Post #1294511
2026-04-05 18:57 UTC
Hypotaxis, Hanzi edition.
https://www.oldnorthwhale.com/p/why-modern-chinese-is-just-english
Replies (1)
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@skalyan@typo.social 2026-04-05 20:38
@clauseggers@typo.social This seems a bit overstated; as Randy LaPolla points out in several works, spoken Mandarin still makes heavy use of parataxis, in a way that is hard for English speakers (or Western linguists) to get used to. But the author of the post makes a surprisingly good case for *written* Mandarin (and spoken Mandarin in higher registers) being syntactically Europeanised; and the wholesale replacement of native conceptual categories with Western ones is definitely something that happened.