Reviewed by Michael W. Morgan, Addis Ababa University
The linguistics of space is a popular topic. This volume is a welcome addition to the wealth of literature on the linguistics of space that examines space in Chinese languages from new theoretical perspectives. It presents work on a wide variety of modern and ancient Sinitic languages and dialects, as well as non-Sinitic Bai and Chinese Sign Language.
After a preface (vii) explaining the project that produced the papers in this volume is an ‘Introduction: How Chinese structure space’ (1–12) by the editor, Dan Xu, in which he outlines the language situation in China.Although X focuses on Sinitic languages, fortunately this work also covers some non-Sinitic languages. After an overview of previous approaches to space with regard to languages of China, X introduces the notion of grammaticalization and Talmy’s typology of motion events, and then discusses adpositions and the impact of phonological change on syntax. Front matter includes two appendixes, a table of Chinese chronology (dynasties and dates) (13), and a map of the Sinitic languages (14). The remainder of the book falls into two sections, ‘Space: A cross-linguistic perspective’ (15–174) and ‘Space in synchronic and diachronic Chinese’ (175–266).
Section A begins with Hillary Chappell and Alain Peyraube’s ‘Chinese localizers: Diachrony and some typological considerations’ (15–37). The second paper is Danqing Liu’s ‘Syntax of space across Chinese dialects: Conspiring and competing principles and factors’ (39–67), which is followed by Christine Lamarre’s ‘The linguistic categorization of deictic direction in Chinese—with reference to Japanese’ (69–97) and Yunji Wu’s ‘The locative words in the Waxiang dialect spoken in Guzhang, Hunan’ (99–117). The first section closes with two papers on non-Sinitic languages of China: Jinqi Fu and Lin Xu’s ‘From locative to object markers: The parallel development of two postpositions in Bai’ (119–41) and Shun-chiu Yau’s ‘The role of visual space in sign language’ (143–74).
Section B opens with X’s ‘Asymmetry in the expression of space in Chinese—the Chinese language meets typology’ (175–98), followed by Chaofen Sun’s ‘Two conditions and grammaticalization of the Chinese locative’ (199–227). The topic of grammaticalization is continued in ‘Origin and evolution of the locative term hòu ‘BACK’ in Chinese’ (229–47). The final paper in this volume is Qingzhi Zhu and Wenjie Chen’s ‘The inessive structure in archaic and medieval Chinese: An evolutionary study of inessive demonstrative uses from archaic to early modern Chinese’ (249–66).
As references are given at the end of each paper, the end matter includes only Subject Index (267–70), Language Index (271–72), and Author Index (273–75).