EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 1 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 21 Kremnyov Evgeni (Irkutsk Euro-Asian Linguistic Institute (Branch of Moscow State Linguistic University)) Analysis of Structural Development of Chinese Characters by Y.V. Bunakov Key words: Russian sinology, ideographic writing, grammatology of Chinese writing system, omopho- nograms, kinegrams, syntegrams The paper summarizes some results of the research “National works in the field of Chinese writing system during the period from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of 20th century” made with the grant support of Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation. In particular, the paper deals with the analysis of the evolutional development of the Chinese writing system by the Russian sinologist of the first half of 20th century Y. V. Bunakov. His view to the structural development of Chinese characters are presented in the article “The Chinese writing system” in 1940. This system is not well known at the present time, but it retains its relevance and may be useful for modern grammatology. Mu Yezi (Ghent University) The Development of Adverb QIE 且 in Medieval Chinese Key words: QIE, Expressions of Tense and Modality, Medieval Chinese, Diachronic Analysis, Lan- guage Contact In the history of ancient Chinese language, the adverb QIE had multiple functions in various genres of text of different time periods. Unlike many other adverbs of tense, aspect and modality in world languages, QIE did not follow the generally accepted paths of development from deontic modality to epistemic modality and from obligation to a future tense (see Bybee et al. 1994). Instead it developed in a very different way. From having diverse functions inArchaic Chinese, QIE changed into a marker solely of deontic modality in Old Mandarin. This paper aims to offer a detailed analysis on the semantic and syntactic features of the adverb “QIE” in various genres of texts in Medieval Chinese (e.g. historical records, Chinese Buddhist translations, and narratives) in order to reveal how QIE gradually lost some of its functions while strengthening the use as a marker of deontic modality. The comparison between QIE and other words of a similar function such as JIANG ( 將 ) and the inves- tigation on the possible Sanskrit counterparts of sentences with QIE in Chinese Buddhist texts indicate that many factors such as the competition with other markers, and the language contact with Indic languages through the translation of Buddhist texts may be influential to the diachronic development of the adverb QIE. Reference: Joan Bybee, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Paris Marie-Claude (Paris Diderot Universty) On Hypothetical Subordinate Clauses in Mandarin Chinese Key words: hypothetical clauses, subordinator, connector, distribution In this paper I will describe and explain the distribution (i) of (some) hypothetical subordinate clauses in Mandarin, (ii) of the grammatical markers contained in them. I will try to explain why the jiu/cai alternation is not allowed in all hypothetical clauses. The correlative relationship between the subordinator ruguo and its correlator jiu in the main clause is present in (1), but absent in (2) below. As a result, though the syntax of (1) and (2) is (almost) identical, their semantics is not: (1) is not ambiguous, but (2) is. (01) wo ruguo mingtian you kong de hua, jiu daying pei ni qu kan dianying. (02) ni bu lai, wo bu zou.