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Show CHINESE IDIO?IS. It is curious to note the curious ways iu which the Chinese, having only nouns and verbs, and a few participles with which to glue them together, manage to construct all those ten parts of speech treated of by terrible old Lindiey Murray. In the first place, besides the original stock of nouns proper, there are other forms of verbs. "Iuditiestion," for instance, (to translate trans-late literally, which I shall do whenever when-ever possible), is "The not-can dis-solve. dis-solve. Tho Cliinanian liiis nearly a score of little words which may be called classifiers, which he attaches to certain nouns to make them more specific spe-cific bur. which we can seldom translate. trans-late. We say "a piece of land," like the Chinese, but we consider it un-neccessrry un-neccessrry to say, as they continually do, "one piece house, one piece man," etc. They use these classifiers because in Chinese the noun is always plural unless otherwise distinguished. And they are not content by designating the singular by "one," but often employ em-ploy instead of the simple phrase, "a pig," an expression so roundabout as tins: "One piece pig son." Of pronouns pro-nouns the Chinese Las, if anything, an excess. They are required by the oriental servility and punctiliousness of address. With a single pronoun he can address another as "Your Highness," High-ness," or "Your nastiness," do it with perfect politeness. With our clumsy languago we havo to resort to direct and vulgar abuse, profano cursing curs-ing and swearing and ugly epithets, to make a man understand hoiv we rate him. As the Chinese verbs have neither moods nor tensns, the people have to employ many cumbrous circumlocutions. cir-cumlocutions. Thus tho Chinaman says: "I finish walk," or "I pass over walk'" for "I walked." This cumbersome cumber-some expression is used, "I see pass finish him," for "I have seen him." A relative or participle olause is found in this manner: "Thc-I-sec-pass finish-man," finish-man," "for tho man whom I saw." Verbs may also bo employed in composition com-position for adverbs, as "done-day," for "yesterday." Rocky Mountain Ncics. |