Since, when a language is spoken and understood only in the country of its birth or adoption, the study of the grammar affecting it is, as far as the natives are concerned, comparatively unimportant, we find that little attention has been paid by the Chinese to the grammar of their language. But practically the grammar, which, as has just been stated, consists of rules for the construction of the sentence, has for many centuries been enforced by example, and by the censorship of the examiners at the competitive examinations. If then we observe the connection of words which these authorities have preserved, we find that in every Chinese sentence the subject comes first, then the verb, which is followed by the complement direct and the complement indirect, and further that, as is the case in most of the Turanian languages, every word which defines or modifies another invariably precedes it. For instance, the adjective precedes the substantive, the adverb the verb, the genitive the word which governs it, and the preposition the word governed by it.
The importance of exactly following these rules becomes at once apparent when we remember that often one and the same word is capable of being used as a substantive, an adjective, a verb, or an adverb. This is the case also with some words in English. We use the word present, for example, as a substantive when we talk of giving a present; as an adjective when we say the present time; and as a verb when we say, “I present you.” Cut is another word which we make use of in the same way. We say, “the cut of a sword,” “cut grass,” and “to cut a man down.”
A number of other instances of the same kind might be adduced, but taking a Chinese word, we may show how, by varying its position in a sentence, it changes its grammatical value. The character 好 hao has for its meanings “to love,” “good,” “excellent,” “well,” &c., and possibly with the intention of illustrating, as it were, these meanings by representing the highest and purest form of natural affection, that which exists between a mother and her child, the inventor of the character has formed it of two parts signifying respectively “a woman” and “a son.” If, then, we meet with it in such a connection as this, which is taken from the lips of Confucius, 窺見室家之好, Kwei keen chih chia che hao, we recognize it at once as a substantive, since, were it an adjective, it would be followed by a substantive; were it a verb, it would be followed by its complement, and also because it follows a substantive 室家, to which is added 之, the sign of the possessive case. The sentence should then be translated—Kwei keen, “to peep and see,” hao, “the excellence or the goodness,” che, “of,” chih chia, “the apartments.” In the sentence, also from Confucius, 如好好色 Joo hao hao sih, we see by the position of the two haos that the first must be a verb, and that the second must be an adjective, since it is followed by a substantive with which it forms the direct complement to the verb. The meaning of the sentence then is Joo, “as [when],” hao ＼, “we love,” hao ／ sih, “excellent beauty.” Again, in the modern colloquial expression 好説 we have an example of the use of hao as an adverb preceding a verb, and the phrase is then incapable of being translated otherwise than as “well said,” hao, “well,” shwo, “said.&rdquot;
The number of characters which might be treated as we have dealt with 好 is legion. Little has been said on the subject of this peculiarity of the language by native grammarians, who have not done much more for the science of grammar than to divide the characters into 死字 Sze tsze or "dead words," as they call nouns; 活字 Hwŏ tsze, “living words” or verbs; and 虛字 Hsü tsze, “empty words,” or particles. It is worthy of remark that in a great many instances the transition of a character from one part of speech to another is marked by a change of tone. This is the case with the character hao, of which we have been speaking. When it stands for the adjective “good,” it should be pronounced in the ascending tone hao ／; and when it becomes the verb “to love,” it is transferred to the departing tone hao ＼. And in some few cases the character suffers a change of sound as well. 食 shih, the verb “to eat,” is pronounced in the entering or abrupt tone; but it becomes sze ＼ in the departing tone, when it plays the part of a substantive meaning “food.” In a lecture administered to the king of Leang, Mencius, rebuking him, says, 狗彘食人食 Kow che shih jin sze ＼, “Your dogs and swine eat men's food.” Here it will be observed the first 食 must by the rules of position be the verb shih “to eat,” and by the same necessity this same character at the end of the sentence must be a substantive; and the dictionaries tell us that, when this is the case, it is pronounced sze. But though it is true that a vast number of characters can be made to serve a writer in a variety of capacities, yet each belongs more particularly to some one part of speech, and many are identified with that one alone. For instance, we find that certain substantives which express things, such as cho “a table,” or e “a chair,” remain fixed as substantives, and that others, if they denote actions, are primarily verbs, and if conditions, such as “honour” or “riches,” are in the first instance adjectives.
As might be expected from the nature of the language of which this interchangeability forms a part, Chinese admits no variations of gender, and in this particular it agrees with the Manchoo, Mongolian, Turkish, and Finnish families of tongues, in which, as Dr Caldwell points out, not only are all things which are destitute of reason and life denoted by neuter nouns, but no nouns whatever, not even nouns which denote human beings, are regarded in themselves as being masculine or feminine. All nouns as such are neuter, or rather are destitute of gender. “The unimaginative Scythian reduced all things,” adds the doctor, “whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, to the same dead level, and regarded them all as impersonal.” But in every language there are certain words the gender of which must necessarily be distinguished, and in common also with the peoples just referred to, to these the Chinese prefix words denoting sex. Thus a son is spoken of as 男子 nan tsze or “man-child,” and a daughter as 女子 neu tsze or “woman-child.” In the case of animals other characters are used. 公 kung, “noble,” “superior,” is employed to denote the male and 母 moo, “mother,” to indicate the female. Thus 公馬 kung ma is “a horse,” and 母馬 moo ma is “a mare.” With birds other characters are considered more appropriate. Thus, the male is described as kung, “martial” or “brave,” and the female as tsze, “weak,” or “inferior.”
