Hypotaxis and Parataxis

形合 与 意合
2024-03-29
 Catalogue

Part one Brief Introduction

Part two Hypotactic

Part three Paratactic

Part four Contrastive Analysis

Part five Reasons

Part six Enlightenments

01 Brief Introduction
Parataxis and hypotaxis are an important pair of concepts in linguistics,
which exist in both Chinese and English.

Linguistics and translators generally believe that one of the most

important distinguishing features between English and Chinese is
hypotaxis and parataxis.

So phenomenon of parataxis in Chinese and hypotaxis in English

has long been a topic of discussion in linguistics circles.
According to the etymology, "parataxis" originated from Greek in mid-
19th century , which consists of para(beside) and taxis(arrangement),
while "hypotaxis" dated back to late 19th century, consisting of
hypo(under) and taxis(arrangement)

Today, this basic mean has not changed, but it contains more content.
02 Hypotaxis
 Definition
Hypotaxis also called subordinating style, it is a grammatical and
rhetorical term used to describe an arrangement of phrases or clauses in a
dependent or subordinate relationship -- that is, phrases or clauses
ordered one under another.
For example: I shall despair if you don’t come.
 Historical origin
From the subject-predicate framework proposed by ancient Greek
philosophers such as Aristotle, to the establishment of grammatical categories
and case names by Stoics, to Chomsky's linguistic research and Halliday's
functional grammar, the study of English hypotactic features has not left the
research.
Hypotaxis in English ( cohesive ties )
1. conjunctive words:
coordinate conjunction(and, or, but, yet, so, however, as well
as,either...or...)
subordinate conjunction (when, while, as, since,until,so...that,
unless,lest)

2. relative words:
relative pronouns(that, which, who, whom, whose), relative
adverbs (when, where, why, how)
Hypotaxis in English ( cohesive ties )

eg. All was cleared up some time late when news came
from a distant place that an earthquake was felt the very
day the little copper ball fell.

过了一些时候，从远方传来了消息：在小铜球坠落的当
天，确实发生了地震。这一切终于得到了澄清。

English sentences are almost inseparable from these relative and

conjunctive words, while Chinese rarely uses or even does not
use these words
1) Learn from numerous advisers, and you’ll become a master.
问遍千家成行家。
2) If two people are of the same mind, their sharpness can cut
through metal.
二人同心，其利断金。
3) A fox may grow gray, but never good.
江山易改，本性难移。
4) When an opportunity is neglected, it never comes back to you.
机不可失，时不再来。
 2 prepositions
A preposition may be defined as a connecting word showing the relation of a noun or substitute
for a noun to some other word in the sentence ....

simple prepositions
（ with , to , in , of , about , between , through )
compound prepositions
（ inside , onto , upon , within , without ,throughout ）
idiomatic prepositions
（ according to , along with , apart from , because of , in front of , on behalf of , with regard
to ) 。
 2 prepositions

According to G . Curme, there are about 286 prepositions in

English.
Prepositions are one of the most active parts of speech in English
and are important means of linking words, phrases or clauses.
Prepositions are almost inseparable from English sentences, while
prepositions are often omitted in Chinese
1) Losers are always in the wrong. 胜者为王，败者为寇。
2) Like father, like son. 有其父必有其子。
3) Over fast, over loose. 过犹不及。
4) Out of sight, out of mind. 眼不见，心不烦。

In the examples above, the prepositions "in," "like," and "over"

serve to connect and combine words, demonstrating the
characteristics of hypotaxis in English. However, in the
corresponding Chinese translations, the prepositions are not
present. Instead, there is an omission or the use of verbs to express
the corresponding meanings.
 3 other connective devices
Affix change, morphological change of verbs, nouns, pronouns,
adjectives and adverbs. (gender, number, case, tense, voice,
mood, person)
He boats that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British
soil and he sells the children of the poor at six years of age to
work under the lash in the factories for sixteen hours a day .( B .
Shaw : The Man of Destiny )

他吹嘘说，任何奴隶一踏上英国的土地就获得自由，而他却
出卖穷人家六岁的孩子到工厂干活，每天十六小时，受尽鞭
打责骂。
 5 sentences without subjects
1) 活到老，学到老。
One is never too old to learn.

