The rules of position which serve to fix the parts of speech of the words of a sentence are allowed also in great measure to regulate the cases of nouns and the moods and tenses of verbs. But this is by no means always the case. For example, the possessive case is marked by certain particles of which mention will be made presently; and although European writers on Chinese grammar have been in the habit of considering that when two substantives come together, the first is to be taken as being in the possessive case, thus in the sentence 天子好學 Teen tsze hao heo, which we should translate as “the Son of Heaven loves learning,” teen, they would say, is in the possessive case,—it may be questioned whether such expressions may not be more appropriately considered as compound terms, in the same way, that we treat their equivalents in English. For instance, we should never consider such an expression as “the Chelsea-water-works” to consist of a nominative and two possessive cases, as it would be parsed by these grammarians, were it turned word for word, as it might be, into Chinese. And this treatment becomes still more difficult of adoption when we find, as is often the case in Chinese, a number of substantives strung together, all of which, with the exception of the last, would then have to be considered as a succession of possessive cases. If we take, for example, one of the ordinary marks on porcelain made in China, such as 大明萬曆三年製 Ta ming Wan leĭh san neen che, we should be told to consider Ta ming, Wan leĭh, and neen as possessive cases, and that the phrase should be translated, “The manufacture of the third year of (the reign) Wan-leĭh of the Ta ming dynasty,” instead of treating it as a compound expression on the “Chelsea-water-works” principle, thus ”The Ta-ming-dynasty-Wan-leĭh-third-year-manufacture.”
Besides, Chinese is by no means destitute of case-particles. In the literary and colloquial languages the possessive is expressed by suffixing respectively 之 che and 的 teĭh to the substantive. Thus these particles answer exactly to the ’s commonly used in English. 天之恩 Teen che găn is “The favour of heaven,” or, as we should as often say, “heaven's favour.” 那個女人的狗 Na ko neu jin teĭh kow is “The dog of that woman,” or “That woman's dog.” If we trace back the case-particle 之 che to its earliest use, we find that it was originally a verb, and meant “to proceed to,” and thus, as a sign of the possessive case, it implies the sense of partition which is inherent in our “of” and the French de. In some instances, by its addition to certain substantives, compound nouns of possession are formed which are capable of being used as adjectives. For example, 金 kin is “gold,” and 金之 is “of gold,” or “golden.” It is used also to express relation, but not as frequently as its colloquial equivalent 的 teĭh, which is very commonly thus employed. Such expressions as 管兵的 kwan ping teĭh,—teĭh, “he who,” kwan, “rules over,” ping, “soldiers”—are in constant use.
With verbs of giving to and speaking to the dative case is marked by position The person to whom a thing is given immediately follows the verb, and the thing given comes next. The sentence “The prince gave the officer some money,” is in accordance with the Chinese idiom, which would not admit the more usual English form, “The prince gave some money to the officer.” The dative case, with the sense of “for,” is marked by the use of the characters 代 tae, “to succeed,” 替 te, “to put another instead of,” and 為 wei, “to be”; thus 代我寫書 tae wo seay shoo, “to write a letter for me,” 替我的女兒 te wo teĭh neu urh, “for my daughter,” &c.
The accusative case is as a rule marked by position. But occasionally, as has been shown by M. Julien, the particles 以 e, 於 yu, 于 yu, and 乎 hoo, are disassociated from their usual signification, and are employed simply as signs of this case.
The instrumental case is indicated by the character 以 e, “by,” in the language of the books, and by 用 yung, “to use,” in the colloquial. As an instance of the use of the first, we may quote the following passage from Mencius:—難罔以非其道 Nan wang e fei ke taou, “(A superior man) cannot be entrapped by that which is contrary to right principles.”
The ablative case, having the sense of “from,” is marked by the signs 自 tsze, and 由 yew, and in the colloquial by 從 tsung, as in the following examples:—自生民以來 Tsze săng min e lae, “From the birth of mankind until now;” 由湯至於武丁 Yew Tang che yu Woo-ting “From Tang until you arrive at Woo-ting;” 他從北京來了 Ta tsung Pih king lae leaou, “He has come from Peking.”
The remarks which have been made on the gender, number, and case of the substantives apply in like manner to the adjectives, and we need only now refer therefore to the manner in which degrees of comparison are formed. The comparative is denoted either by certain particles meaning “more than,” or “beyond,” or in the colloquial by forms of expression such as “This man compared with that man is good,” or again, “This man has not that man's goodness.” As signs of the superlative, words such as 最 tsuy, “excelling,” 極 keĭh, “the highest point,” or 甚 shin, “exceeding” are employed.
In all Oriental languages the personal pronouns play a prominent part from their number and the variety of equivalent terms, whether of self-depreciation or of complimentary adulation, used to express them; and in Chinese they derive additional importance from the fact that in the absence of all verbal inflexion, they serve to indicate the person, and in the spoken language the number of the verb. 吾 woo, 爾 urh, and 其, ke, are the terms most commonly used in classical writings to signify the first, second, and third persons of the personal pronoun, of which 我 wo, 你 ne, and 他 ta, are the common colloquial equivalents. These latter have for their plural wo mun, ne mun, ta mun. Quite separate and apart from these and all their equivalents is the character 朕 chin, which is reserved especially for the emperor, and has been the traditional imperial “We” since the time of the three mythical emperors to whose wisdom, energy, and foresight the greatness of China is attributed by the native historians.
