Zhiming Bao | National University of Singapore (original) (raw)

Papers by Zhiming Bao

Research paper thumbnail of Toward a Typology of Tone Sandhi

Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2014

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session... more Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on The Typology of Tone Languages (1992)

Research paper thumbnail of Tone, accent and stress in Chinese1

Since Pike (1948), the world's extant tone languages are often classified into two types : terrac... more Since Pike (1948), the world's extant tone languages are often classified into two types : terraced-level tone systems, typical of African languages, and contour tone systems, typical of Asian languages. While it no doubt obscures the tonological diversity within each system, the Africanist-Asianist dichotomy is nevertheless descriptively convenient. For some reason, students of nonlinear phonology rely heavily on tonal phenomena of African languages. In post-SPE generative phonology, it is the tonological behavior of these languages that ultimately liberates tone and, subsequently, other phonological features, from the confines of the simultaneous bundle, a notion that is central to the segmentalism of SPE representation (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968). In the literature of nonlinear phonology, tonal phenomena of Asian languages play a supporting role-they are typically used to argue either for or against the universality of tonological processes found in African languages. Against this backdrop, Chen's book is a welcome addition to tonological scholarship in general, and to Chinese tonology in particular. The book is large in scope. It has eleven chapters, a brief concluding section and a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly works on Chinese tone. Chapter 1 outlines the synchronic and diachronic properties of tone and tone sandhi in Chinese, and explains the traditional nomenclature, such as the tonal categories PING 'level ', SHANG 'rising ', QU ' departing' and RU ' entering ', and the registers YIN (high) and YANG (low). Readers who are not familiar with Chinese and Chinese linguistics will find the chapter informative. The remaining chapters deal with the central leitmotifs of Chinese tonology : the internal structure of tone (chapter 2), the mechanism of tone sandhi (chapters 3

Research paper thumbnail of Tonal Contour and Register Harmony in Chaozhou

Linguistic Inquiry, 1999

... Some Chinese dialects, for instance, exhibit tone sandhi behaviors that are remarkably simila... more ... Some Chinese dialects, for instance, exhibit tone sandhi behaviors that are remarkably similar to those found in African languages; see Chen 1996. 2 All Chaozhou data are cited from Cai 1991, which is based on the Jieyang subdialect. See also Li 1959 and Yuan et al. 1989. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Abstraction, Ming-Shi and Problems of Translation

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 1987

Research paper thumbnail of Review of “Sinitic grammar: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives” by Hillary Chappell

Functions of Language, 2003

Research paper thumbnail of Systemic transfer, topic prominence, and the bare conditional in Singapore English

Journal of Pidgin and Creole languages, 2005

Colloquial Singapore English has a novel conditional construction in which the conditional clause... more Colloquial Singapore English has a novel conditional construction in which the conditional clause is not marked morphosyntactically, and must precede the consequent clause. We show that Singapore English, like Chinese, the main substrate language, is topic prominent, and the novel conditional construction is a direct consequence of this new typological status. We analyze the unmarked conditional clause as topic, a basic syntactic position in topic prominent languages. Our analysis shows that substrate influence is systemic: the entire cluster of properties associated with topic prominence is transferred from Chinese to Singapore English.

Research paper thumbnail of The aspectual system of Singapore English and the systemic substratist explanation

Journal of Linguistics, 2005

is a contact language with a constant linguistic substratum and superstratum. It lends itself to ... more is a contact language with a constant linguistic substratum and superstratum. It lends itself to an interesting case study on how linguistic neologisms emerge out of a pool of competing features from the typologically distinct languages active in the contact ecology. This paper investigates the aspectual system of Singapore English and that of Chinese, the main substrate language, and of English, the lexical-source language. Despite the presence of competing aspectual categories from the two languages, the aspectual system of Singapore English is essentially the Chinese system filtered through the morphosyntax of English. Substrate influence is systemic, and the competing grammatical subsystems do not mix.

Research paper thumbnail of Toward a Typology of Tone Sandhi

Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2014

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session... more Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on The Typology of Tone Languages (1992)

Research paper thumbnail of Tone, accent and stress in Chinese1

Since Pike (1948), the world's extant tone languages are often classified into two types : terrac... more Since Pike (1948), the world's extant tone languages are often classified into two types : terraced-level tone systems, typical of African languages, and contour tone systems, typical of Asian languages. While it no doubt obscures the tonological diversity within each system, the Africanist-Asianist dichotomy is nevertheless descriptively convenient. For some reason, students of nonlinear phonology rely heavily on tonal phenomena of African languages. In post-SPE generative phonology, it is the tonological behavior of these languages that ultimately liberates tone and, subsequently, other phonological features, from the confines of the simultaneous bundle, a notion that is central to the segmentalism of SPE representation (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968). In the literature of nonlinear phonology, tonal phenomena of Asian languages play a supporting role-they are typically used to argue either for or against the universality of tonological processes found in African languages. Against this backdrop, Chen's book is a welcome addition to tonological scholarship in general, and to Chinese tonology in particular. The book is large in scope. It has eleven chapters, a brief concluding section and a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly works on Chinese tone. Chapter 1 outlines the synchronic and diachronic properties of tone and tone sandhi in Chinese, and explains the traditional nomenclature, such as the tonal categories PING 'level ', SHANG 'rising ', QU ' departing' and RU ' entering ', and the registers YIN (high) and YANG (low). Readers who are not familiar with Chinese and Chinese linguistics will find the chapter informative. The remaining chapters deal with the central leitmotifs of Chinese tonology : the internal structure of tone (chapter 2), the mechanism of tone sandhi (chapters 3

Research paper thumbnail of Tonal Contour and Register Harmony in Chaozhou

Linguistic Inquiry, 1999

... Some Chinese dialects, for instance, exhibit tone sandhi behaviors that are remarkably simila... more ... Some Chinese dialects, for instance, exhibit tone sandhi behaviors that are remarkably similar to those found in African languages; see Chen 1996. 2 All Chaozhou data are cited from Cai 1991, which is based on the Jieyang subdialect. See also Li 1959 and Yuan et al. 1989. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Abstraction, Ming-Shi and Problems of Translation

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 1987

Research paper thumbnail of Review of “Sinitic grammar: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives” by Hillary Chappell

Functions of Language, 2003

Research paper thumbnail of Systemic transfer, topic prominence, and the bare conditional in Singapore English

Journal of Pidgin and Creole languages, 2005

Colloquial Singapore English has a novel conditional construction in which the conditional clause... more Colloquial Singapore English has a novel conditional construction in which the conditional clause is not marked morphosyntactically, and must precede the consequent clause. We show that Singapore English, like Chinese, the main substrate language, is topic prominent, and the novel conditional construction is a direct consequence of this new typological status. We analyze the unmarked conditional clause as topic, a basic syntactic position in topic prominent languages. Our analysis shows that substrate influence is systemic: the entire cluster of properties associated with topic prominence is transferred from Chinese to Singapore English.

Research paper thumbnail of The aspectual system of Singapore English and the systemic substratist explanation

Journal of Linguistics, 2005

is a contact language with a constant linguistic substratum and superstratum. It lends itself to ... more is a contact language with a constant linguistic substratum and superstratum. It lends itself to an interesting case study on how linguistic neologisms emerge out of a pool of competing features from the typologically distinct languages active in the contact ecology. This paper investigates the aspectual system of Singapore English and that of Chinese, the main substrate language, and of English, the lexical-source language. Despite the presence of competing aspectual categories from the two languages, the aspectual system of Singapore English is essentially the Chinese system filtered through the morphosyntax of English. Substrate influence is systemic, and the competing grammatical subsystems do not mix.