马希曼的《中国言法》

1814年，在塞兰坡，Mission Press出版社出版了马希曼（Joshua Marshman，1768—1837）的Elements of Chinese Grammar，中文书名为《中国言法》。

在前言中，作者指出了解中文语法的必要性：

It may perhaps be urged，that a language so simple as the Chinese，surely needed not a grammar of above three hundred pages to lay it open；to which it may be replied，that had the object been merely that of affirming thing，instead of substantiating them，a far less number of pages would have sufficed.^[7]

作者仔细分析了傅尔蒙的著作，发现同巴耶尔的《汉语博览》一样，书中引用的中文典籍尚还不足，为弥补这一缺陷，马希曼从500多页满是带有标注和翻译的汉语语法书中大量引用古典文献，从中得出语言规律。

该书开篇为“汉语论”Dissertation on the Chinese Language，主要讲古汉语的真正本质：

Differing in its principles from every other language of which we have any idea；it has been carefully cultivated，and tenaciously preserved from every foreign mixture，by one of the most ancient and populous nations in the world.^[8]

写作、历史与性质，并在表格中列出《康熙字典》中的214个部首，还有从手抄的拉丁语-汉语字典借用的并在原语和发展语基础上形成的有关字形结构与组合的丰富理论。

然后是Preliminary Dissertation on the sounds or the colloquial medium（声音与会话媒介的初步论述），通过列出各种系列的声母、韵母与声调，以及利用天主教传教士的抄本来描述汉语的音位。比如，详细说明了第四系列（双唇辅音）的分节位置与方法并且指出参照了天主教传教士的抄本，这是作者唯一采用的别人的标音方法。

The fourth series is directed to be pronounced with the lips strongly closed.It is written by the Catholic Missionaries p，p'，p，m.^[9]

另外，还给出了一个他与天主教传教士抄本之间的转化表。

根据口腔的闭合程度韵母可分为：

The ninth open primary final which is nasal is written by the Catholic Missionaries ken as in ken（gen）艮，a bound or limit.The sound is nearly that of the short u in run，sun&c which is the sound they probably attached to e.It is united with only 18 of the initials.^[10]

然后是一个声母和韵母相配合的详细表格。

在大量论述汉语与世界上其他主要语言的关系之后，作者描述了官话的四个声调并与广东话及其他方言进行比较。

《中国言法》第二部分的题目为Clavis Sinica，马希曼的整篇著作以这个题目更为著名，这部分主要是更具体地讲汉语语法。

作者首先指出语法好像并不是根植于中国的一项学科：

Nothing of this kind seems to have flowed from the pen of Confucius，the restorer of Chinese literature，although he did not thing a treatise on music beneath his attention（...）Nor does it appear that the philosophic Ming（...）left any work on the grammar of the language in which they wrote.^[11]

反正，写语法书是具有可能性的。事实上：

Principles of grammar must necessarily be inherent in every language.^[12]

汉语也不例外。尤其是在

In those works which the Chinese have for so many ages regarded as models of style.^[13]

中是可以找到其相关规则的。

因此马希曼所要描写的是优雅语言的语法。事实上他很快反驳了刚刚阐述的原则，通过确定谈话的各个部分：实词、形容词、代词、动词、助词以及变格和动词变位开始论述语法。

例如：

The Nominative and the Accusative cases requires no preposition.They are merely the characters in their natural state，as examples will sufficiently shew.Examples of the Nominative indeed are innumerable；and whether it consist of the name of a person，of a pronoun，or a common substantive，it is equally destitute of any addiction.The following sentence furnishes an example of both a proper name，and a pronoun used in the nominative case.It is selected from the third book of Lun-yu，and contains a question put to the sage's disciples by Ngai-koong（哀公），the sovereign of Loo（鲁）.

Ngai-koong enquired of the sage's disciples；Who（among you）cordially loves learning？Lun-yu，book iii.Here Ngai-koong in the first line from the right，forms the nominative case without any additional character：the pronoun shyoǒh who？in the third line，is also the nominative.^[14]

实际上，马希曼的主要创新之处就是明确了词语在句子中的位置，文中是这样写的：

On examining the various parts of speech，the reader will perceive，that the whole of Chinese grammar turns on Position.A Chinese character，therefore，simply express an idea：but whether that idea shall represent a Thing，a Quality inherent in some other thing or an Action，must be ascertained wholly by its position，as in the English word sound，which，if preceded by an article，is a substantive（a sound）；by a personal pronoun，a verb（I sound，they sound）；if it receive an object，it becomes an active or even a causal verb（they sound the bell）；and lastly，if we add a substantive to the word with the article prefixed，by the caprice of the English language it becomes an adjective（a sound vessel）.（...）There are many（characters）which either of constant use，or the nature of the idea they represent，restrict almost wholly to one part：thus some characters as人yin，a man，are seldom used but as substantives（...）.With this exception，which by no means affects the general principle，the whole of Chinese Grammar depends on position.

马希曼语法，尤其是对词语位置在句子中作用的关注有着广泛的影响，后又被朱利安所采用。