112
K. M. A. BARNETT
Appendix I applies this method of analysis to phrases with the word JHAT. This includes the uses with measure-words and classifiers, but it far from exhausts the uses of this little word, the first in the Chinese dictionary. I am told that in WRONG WRANN-NGRR (WANG Yun-wu)87's great dictionary, still unpublished, there were more than a million entries under this word.
And before we leave the subject of nouns may I draw your attention to the diagram at Fig. 1, which tries to show graphically the various states of a thing-word as identified in Chinese (outer ring) and English (inner ring).
And to prepare us for the next topic: verbs, or become-words, I have attempted a much more ambitious presentation at Fig. 2 showing by means of two wheels, that on the left for the aspects from inception clockwise to completion, and from thought in the centre to realization; that on the right for tense, mood and degree of certainty, the movement in time (outermost ring) being from past on the left clockwise to future on the right; certainty (innermost ring) in the reverse direction; and mood outwards from the wish in the centre, through command to statement or report: or as we might say from gerund through imperative to indicative.
Reducing four dimensions to two was not easy, and it doesn't quite come off. I shall be delighted if anyone will improve on it.
The verb is the essence of living Chinese. I call it the become-word, because a large class of what we would call adjectives behave syntactically just as though they were verbs; as they do in Japanese, and in the Semitic languages. There is also very free movement of nouns into this class, and the word CHEAH which we had just now as a noun meaning motor-car or sewing-machine (and a host of other things, such as a propeller, a winnowing-fan, a lathe and every kind of wheeled vehicle) appears as a very common verb meaning to turn (on a lathe), to sew (on a machine), to drive or carry (on any vehicle), to winnow, to push a barrow, to mow a lawn, and by a delightful logical leap, as an abbreviation for CHEAH-DRAAIPAAU89 "to tell fibs". In this respect, the growing flexibility of English is approaching Chinese. One is tempted to echo the late Gustav Haloun, who said that in
86 -
87 王雲五88
89 車大