Zhang Cheng 张赪 est professeure titulaire au département de chinois et de linguistique de l’Université Tsing Hua à Pékin. Elle est accueillie en juin dans le cadre du Programme Professeurs invités 2023 de l'EHESS par Hilary Chappell, directrice détudes au CRLAO-EHESS.

Après des études à l’East China Normal University à Shanghai et l'obtention d'un doctorat à l’Université de Pékin en 1998, Zhang Cheng poursuit des recherches postdoctorales à l’Université de Harvard, de 2007 à 2008, avant d'être accueillie comme professeure invitée à l’Université des sciences et technologies de Hong Kong, de septembre 2010 à janvier 2011.

Son principal domaine de recherche est l’évolution et l’histoire de la langue chinoise dans une perspective typologique. Ses monographies comprennent L’évolution de l’ordre des phrases prépositionnelles chinoises, Le  développement historique de l’ordre des mots chinois, et L’évolution des classificateurs nominales chinois du point de vue de la typologie. Elle est auteur de dizaines d’articles publiés dans le Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Language and Linguistics, Studies on the Chinese Language, ainsi que dans des recueils publiés par DeGruyter Mouton (Berlin) et Commercial Press (Pékin). Ces dernières années, ses recherches ont porté sur la grammaire du chinois des dynasties Ming et Qing, avec une attention particulière portée à l’influence de ces périodes sur la formation de la grammaire du chinois mandarin moderne et des dialectes chinois.

Zhang Cheng donnera quatre conférences durant son séjour en France (les conférences seront présentées en chinois mandarin) :

An analysis of the discourse function of the aspectual particle LAI ‘来’ / 事态助词“来”的话语功能探析

Vendredi 9 juin 2023 de 12h30 à 14h30, Bâtiment EHESS, RDC Salle 25-B, Campus Condorcet - 2 cours des Humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers

The aspectual particle LAI ‘来’ is a high frequency particle that has been in use for the longest time in Modern Chinese. Relevant studies mostly focus on its tense and aspect functions and its grammaticalization process. This study demonstrates that LAI ‘来’ possesses clear discourse functions from the beginning of its evolution as an aspect marker. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the discourse functions of LAI are very prominent in regulating and advancing conversational dialogues, and in expressing the  speaker’s attitude. It is evidently different from another aspectual particle, LE 了, used in the same period. Modern dialects show different retentions and developments for the functions of LAI in the history of the Chinese language.

A study of the Verb ZHUAN转 meaning ‘return’ in Modern Chinese / 近代汉语“返回”义动词“转”研究

Jeudi 15 juin 2023 de 10:30 à 12:30, Campus Condorcet - Centre de colloques, Salle 3.07, Cours des Humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers

The verb ZHUAN转with the meaning of ‘return’ is commonly used in many Southern Sinitic languages. It emerged in the period of the late Tang and Five Dynasties, influenced by the usage of various meanings of its own, as well as the developmental tendencies of Chinese directional complements of the time. The development of the uses of ZHUAN转and those of other ‘return’ verbs are somewhat different. However, in the same period and as a directional verb, the type of sentence structure it forms and the grammatical meaning it expresses were also influenced by verbs with the meaning of ‘return’ commonly used in Modern Chinese, such as GUI归and HUI回, reflecting the complex relationship between the standard language and dialects.

A study of the system of the ‘return’ verb class in Modern Chinese / 近代汉语“返回”义动词系统研究

Vendredi 16 juin 2023 de 12h30 à 14h30, Bâtiment EHESS, RDC Salle 25-B, Campus Condorcet - 2 cours des Humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers

This study examines the system of the ‘return’ verb class in Modern Chinese, observing that ‘return’ verbs evolved from motion verbs to directional verbs. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the verb GUI归 ‘return’ was highly active, forming a variety of sentence structures, while HUI回 ‘go back’ replaced ‘return’ as the dominant verb in the semantic field of ‘return’ verbs in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. This change was first completed in the Yanjing region during the Yuan dynasty. Finally, through correlation of the rise and fall of commonly used ‘return’ verbs, this research explains some characteristics of modern Chinese dialects, while discussing the criteria for judging the replacement of frequently used words in the history of the Chinese language, by using the ‘return’ verb class as a case study.

A literature survey of the Chinese verb BA把 and its related usages in the 16th and 17th centuries / 十六到十七世纪汉语给予动词“把”及相关用法的文献调查

Vendredi 23 juin 2023 de 12h30 à 14h30, Bâtiment EHESS, RDC Salle 25-B, Campus Condorcet - 2 cours des Humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers

There have been many discussions in academic circles about the differences between verbs of giving that have their source in verbs of ‘holding and taking’ and general verbs of giving which have created many variations in the expression of giving events in the north and south of China. Since Chinese historical documents are basically documents written in Mandarin, and are largely influenced by its Northern dialects, there are few cases of giving verbs whose source is in verbs of ‘holding and taking’. This research investigates close to 3,000 documents from the Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, collecting the only examples of a verb of giving whose source is in a verb of ‘holding and taking’ in this literature, namely BA把. We describe and analyze the related sentence structures and usage, aiming to investigate how to more comprehensively reveal the value of the corpus on Mandarin in the history of the Chinese language.