Cover not available

Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 47:2/3 (2020) ► pp.169–187

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Father Iakinf Bičurin’s theory of mental inflection in Chinese

 | Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow
Published online: 24 February 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00069.koz
Summary
The article deals with the highly original idea of mental inflection [умственное словоизменение] in Chinese put forward by the prominent nineteenth-century Russian sinologist Nikita (比丘林, Father Iakinf or Hyacinthus) Bičurin (1777–1853) in his Kitajskaja Grammatika (1835) and other language-related works. The concept refers to the internal features of Chinese morphology which compensate for the absence of common grammatical inflection. Fostered in an Humboldtian spirit, the theory established a link between covert categories and their surface representations a century before functional syntax appeared on the linguistic stage.
Résumé
Le présent article traite de l’idée hautement originale de flexion mentale, idée formulée au 19ème siècle par un sinologue russe de premier plan, le père Nikita (比丘林, père Iakinf ou Hyacinthus) Bičurin (1777–1853) dans sa Kitajskaja Grammatika (1835) ainsi que dans d’autres travaux connexes. La notion renvoie à ces traits internes de la morphologie chinoise qui compensent l’absence presque générale de flexion grammaticale. Incubée dans un esprit humboldtien, la théorie de Bičurin établissait un lien entre les catégories cachées et leurs représentations de surface, un siècle avant que la syntaxe fonctionnelle ne fasse son apparition.
Zusammenfassung
Der Artikel befasst sich mit der höchst originellen Idee der mentalen Flexion [умственное словоизменение] im Chinesischen, die der prominente russische Sinologe des 19. Jahrhunderts Nikita (比丘林, Pater Iakinf oder Hyacinthus) Bičurin (1777–1853) in seiner Kitajskaja Grammatika (1835) und anderen sprachbezogenen Werken formuliert hat. Der Begriff bezieht sich auf die internen Merkmale der chinesischen Morphologie, die das Fehlen einer gemeinsamen grammatikalischen Beugung kompensieren. Die im Humboldtschen Geist der europäischen Linguistik der Zeit Bičurins geförderte Theorie, stellte eine Verbindung zwischen verborgenen Kategorien und ihren Oberflächenrepräsentationen her – ein Jahrhundert bevor funktionale Syntax auf der linguistischen Bühne erschien.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The essence of Bičurin’s theory of mental inflection
  • 3.The origins of the theory of mental inflection
  • 4.The theoretical background to mental inflection
  • 5.Mental inflection and twentieth-century functional syntax
  • 6.In conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
References (58)
Bibliography
Archival sources
Bichurin, Iakinf. 1842. Golosowaya sistema kitaiskoy pismennosti Kalleri. Perevod I zamechaniya, napisannye dlya Akademii nauk v 1842 g. Голосовая система китайской письменности Каллери. Перевод и замечания, написанные для Академии наук в 1842 г. (The Phonetic System of the Chinese Writing by Callery. Translation and Comments Written for the Academy of Sciences in 1842). National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan: F. 10, Cat. 5, №847. 97 pp.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
A. Primary sources
Bičurin, Iakinf. Han’-vyn’ tsi Myn 漢文啓蒙. Kitajskaja Grammatika. Saint Petersburg, 1835. [Бичурин, Н. 漢文啓蒙 Хань-вынь-ци Мын. Китайская Грамматика, сочиненная монахом Иакинфом. Напечатанная по Высочайшему повелению. СПб, 1835.]
. 1840. Kitai, ego zhiteli, nravy, obychai, prosveschenie. Saint-Petersburg: Imperatorskaja Akademija nauk [Бичурин Н. Китай. Его жители, нравы, обычаи, просвещение. Санкт-Петербург: Императорская Академия наук]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002 [1842]. Statistical description of the Chinese Empire. Saint-Petersburg 1842, Moscow 2002: Vostočny dom [Статистическое описание Китайской империи (в двух частях). 1-е изд. СПб., 1842; 2-е изд. -- Пекин, 1910. – Москва, 2002: Восточный дом].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
B. Secondary sources
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. 1822. Élémens de la grammaire chinoise, ou Principes généraux du kou-wen ou style antique: et du kouan-hoa c’est-à-dire, de la langue commune généralement usitée dans l’Empire chinois. Paris: Imprimerie Royale.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bally, Charles. 1944. Linguistique générale et linguistique française. Berne: Francke.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breitenbach, Sandra. 2000. The Biographical, Historical and Grammatical Context of the Arte de la lengua mandarina (Canton 1703) composed by the Dominican Brother Francisco Varo., p. xix–liii, Introduction to W. South Coblin and Joseph Levi. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Missionary Linguistics in East Asia: The origins of religious language in the shaping of christianity. Frankfurt am Main & New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Dunstan. 2010. “Morphological Typology”. The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology ed. by Jae Jung Song, 487–503. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Callery, Joseph Marie. 1841. Systema Phoneticum Scripturae Sinicae. Vol. 1, 21. Macao.