Homework on Chinese (lecture by Prof. Yue, May 8, 2002)

Consult your notes and/or the overheads posted on the web to answer these questions.

1. Consider the set of personal pronouns in Mandarin Chinese (due to web limitations, tone is not notated.) They are arranged below in the standard manner grammars use for any language.

wo women

ni nimen

ta tamen

a. Which has a regular suffix for indicating plural in personal pronouns – English, Chinese, or both? Explain your answer briefly.

b. Does Chinese mark gender on pronouns? If so, how?

c. Does Chinese appear to distinguish inclusive from exclusive 1p.pl. pronouns?

d. Does Chinese appear to mark formal vs. informal 1p or 2p pronouns?

2. Name two morphological distinctions that are shown with obligatory suffixes on (regular) English words but which are not marked in Chinese.

3. In what way is counting in Chinese more complicated than it is in English, in terms of the number of morphemes or words you have to use? In what way is it less complicated, in terms of the number of morphemes that are used? Why might someone argue that all nouns in Chinese are mass nouns?

4. In English, the tone (pitch) of the voice rises (goes from low to high) on the word horse in the first sentence. But the pitch falls (goes from high to low) on horse in the second sentence.

a. Would you like to own a horse?

b. I would like to own a horse.

Yet we say that Chinese is a tone language and English isn’t. What’s the big difference in the way Chinese uses tone that makes it a tone language?

5. Tell us something you learned about the language or languages that the general term ‘Chinese’ refers to.

6. Chinese has no articles. What is one way in each the distinction between definite [e.g. 'the book'] and indefinite [e.g. 'a book'] nouns is indicated in Chinese? 
 
7. What is the typical word order in Chinese? Does Chinese have cases?
 
8. Explain why adjectives are considered a type of verb in Chinese.