2) 只许州官放火，不许百姓点灯。
While the magistrates were free to burn down house, the common
people were forbidden to light lamps.

3) 引狼入室。 He sets the fox to keep the geese.

03 Parataxis
 Definition

The so-called parataxis refers to the connection between words or clauses

without linguistic formal means, in which the grammatical meaning and
logical relations are expressed through the meaning of the words or clauses
<<The World Book Dictionary>> gives a definition:
The arranging of clauses one after the other without connectives showing the
relation between them.

Example: The rain fell; the river flooded; the house washed
away
 Historical origin
In China, the study of parataxy can be traced back at least to Liuxie <<Carving a
dragon at the core of literature>>
He said: Speech is a sentence from a word, a chapter from a sentence, and a
chapter from a chapter
Illustrating the organizing principle of Chinese chapters and sentences: sentences
from words and words, the accumulation of sentences into achapter, and the
accumulation of chapters into an article, reflecting the paratactic feature of Chinese
that attaches importance importance to word order.
 Historical origin

The German linguistic Humboldt made a special study of Chinese in the 19 th

century. Although he did not use the term “parataxy” directly, he pointed out that
the grammar of Chinese was completely different from that of classical European
languages.
 Sentence order

Chinese uses few or no connective words, and semantics are

closely related to word order .

Humboldt also argued that “Chinses has no formal grammatical

distinction, and abandons all useless appendage devices, so that
sentences correspond closely to the order of thought .”

Although many subject-subordinate complex sentences in

Chinese do not use connective words, their forms are similar to
parallel complex sentences, but the meanings of the clauses are
dominant and secondary.
1 Sentence order
2: Repetition , parallelism, duality ,and contrast

The words of these sentence patterns are neat, well-

structured, and can be intertextualized, often without related
words.
3. Condensed sentences

This type of paratactic sentence pattern is condensed from

complex sentences. The so-called "tight" means compact,
which is to eliminate the phonetic pause between the clauses, so
that they are close together: The so-called "contraction" is
compression, which means to omit some words of the original
clauses and make them some simple . This kind of implicit
relation sentence is concise and compact, and the grammatical
relationship and logical connection between the clauses are
often implicit:
condensed sentences
1) 有 志 者 事 竟 成 。 Where there is a will, there is a way.
In this Chinese idiom, the sentence is condensed, representing the
content of complex sentences in a single sentence. Although
conjunctions are not used, the logical relationships are hidden within
the meaning of the sentence ， which means “ 只要有志向，所有
事都能成功。”
In English, however, relative clauses are used, and their logical
relationships are expressed very clearly through the word "where".
Other examples ：
2) 不 到 黄 河 心 不 死 。 Until all is over, ambition never dies.
3) 问 遍 千 家 成 行 家 。 Learn from numerous advisers, and
you’ll become a master.
4. Four-character structure
Four-character case is a widely used language form in Chinese.
LvShuxiang(1984: 423-430) points out that "the tetra syllabic 2 +2
is an important rhythmic tendency in modern Chinese. ... The
advantage of four syllables is especially manifested in the fact that
there are a large number of four-syllable idioms in modern
Chinese, that is, 'four-character cases'." The four-character case is
often refined, concise and comprehensive, and it is often a good
work with legal meaning:
4. Four-character structure
04 Contrastive analysis
Lexical aspect

Lexical change
In English, the form of vocabulary is determined by the tense,
case, and form of subject(singular or plural),ect.
Chinese has little lexical change

The use of articles

Frequent use of article: book× a book the book√

No article: the function of articles is realized by numerals
and quantifiers in Chinese
Lexical aspect
Word formation: Derivation vs Compound
reason expect understand
reasonable expected understanding
unreasonable unexpected misunderstanding

山脚 = 山 + 脚
手术刀 = 手术＋刀
Syntactic aspect

Bamboo structure
Chinese values the integrity of context. Chinese
sentences or texts often revolve around a single theme
with the structure of “Topic-coment( 主 题 - 述 题 ） ” .
Therefore, the construction of Chinese sentences likes
bamboo, which is laid out section by section. Run-on
sentence( 流 水 句 ） is a typical Chinese sentence
structure
Syntactic aspect

