RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241
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 I am told that in WRONG WRANN-NGRR (WANG Yun-wu)87's great dictionary, still unpublished, there were more than a million entries under this word.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
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593
168

C. MARTIN WILBUR

Su, Sing Ging; The Chinese Family System. New York, International Press, 1922.

Tang, Chi-yu; An Economic Study of Chinese Agriculture. No place, no pub., 1924. (Cornell University Ph.D. Thesis.)

Tayler, J. B.; See: Malone, C. B., and Tayler, J. B.

Tsu, Yu-yue; The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy; a Study in Mutual Aid. New York, Columbia, 1912.

Tyau, Min-ch'ien (Ed); Two Years of Nationalist China. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1930.

Werner, E. T. C.; China of the Chinese. London, Pitman, 1920. Werner, E. T. C.; Descriptive Sociology: or Groups of Sociological Facts, Classified and Arranged by Herbert Spencer. Chinese; Compiled and Abstracted upon the Plan Organized by Herbert Spencer. London, Williams and Norgate, 1910. (Folio no. 9 of series).

Wilhelm, Richard; A Short History of Chinese Civilization. (Translated by Joan Joshua). New York, Viking, 1929.

Williams, Edward T.; China Yesterday and Today. New York, Crowell, 1923.

Williams, Edward T.; A Short History of China. New York, Harpers, 1928.

Yen, James Y. C.; New Citizens for China. No place, Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement, 1929 (Reprint. Yale Review, vol. 18, No. 2)

II. USEFUL WORKS NOT CITED.

Brenan, Bryon; "The Office of District Magistrate in China" (Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 32, 1897-98, p. 36-65).

Chen, Ta; "Socio-economic Conditions in Two Chinese Villages” (Chinese Economic Monthly, vol. 2, no. 5, 1925, p. 11-23).

Chiao, C. M. and Buck, John L.; "The Composition and Growth of Population Groups in China" (Chinese Economic Journal, vol. 2, no. 3, 1928, p. 219-235),

"Chinese Clans and Their Customs" (Chinese and Japanese Repository, vol. 3, no. 23, 1865, p. 281-284).

Dickinson, Jean; Observations on the Social Life of a North China Village. (Chien Ying, Wu Ching Hsien) Oct.-Dec. 1924. Peking, Yenching, no date.

Fang, Fu-an; Chinese Labour; an Economic and Statistical Survey of the Labour Conditions and Labour Movement in China. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1931.

Gamble, Sidney D., and Burgess, John S.; Peking; a Social Survey. New York, Doran, 1921.

Halhoun, Gustov; "Contributions to the History of Clan Settlement in Ancient China” (Asia Major, vol. 1, 1924, p. 76-111, 587-623).
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