The history of studying daici in Chinese linguistics

The article provides an overview of different terms for describing lexical units of such a category as the 代词 daici ‘pronoun’. The evolution of grammar terminology’s formation is considered based on the example of this category. It is shown that prior to 1898, Chinese scholars used no special terms to classify 代词 daici, as these lexical units were described in function words’ dictionaries (written by Lu Yiwei 卢以纬, Yuan Renlin 袁仁林 etc.). At that time, the course of linguistic research was determined by exegetics, and the main emphasis was placed on the description of semantics and usage of characters. After 1898, the situation changed. Modern linguists characterize 代词 daici as an element of the general system of word classes. The nature of 代词 daici causes difficulties in classification: should lexical units of this category be considered function words or content words, or perhaps even words of a special category that duplicate content words. The position of 代词 daici in the general system of word classes may differ depending on the author’s approach for selecting parts of speech. Approaches of Ma Jianzhong 马建忠, Li Jinxi 黎锦熙, Lü Shuxiang 吕叔湘, Wang Li 王力, Zhu Dexi 朱德熙, Xing Fuyi 刑福义, Guo Rui 郭锐, Yuan Yulin 袁毓林, Zhang Bin 张斌 are presented in the article. Chinese is an isolating language, therefore syntactic properties of lexical units play a significant role in expressing relationships between the words. This fact is reflected in the considered classifications of Chinese linguists based on the functional characteristics of lexical units. As for grammar terminology, modern linguists emphasize the substitutive function of 代词 daici (the sign 代 dai means ‘to replace’) and show that代词 daici may replace not only 名词 mingci ‘noun’ (do not use the term 代名词 daimingci, for example), but also other parts of speech.