System of parts of speech in modern Chinese from the perspective of typology of parts of speech

This chapter proposes to analyse the system of parts of speech in modern Chinese from the perspective of typology of parts of speech. Based on the Amsterdam model, four grammatical positions, namely the core of predictive phrase/modifier and the core of referential phrase/modifier in two pairs, correspond to verb/adverb and noun/adjective. Parts of speech are classified into the type of “rigidness” or “flexibleness”, according to the differientation of the word items in these four positions.