, including the formation of compounds by the addition of AS tchyéa, and the application of the Genitive particles, which alone solve ma. 2 ny of the difficulties in Chinese construction. These are followed by remarks on the Syntax of Adjectives, of the Pronoun, the Verb, and the Particles. To this is added a short section on

Chinese Punctuation.

After examining the language thus far, it appeared desirable to take a cursory view of Chinese

Prosody. This the reader will find accordingly traced from the first appearance of poetic num-

bers among them, to the state of poetry atthe present day, and the rules of Prosody laid down,

’ and illustrated by examples from their poetic works.—In a language so extensive in ifs use, it seemed proper to enquire also respecting its Dialects. Here the reader will find some reflec-