Re: Conlang Areal Tests
Posted: 15 Mar 2018 09:05
I just looked through the natlang section and I feel that either some of the grammar stats for Mandarin are incorrect or I don't understand the stat itself.
5. The passive in Chinese is not formed with any verb for "to be". The preposition 被 is used. Furthermore there is no past participle in Chinese at all.
15. Chinese has medial connectives, you can translate "you and I" literally as 你和我 or 你根我.
22. Chinese has SVO word order.
31. Chinese favors prepositions compared to postpositions. Circumpositions are also very common, but if 0 implies that postpositions are more common than prepositions, this is wrong.
34. Chinese has symmetric standard negation, WALS even says that is has "both". It should have 0.5 or 1 point therefore.
41. Degree words in Chinese can precede the adjective, some might not but many definitely do. 非常好,很好 do while 好极了 does not, for example. Should be 0.5 points.
44. Chinese doesn't have verbal suppletion, except you mean the past tense negation 没 being different from the present tense negation 不.
48. Chinese doesn't have a past/non-past-distinction, but rather perfective/imperfective.
50. Chinese does have a T-V distinction even if it is (apparently, am no expert) less prevalent than in French, Spanish or German. 你 vs 您.
There are propably more, but those are just the ones that immediately jumped me.
5. The passive in Chinese is not formed with any verb for "to be". The preposition 被 is used. Furthermore there is no past participle in Chinese at all.
15. Chinese has medial connectives, you can translate "you and I" literally as 你和我 or 你根我.
22. Chinese has SVO word order.
31. Chinese favors prepositions compared to postpositions. Circumpositions are also very common, but if 0 implies that postpositions are more common than prepositions, this is wrong.
34. Chinese has symmetric standard negation, WALS even says that is has "both". It should have 0.5 or 1 point therefore.
41. Degree words in Chinese can precede the adjective, some might not but many definitely do. 非常好,很好 do while 好极了 does not, for example. Should be 0.5 points.
44. Chinese doesn't have verbal suppletion, except you mean the past tense negation 没 being different from the present tense negation 不.
48. Chinese doesn't have a past/non-past-distinction, but rather perfective/imperfective.
50. Chinese does have a T-V distinction even if it is (apparently, am no expert) less prevalent than in French, Spanish or German. 你 vs 您.
There are propably more, but those are just the ones that immediately jumped me.