The Midterm Exam will consist of short answer, short essay, multiple choice, and true-false types of questions.  The questions will cover the following topics:

1. Standard Chinese pronunciation:
1. Does the term 'pre-palatal' describe a manner of articulation?
2. List all the possible values of the Third Tone in Standard Chinese.
3. List three voiced stops in the set of pnyn initials.
4. What term best describes all of the pnyn initials {f s sh x h}?
5. What term best describes all of the following set in pnyn {g -ng k h}?
6. What are finals with no medial called?  Give some examples in pnyn.
7. What is the five-point system of tonal notation?
8. Besides the tone, name the two parts into which a Chinese syllable is divided?
9. Under what conditions does a Third Tone "change" to a Second Tone in Standard Chinese? What is this phenomenon called?
10. Identify one bilabial and one labiodental in Standard Chinese. What is the difference between the two sounds?
11. What kind of sound does zh represent in pnyn? What kind of sound does i represent following zh?
12. What kind of sound does x represent in pnyn? What kind of sound does i represent following x?
13. What kind of sound does c represent in pnyn? What kind of sound does u represent following c?
14. What kind of sound does q represent in pnyn? What kind of sound does u represent following q?
2. History of Chinese:  What is the difference between Classical Chinese, Old Chinese, Middle Chinese, and Bihu (Modern Mandarin)?  Explain, identifying appropriate historical periods for all and representative texts for the at least the first three.
3. Fnqi:  What is meant by fnqi?  Upon what principles is it based?  Describe how it works. Name some early dictionaries that use the fnqi system. What language do those dictionaries represent?  When were they compiled and by whom?
4. Reconstruction of Middle Chinese:  What is linguistic reconstruction?  How is it done for Chinese?  Who was the first to produce a comprehensive reconstruction of Middle Chinese?  When?  What was the title of the work?  What are some characteristics reconstructed for Middle Chinese that are not seen in Modern Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect (Modern Mandarin)?  Are these characteristics found in any Chinese dialects?  Give examples.
5. Middle Chinese Tones:  Name the four tonal categories of Middle Chinese.  What was the basis for the split of Middle Chinese tone categories into yn and  yng?  Explain why the words dng 'east' and tng 'same' have the same tone in Middle Chinese but different tones in Modern Chinese?  What happened to the r tone in the modern Beijing dialect (Modern Mandarin)?
6. Rhyme Tables:  Explain the difference between a rhyme book or dictionary and a rhyme table.  Explain how is a rhyme table organized? Identify an example (including time of publication).  What innovations do rhyme tables show in their analysis of Chinese initials?  Explain, with examples.
7. Sources for the study of Old Chinese.

The Final Exam will consist of short answer, short essay, multiple choice, and true-false types of questions.  The questions will cover the following topics:

1. Chinese Writing:

• What is "Classical Chinese"
• What is "bihu"?
• Is a word is always represented by a single character in Chinese?
• What is a morpheme?
• What is the maximum number of morphemes a single Chinese syllable represents?
• How many syllables are represented by a single Chinese character?
• Define the following words:
• morphosyllabic
• pictograph
• semantograph
• loangraph
• syssemantograph
• phonogram
• allograph
• Characterize the nature of the Chinese writing system.
• Explain the developments that characterize the early evolution of Chinese writing, including
• how and when Chinese characters evolved
• the 3 "stages" of development
• when they were standardized.
• Name and describe the various early forms of Chinese script.
• What dictionary did X Shn compile?  When?  What does the title mean?
• What were the categories X Shn used to classify Chinese characters?  Explain each of them and the structures they represent.
• How did X Shn explain the meaning and structure of Chinese characters?
• Briefly explain the history of the simplification of Chinese characters. When were simplified Characters first used?
• What are the principles used in determining the standard forms for simplified characters?
• How many Chinese characters are there?  Why are there so many?
• How many Chinese characters does the average Chinese learn?

2. Chinese Dialects:

• What is a dialect?  What is implied by the designation dialect?
• How is dialect relationship determined?
• What is meant by "regular correspondence"?
• Define "phonology".
• Discuss how the four tonal categories of Middle Chinese.are reflected in modern Chinese dialects.
• Identify the 7 Chinese dialect groups, including
• where they are located
• a representative city/dialect for the group
• Characterize the dialect groups in terms of
• initials
• finals -- including nasal endings
• tone -- including rù tone
• vocabulary