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carroll, John B., ed. 1956. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chappell, Hilary & Alain Peyraube. 2014. “The history of Chinese grammars in Chinese and Western scholarly traditions”. Language and History 57:2.113–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dacyshen, Vladimir. 2000. Istoria izuchenia kitaiskogo yazyka v Rossiyskoi imperii. История изучения китайского языка в Российской империи [The history of Chinese language studies in the Russian Empire]. Krasnojarsk: KGU.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Izuchenie kitaiskogo yazyka v Rossii (XVIII – nachalo XX vv.). Изучение китайского языка в России (XVIII – начало XX вв.) [Chinese language studies in Russia (18th to the early 20th century)]. Novosibirsk: NGU.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Denisov, Pjotr. 1997. Nikita Yakovlevich Bichurin: ocherk zhizni i tvorcheskoi deyatelnosti. Никита Яковлевич Бичурин: очерк жизни и творческой деятельности. Čeboksary: Čuvashskoje izd-vo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles. 1968. “The case for case”. Universals in Linguistic Theory ed. by Emmon Bach and Robert Harms, 1–25. London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gorelov, Vladimir I. 1984. Leksikologiia kitaiskogo iazyka. Uchebnoe posobie. Moscow: Prosveschenije.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harbsmeier, Christoph. 1979. Wilhelm Von Humboldts Brief an Abel-Remusat und die Philosophische Grammatik des Altchinesischen (= Grammatica Universalis, 17 ). Stuttgart & Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Science and Civilisation in China (Joseph Needham): Volume VII:1. Language and Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Härkönen, Pirkko. 1991. Review of Case Grammar. Studies in Descriptive Linguistics , Vol. 16 by Charles Fillmore, René Dirven & Günther Radden. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92:4.513–517. [JSTOR, [URL]. Accessed 28 Oct 2020.]
Hohlov, Belkin. 1978. Н.Я. Бичурин и Российская Академия наук // Юбилейная конференция Института востоковедения. Из истории науки 61.115–125.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Н.Я. Бичурин и его труды о Цинском Китае // Введение к изданию «Статистического описания Китайской Империи». Moscow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 1827. Lettre à M. Abel-Rémusat sur la nature des formes grammaticales en général et sur le génie de la langue chinoise en particulier. Digitized by BnF/Gallica. (Repr. with an introduction and notes by Jean Rousseau & Denis Thouard, eds., in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses sur la langue chinoise, Humboldt/Abel-Rémusat (1821–1831), Lille: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1999.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1907) [1830–35]. Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Wilhelm von Humbolds Werke, vol. I ed. by Albert Leitzmann, 1–349. Berlin, B. Behr’s Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1883. Die Sprachphilosophischen Werke Wilhelm von Humboldts. Ed. by Heymann Steinthal. Berlin: F. Dümmler.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Julien, Stanislas. 1869–70. Syntaxe nouvelle de la langue chinoise, fondée sur la position des mots. 21 vols. Paris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klöter, Henning. 2011. The Language of the Sangleys: A Chinese vernacular in missionary sources of the seventeenth century. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Korotkov, Nikolai. 1968. Osnovnye osobennosti morfologicheskogo stroia kitaiskogo iazyka (Grammaticheskaia priroda slova). [Коротков Н. Н. Основные особенности морфологического строя китайского языка (Грамматическая природа слова).] Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koža, Ksenija. 2015. “U istokov tradicii kritičeskogo lingvističeskogo analiza: Fonetičeskaja sistema kitajskoj pis’mennosti Dž. Kalleri v pročtenii I. Bičurina (po rukopisnym materialam pervoj polovini XIX v.)”, Vostočnye obsčestva: tradicii i sovremennost’, 521–532. Маterialy II S’еzdа vostokovedov stran SNG. Моscow & Bаku: SAM. «У истоков традиции критического лингвистического анализа: «Фонетическая система китайской письменности» Дж. Каллери в прочтении И. Бичурина (по рукописным материалам первой половины XIX в.» // Материалы II Съезда молодых востоковедов стран СНГ. Москва, Баку, 2014. С. 521–532.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koža, Ksenija. 2018. “Neskol’ko slov o teorii “umstvennogo izmenenija” v kitaevednych lingvističeskich trudach O. Iakinfa (Bičurina)” Vestnik Instituta Vostokovedenija RAN, 51, 179–185. «Несколько слов о теории «умственного изменения» в китаеведных лингвистических трудах о. Иакинфа (Бичурина)» [Some notes on mental inflection in the Chinese language – a theory of Father Iakinf Bichurin. Herald of the Institute of Oriental Studies (RAS) 51.179–185.]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kwan, Tze-wan 關子尹. 2001. “Wilhelm von Humboldt on the Chinese language: Interrelation and reconstruction”. 威海姆‧冯‧洪堡特的汉语理论: 解释与重建. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 29:2.169–242.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. 1929. A History of Christian Missions in China. Taipei: Ch’eng-wen Pub. Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leopardi, Alessandro. 2020. “La Grammatica cinese di Giacinto Bičurin”. PhD Thesis, Sapienza University, Rome. [URL]