Tree structure/ Grape structure

In terms of expression, English strictly follows the
“Subject-predicate” structure, and important
imformation is placed in the position of subject.
English sentences often have a “trunk” and various
“branches” to modify “trunk”.
05 Reasons
Different language families

• English belongs to Germanic group of Indo-European while Chinese is a

branch of Sino-Tibetan language family.
• The Indo-European language, characterized by hypotaxis, is a type of writing
that stresses external logical forms, emphasizing deduction and inference
from syntax to discourse.
• Chinese is a language primarily based on parataxis. Sentence structure
lacking logical argumentation can better reflect the dialectical relationships
in real life, such as “ 否极泰来”，“天不变，道亦不变” .
Different thinking style
Linear thinking style
Westerners emphasize science, rationality, analysis and empirical
evidence. Therefore they often rely on abstract or logical thinking to make
judgements and inferences.

Aristotle established form logic( 形 式 逻 辑 ） . On this basis, Europeans

and Americans developed a complete set of logical systems. For 2500
years, syllogism( 三 段 论 ） (major premise, minor premise, conclusion)
have become the connerstone of western thinking, making logicality an
important feature of western thinking style.
Different thinking style

Curve thinking style

“What they (Chinese) trust is not logic···logic has not developed into a
complete science···but perhaps a more sound ordinary sensibility···”(Lin
Yutang)

Chinese people emphasize introspection, inner experience and intuition, and

overlook experimental argumentation and theoretical analysis. By using
intuition to comprehend, through contemplation, physical recognition, and
inspiration, one can directly and quickly grasp a holistic feeling and the whole.
Different cultures

Chinese philosophy originated from Confucianism, Buddhism and

Taoism, which believes man and nature are one( 天 人 合 一 ） ,
emphasizing cooperation and connection between all things, with greater
stress on the whole and background. People who grow up in this culture
prefer the holistic thinking style. Therefore, Chinese culture is a high
context culture. Context is vital for Chinese to understand the meaning of a
sentence.
Different cultures

Western philosophy originated from ancient Greek, which believes human

and nature are seperate （ 天 人 二 分 ） , emphasizing various laws that
make things independent of their background. They tend to focus on the
characteristics of objects without considering their background. People who
grow up in this culture prefer analytical thinking style. Therefore, western
culture is a low context culture. Context is less important and people can
understand a sentence through its form.
06 Enlightenments
Translation
Nida’s translation theory: Functional Equivalence

In translation, attention should be paid not only to the

meaning and spirit of the language, but also to the form as
much as possible, because form also has meaning. If
meaning and spirit are restricted by form, then form
equivalence can be ignored, that is, “meaning first, form
second”.
Translation
Nida’s translation theory: Functional Equivalence

Three principles of dynamic equivalence

equivalent, which points toward the source-language
natural, which points toward the receptor language
closet, which binds the two orientations together on the basis of
the highest degree of approximation.
E-C

• Break down the long sentence and rearrange the sentence.

• Omit relative words and cohesive words
• Prepose attribute( 定语前置）
• Use verbs to replace prepositions
• Amplify function word( 这，其，而言， ······ 来说）
• Use short sentences and long sentences （四、六、八句）
C-E

• Figure out the logical relationships between sentences.

• Build the main body of the translated sentences based on the
primary and secondary relationships of the original
information
• Use cohesive words and relative words
• More nouns and prepositions and less verbs
English writing
Common errors in English writing
1. Use of run-on sentences
I bought five books, these five books totally cost me five yuan, I took them
home to see, all were half new and half old. ×
2. lack of cohesive words
The weather is bad today, we plan to go hiking another time. ×
3. unable to transform Chinese “Topic-comment” structure to English
“Subject-predicate structure”
This city rains frequently in early summer. ( 这个城市夏初经常下雨） ×
4. Ignorance of transforming positive voice to negative voice
The battery must recharge from time to time. ×
• English writing is a process of output, which is a reflection of input
knowledge.
• Therefore, in order to master a foreign language, we should conduct a
detailed contrastive study between the two languages, discover their
similarities and differences, reduce negative transfer of the mother
tongue, and achieve positive transfer in language learning.
• Teachers should pay attention to the characteristics of hypotaxis and
parataxis, and provide students with more guidance on vocabulary and
syntax in the teaching of writing.
Thank you !