Jin Chinese grammar. I, Referent and tense of Northern Shaanxi dialects / Xing Xiangdong.

Introduction 1. Pronouns2. Aspect and Appearance 3. Tense

This book is the first volume of a two-volume set that synchronically and diachronically studies the Jin dialectof Northern Shaanxi Province in China, with a focus on the grammatical features of pronouns,aspect and appearance, and the system of tenses. The Jin dialectof Northern Shaanxi is one of the most ancient, complicated, and representative dialectsof the Yellow River regionandfigures prominently inour understanding of the Jin dialect and northern Chinese dialects as a whole. This volume first elucidates the semantic and dialectal differences in personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and interrogative pronouns, as well as the special linguistic origins of the pronouns. The following chapter elaborates the differentdevices to express the status of realizing, accomplishing, lasting, and momentum-reducingas well asdifferences among similar aspectual markers and dialects. The finalchapter examines the tense system, including anterior (past), posterior (future), and simple (present) tenses, the markers of which differ from each other in their syntactic representations.The book will be a useful reference for scholars and students interested in Jin dialects, Chinese dialects, and Chinese linguistics.