A Study of the Particle Yen
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3960839 |
|---|---|
| Authors | George A Kennedy (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1940 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1 |
| Publication date | 1940-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/594559 |
| OpenAlex | W4230939100 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
WE BEGAN our study of the particle yen with the observation that most dictionaries attribute a double pronunciation to the character with which it is written.' As yen' it stands for an interrogative word, how? why? ; as yen2 it represents the final particle whose meaning we have construed to be equivalent to that of a very general preposition, such as yii A, plus a third person pronoun. This correlation of meaning with tone is maintained, among others, by Legge in the vocabularies of the Chinese Classics, 1861-72; Lobscheid in A Chinese and English Dictionary, 1871; Gabelentz in Chinesische Grammatik, 1881; Giles in his Chinese-English Dictionary, 1892; and Couvreur in his Dictionnaire Classique (3rd. ed.), 1911. All these are supported by the great K'ang-hsi Dictionary, 1716, and present what we may call the accepted view. But the distinction is not always made. Mateer's Course of Mandarin Lessons, 1892, gives on p. 445 the pronunciation yen' for the final affirmative particle and initial interrogative particle. Soothill's Pocket Dictionary (10th ed.), 1917, does the same, despite the author's assertion in his preface that Dr. Giles' Dictionary is responsible for sounds and tones. If these citations are not mere typographical errors, we have here the traces of a one-tone tradition to which we shall return later. Most startling, perhaps, to the conservative student of Chinese will appear the references made in Williams' Syllabic Dictionary. In the edition of 1874, pp. 1082/3, we find yen' given as the pronunciation of the final affirmative particle, and yen2 given for the initial interrogative and the final adverb. Williams based his work on the Wu-fang yiian-yin ijI, first published in 1700, and the two editions of the latter in the Library of Congress, which the writer has been able to examine, show that there is no question of a typographical error here. The Wu-fang yian-yin
Art · Assertion · Interrogative · Interrogative word · Linguistics · Literature · Mandarin Chinese · Meaning (existential) · Particle (ecology) · Pronunciation · Syllabic verse · Tone (literature) · Advanced Mathematical Theories and Applications · Computer Science · Environmental Science · Geology · History · Lexicography and Language Studies · Oceanography · Philosophy · Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics · Relativity and Gravitational Theory · Translation Studies and Practices
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| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,15 |
| Citation span | 1972 - 2021 (50) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |