Focusing on the fundamental grammatical units and construction in modern Chinese, this title is the first volume of a classic on modern Chinese grammar by WANG Li, one of the most distinguished Chinese linguists.

Based on the corpus of two classic Chinese novels and being part of a four-volume set that describes the various linguistic patterns of modern Chinese grammar, this volume first distinguishes Chinese characters from words, categorizes words into different word classes and discusses the different word classes according to the number of syllables. The complex structures, which include phrases, sentences and various grammatical constructions such as those of optative, causative, disposal, passive, annex and retrenched, are then classified and elaborated on. Drawing on Otto Jespersen’s theory, the author applies the notion of rank to construct a new framework for Chinese grammar.

Including a wide variety of examples and analyses, this book is a must-read for Chinese language learners, as well as researchers and students studying Chinese linguistics and modern Chinese grammar.