Some Issues in the Study of Chinese Poetic Prosody (Zhang amp; Chen).pdf

Breaking Down the Barriers, 00-00 2012-1-050-019-000280-1 Some Issues in the Study of Chinese Poetic Prosody Hongming Zhang1,2 and Chenqing Song3 University of Wisconsin-Madison1 Nankai University2 State University of New York, Binghamton3 This paper begins by defining poetic prosody and discussing various building elements of Chinese poetic prosody, such as rhythmic grouping, tonal assignment, and rhyming patterns. It then distinguishes between poetic prosody itself and the performance of metered texts in order to provide a better understanding of tonal prosody and the nature of rhyming. Key words: Chinese poetry, prosody, rhythmic pattern, tonal assignment 1. Introduction Poetic prosody, shilü 詩律 in Chinese, has been a point of discussion in the fields of both literature and linguistics. Both literary scholars’ and linguists’ interest in this topic can be explained by the fact that prosody as seen in human poetry is indeed both literary and linguistic: certain sound properties in human language are utilized in creative literary architecting and result in distinctive patterns. While literary scholars often focus 1 on the esthetic beauty of the patterns or poets’ personal creations and choices, linguists direct their attention more towards researching the linguistic materials that build these patterns. Questions such as what linguistic elements are chosen to form the patterns, to what degree they are subject to creative literary manipulation, and what is universal or language specific in the formation of the patterns used in different poetic traditions around the world all interest us enormousl