This is one of the volumes in “A Series of Books on Chinese Prosodic Grammar”.Starting with the prosodic-syntactic interface, this book makes the first comprehensive study of the interrogative words and syntactic phenomena of prosodic restriction in ancient Chinese.Based on the hierarchical structure of prosody, this book is divided into three parts to explore the constraints of prosodic units and their corresponding prosodic rules on interrogative words and syntax.The first part discusses the syntactic opposition of the interrogative words“胡*ga” and “何*gal”in ancient Chinese from the perspective of prosodic foot, and points out that the difference in the number of prosodic elements between the two leads to their different syntactic distributions.The second part studies the opposition of monosyllabic/disyllabic interrogative words in different syntactic positions caused by disyllabic foot. The third part focuses on the intonation phrases, discussing the question structure [何/奚（+以）+XP+为] and exploring the generation mechanism of the modal particle“为”from the perspective of the mutual transformation between intonation and modal particle at the end of the sentence.
Li Guo, a PhD in Chinese Language and Characters at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, works as a researcher at the Institute of Chinese Popular Culture of Sichuan University, a lecturer at the College of Literature and Journalism of Sichuan University, and a researcher at the Center for Endangered Languages of Southwest Minzu University. He is interested in prosodic grammar and diachronic syntax, publishing eight linguistic papers and being a member/leading member of five research projects.