The Programming Language Called Classical Chinese
summary
Claim: Classical Chinese’s core syntax is compact enough to be captured by a context-free grammar and a simple type calculus. Method: maps all lexical items to a two-type system (noun vs verb), shows recursion that lets compounds remain N or V, and treats a small set of particles disambiguate when context fails. Result: a succinct formal grammar that parses the usual strings (with caveats about particle ambiguity) and reproduces the surprising productivity of noun↔verb interchange.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Start
- 1:44High Diglossic Register
- 3:43What Is this Language Chinese Made of
- 4:07Nouns and Verbs
- 11:00No Difference between Nouns and Verbs in Classical Chinese
- 16:24Context-Free Grammar
- 17:08Phrase Structure Grammar
- 17:22Chomsky Grammar
- 17:42Traditional Linguistically Oriented Context-Free Grammar
- 21:15Weighting of the Elements
- 23:43Classical Chinese Grammar
- 25:28Empty Words
- 29:45Recap
- 41:26Verb Final Particles
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