Richard VanNess Simmons

List of John Benjamins publications in which Richard VanNess Simmons is involved.

Title

Chinese Dialect Classification: A comparative approach to Harngjou, Old Jintarn, and Common Northern Wu

Richard VanNess Simmons

This volume is an investigation and classification of dialects along the Wu and Jiang-Hwai Mandarin border in China's eastern Yangtze Valley. It is the first monograph-length study to critically question the traditional single criterion of initial voicing for the classification of Wu dialects and… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 188] 1999. xviii, 317 pp.

Articles (6) | Order by:

Simmons, Richard VanNess 2024 Review of Xu (2021): Silencing Shanghai – Language and Identity in Urban China Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 34:1, pp. 112–118 | Review

Simmons, Richard VanNess 2020 Chinese urban language in historical perspective: Guānhuà and dialect in the late Qīng Developments in Diglossic Settings in the Asian Pacific Region, Berg, Marinus van den (ed.), pp. 139–171 | Article

Three contemporaneous descriptions of Guānhuà from the beginning of the 19th century collectively provide a rich and evocative representation that contains a trove of details regarding the nature of that koine and its relationship to Mandarin and local dialects in the urban linguistic milieu of… read more

Simmons, Richard VanNess 2016 The Dōngběi varieties of Mandarin: A brief look at their history and classification Restructuring Chinese Speech Communities: Urbanization, language contact and identity formation, Berg, Marinus van den (ed.), pp. 56–80 | Article

The Dōngběi dialects comprise a Mandarin subgroup that is related to, but nevertheless clearly distinct from, the Běijīng dialect. The dialects are an exceedingly young variety formed by a huge wave of emigrants from northern Chinese provinces who moved into the theretofore sparsely populated… read more

Simmons, Richard VanNess 2016 The Evolution of the Chinese Sìhū 四呼 Concept of Syllable Classification Historiographia Linguistica 43:3, pp. 251–284 | Article

This paper examines the origins and evolution of the Chinese linguistic concept known as the sìhū 四呼 “four types of rime onset” that is frequently applied to the description and analysis of Mandarin and Chinese dialect phonology. Through the examination of phonological texts primarily of the… read more

Simmons, Richard VanNess 2006 How Rime-Book Based Analyses Can Lead Us Astray The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic philosophy and historical-comparative phonology, Branner, David Prager (ed.), pp. 171–182 | Chapter

Simmons, Richard VanNess 2006 Common Dialect Phonology in Practice.: Y.R. Chao’s Field Methodology The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic philosophy and historical-comparative phonology, Branner, David Prager (ed.), pp. 189–208 | Chapter