380 a s y n tHe sis
tetrasyllabic, pentasyllabic, heptasyllabic, and so on), and others feature lines of
irregular length. These two broad categories of poetry have been labeled qiyan shi
(poetry of equal-character lines) and zayan shi (poetry of variable-character lines),
respectively. These critics also held that this rich variety of line types resulted from
efforts to accord poetic speech with different external musical rhythms.3 Begin-
ning from the Song dynasty, critics became aware of internal line rhythm that
arises from a fixed pattern of mandatory pauses between monosyllabic words and
disyllabic words. This internal rhythm is semantic in the sense that it predeter-
mines how characters are to be clustered to generate meaning. Consequently, it
not only intensifies our experience of the sound but also contributes to the sense
of poetry. A clear recognition of this crucial semantic importance did not occur
until Qing times, when Liu Xizai and others began to explore the aesthetic impli-
cations of various shi rhythms.
The neglect of syntax by Chinese critics has much to do with the Chinese lan-
guage itself. As a notion originating in Western linguistics, syntax denotes the
spatiotemporal-logical grid in which words are arranged. Chinese is a noninflec-
tional language, and its words are not cast into a fixed spatiotemporal-logical rela-
tionship by tense, voice, and other inflectional tags. Syntactic linkage is effected
by a well-ordered, readily discernible semantic rhythm, with or without grammati-
cal function words (xuzi). This semantic rhythm normally gives the reader ample
useful hints on how to cluster words to form a meaningful sentence. Hence Chi-
nese philology has no notion of syntax as a prescriptive spatiotemporal-logical grid
of words. So it is only natural that traditional Chinese scholars would not seek to
probe the inner workings of poetic vision through syntactic analysis.
The neglect of syntactic analysis is highly regrettable. Poetic vision is an intense
mental experience induced by words and images cast in an extraordinary order. An
examination of poetic syntax, therefore, is crucial to any attempt to illuminate the
inner workings of poetic vision. Since the publication of Ma Jianzhong’s (1845–
1900) Ma shi wen tong (Mr. Ma’s Grammar) in 1898, Chinese linguists have worked
assiduously to construct a syntax-based Chinese grammar. Thanks to their endeav-
ors, we now have a good enough knowledge of Chinese syntax for investigating
the linguistic foundation for ineffable poetic vision. Here, by integrating the tra-
ditional jufa studies with modern syntactic analysis, I shall outline the evolution
of Chinese poetic rhythms and syntax and assess their efficacy in evoking poetic
visions.4t w o b a s iC s y n taC t i C C o n s t r uC t i o n s :
s ub j eC t + P r eD i C a t e a nD t o P i C + C o m m e n t
In common as well as poetic speech, Chinese words are organized into sentences
according to two competing yet complementary principles: spatiotemporal-logical
and analogical-associational.
If organized according to the first principle, words exhibit a partial or complete
subject + predicate construction. The subject + predicate construction consists