Re: NATLANG: Chinese parts of speech (or lack thereof)

On Aug 9, 2004, at 1:18 PM, Ray Brown wrote:
> Ah, Classical Chinese.
> The Classical style is, as I'm sure you know, very formalized and has,
> over the centuries, departed more & more from the spoken language, so
> much
> so that it is not suitable for oral communication. One of the main
> problems is the high number of homophones. Y.R. Chao gives an example
> of a
> story written entirely in 36 characters, all pronounced _xi_ in one of
> the
> four tones. The story would make no sense at all when read aloud in
> modern
> standard Chinese, but for some who knows Classical Chinese they story
> reads:
> "The West Creek rhinoceros enjoys romping and playing. Every evening,
> Xi
> Xi [name of person*] takes the rhinoceros to play. Xi Xi meticulously
> practises washing the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros sucks the creek and
> playfully attacks Xi. Laughing, Xi Xi hopes to stop [the rhinoceros]
> playing. Too bad - the rhinoceros, neighing, enjoys attacking Xi."
> *Xi Xi are both pronounced on first tone, but are written with
> different
> characters. The first 'Xi' is the surname & the second the given name.

Ohmygod!
That's amazing!
Any idea where i could get a recording of this?
It'd drive my brother crazy!  He hates the consonant represented by |X|
in Pinyin... he calls it "that damn Chinese 'X' sound"! :-D


-Stephen (Steg)
  "Enthrone your pasts:
    this done, fire and old blood
    will find you again:
   better hearts' breaking
   than worlds'."
      ~ s'task's last song,
        from _the romulan way_ by diane duane & peter morwood