Liu, Ruomei 柳若梅. 2004. 比丘林的《漢文啟蒙》和俄国历史上的汉语教学 “The “Chinese Enlightenment” of Bičurin 《漢文啟蒙》 and early Chinese studies in Russia”. Beijing:中华书局 Zhonghua shuju, 《汉语研究》 (Chinese Language Studies) 81. 302–317.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. 江沙维的《汉字文法》与比丘林的《汉文启蒙》 (“ Arte China of the Portuguese missionary J. A. Gonsalves and the Chinese grammar of the Russian Sinologist N. J. Bichurin”.) 华南师范大学学报(社会科学版, Journal of South China Normal University (Social Science Edition) 61.151–157.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. 俄国历史上第一部汉语语法书 (“The first Chinese Grammar Book in Russian History”.) 《福建师范大学学报(哲学社会科学版)》Journal of Fujian Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition) 21.138–147.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Losonsky, Michael. 1999. “Introduction”. Humboldt: “On Language”. On the Diversity of Human Language Construction and its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species (= Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy ) ed. by Michael Losonsky, trans. by Peter Heath, vii–xxxiv. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lundbæk, Knud. 1991. Joseph de Prémare (1666–1736), S.J.: Chinese Philology and Figurism (= Acta Jutlandica, LXVI: 2, Humanities Series, 65.). Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ma, Songting 马松亭. 1986. Hànyŭ yŭfǎxué shĭ 汉语语法学史 (History of the Grammar of the Chinese Language). Hefei: 安徽教育出版社 Anhui Jiaoyu Chubanshe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mungello, David E. 1989. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myasnikov, Vladimir & Irina Popova. 2002. “Vklad o. Iakinfa v mirovuju sinologiju. K 225-letiju so dnya rozhdenija člena-korrespondenta N.J. Bičurina”. Vestnik Rossijskoj Akademii nauk 72:12.1099–1106. [Мясников В. С., Попова И. Ф. Вклад о. Иакинфа в мировую синологию. К 225-летию со дня рождения члена-корреспондента Н. Я. Бичурина // Вестник Российской Академии наук 72:12.1099–1106.]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Popova, Irina & Takato Tokio. 2017. Slovari kyakhtinskogo pidzhina Словари кяхтинского пиджина. (Dictionaries of Kyakhta pidgin. Translation, publication, research and comments by I. Popova and T. Tokyo. Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (RAS), Saint Petersburg). Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prémare, Joseph-Henri Marie de. 1831 [1728]. Notitia Linguae Sinicae. Malacca.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, Günter. 1985. “Looking back at case grammar”. I.T.L. Review of Applied Linguistics 67/681.195–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean & Denis Thouard, eds. 1999. Lettres édifiantes et curieuses sur la langue chinoise, Humboldt/Abel-Rémusat (1821–1831). Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roždestvenskiy, Juri. 1958. Ponyatie formy slova v istorii grammatiki kitaiskogo yazyka: ocherki po istorii kitaevedenia. Moskva: IMO. [Понятие формы слова в истории грамматики китайского языка: очерки по истории китаеведения. – Москва, ИМО.]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shalyapina, Zoja. 2009. “Ob odnoi pionerskoi stat’e, ili printsipy formalizatsii semantiki v 1961 godu”. Vestnik RGGU 6.09.9-27. [Шаляпина З. М. Об одной пионерской статье, или принципы формализации семантики в 1961 году. Вестник РГГУ 6.09.9-27.]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Skačkov, Pjotr. 1977. Ocherki istorii russkogo kitaevedenia (Notes on the history of Russian Chinese studies). Очерки истории русского китаеведения. Moscow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Solntsev, Vadim. 1957. Очерки по современному китайскому языку. Moscow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1988. “On Mono- and Polysyllabism of Contemporary Chinese”. Cina, no. 21 (1988): 301–09.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. Vvedenie v teoriiu izoliruiuschih iazykov (V sviazi s obschimi osobennostiami chelovecheskogo iazyka) [Введение в теорию изолирующих языков (в связи с общими особенностями человеческого языка]. Moscow: Vostočnaja literatura.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toro, Anna Di. 2019. “The Kitajskaja Grammatika (1835) and Bičurin’s ideas on the ‘mechanism’ of Chinese between European and Chinese grammatical traditions”. Histoire Epistémologie Langage 41:1.57–77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varo, Francisco. 2000 [1703]. Francisco Varo’s Grammar of the Mandarin Language (1703): An English Translation of ‘Arte de la lengua mandarina’. Coblin, W. South & Joseph A. Levi (translators). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wenzel, Christian. 2010. Isolation and Involvement: Wilhelm von Humboldt, François Jullien, and More. Philosophy East and West 601.458–475. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whorf, Benjamin L.. 1945. “Grammatical Categories”. Language 21:1.1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1956. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Widmer, Eric. 1976. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking During the Eighteenth Century (= Harvard East Asian Monographs Vol. 69 ). Harvard University, East Asian Research Center. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue