A Series of Books on Chinese Prosodic Grammar: The Minimal Words in Chinese

This book introduces the minimal words in Chinese from four aspects: their concepts, positions, types, and effects. Facts show that the minimal words in Chinese really exist and are the results of the rules in the prosodic system. The minimal words are prosodic words realized by the standardized feet of disyllabic words, which are a type of special prosodic words--the most harmonious prosodic words and are "dynamic", i.e., they are closely related to specific morphology and syntax. This is also the biggest difference between the minimal words and standard prosodic words. The establishment of the minimal words plays an important role for language studies: They cannot only provide new research perspectives and thinking for the differentiation of words and phrases, but also promote the syntactic movement, and participate in the construction of combination words as a whole.