Almost all lexemes in Classical Chinese are individual characters one spoken syllable in length. This contrasts with modern Chinese dialects where two-syllable words are extremely common. Chinese has acquired many polysyllabic words in order to disambiguate monosyllabic words that sounded different in earlier forms of Chinese but identical in one region or another during later periods. Because Classical Chinese is based on the literary examples of ancient Chinese literature, it has almost none of the two-syllable words present in modern varieties of Chinese.
Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular. In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to the first-person pronoun, Literary Chinese has several, many of which are used as part of honorific language, and several of which have different grammatical uses (first-person collective, first-person possessive, etc.).
In syntax, Classical Chinese words are not restrictively categorized into parts of speech: nouns used as verbs, adjectives used as nouns, and so on. There is no copula in Classical Chinese; is a copula in modern Chinese but in old Chinese it was originally a near demonstrative ('this'), the modern Chinese equivalent of which is .
Beyond grammar and vocabulary differences, Classical Chinese can be distinguished by literary and cultural differences: an effort to maintain parallelism and rhythm, even in prose works, and extensive use of literary and cultural allusions, thereby also contributing to brevity.
Many final particles and[1] interrogative particles are found in Literary Chinese.[2]
| Function | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Conjunction | |||
| Pronoun | |||
| Alternative for 'can' | |||
| Pronoun, often before the modal particles and | |||
| Adverb, or used in the first sentence before the verb, that question can be translated as 'how' | |||
| Preposition | |||
| Modal particle expressing doubt, praise, surprise, or to highlight the word in front | |||
| Expresses a question when placed at the end of a phrase | |||
| Preposition | |||
| Modal particle expressing doubt, praise, surprise, or to highlight the word in front | |||
| Expresses a question when placed at the end of a phrase | |||
| Pronoun | |||
| Preposition, that the object, which is equivalent to 'substitute for', 'give', 'once upon a time', 'opposed', 'with', 'with regards to' | |||
| Preposition pointed out that the reason for the equivalent of 'because' | |||
| Preposition, that the passive, which is equivalent to 'be' | |||
| Verb | |||
| Preposition | |||
| Modal particle, often with the pronouns or | |||
| Tone for the end of the sentence, equivalent to or | |||
| Tone of the words express a standstill for the sentence | |||
| Pronoun | |||
| Pronoun equivalent to | |||
| Preposition indicating reason equivalent to 'in order to'. Originally derived from a noun meaning 'reason'. | |||
| Preposition indicating means | |||
| Preposition introducing action, where activity takes place within a certain period and location, equivalent to 'at', 'from' | |||
| Conjunction to indicate juxtaposition, a linked relationship, objective, or causality; similar to . | |||
| Third-person possessive pronoun | |||
| Modal particle expressing doubt or possibility | |||
| Modal particle expressing a softened imperative: an exhortation or wish (rather than a command) | |||
| 'that which' | |||
| Used at the end of the sentence to provide a positive, emphasizing or doubtful tone. If used within the sentence, indicates a pause to delay the mood. | |||
| Preposition for place, reason; expression of action behaviour and the introduction of premises, time, motion, target, location, relationship between people, introduction to the object of comparison or analogy. | |||
| Conjunction | |||
| Particle referring to people, objects, times, locations, etc. When placed after the subject, indicates a slight pause, or expresses determination. | |||
| Third-person object pronoun | |||
| Near demonstrative pronoun, 'this' | |||
| Possessive marker for personal pronouns similar to modern . | |||
| Nominalization marker inserted between subject and predicate to convert a clause into a noun phrase. Can be thought of as an extension of (2) above. | |||
| Transitive verb 'to go' | |||
| Speech indicator similar to 'says' or 'said' | |||
| 'also', 'too' | |||
| Adverb | |||
| Particle indicating completion | |||
| Sentence-initial particle indicating uncertainty | |||
As with function words, there are many differences between the content words of Classical Chinese and those of Baihua. Below are synonyms used in the two registers. Some Classical Chinese words can have more than one meaning.
However, Classical Chinese words still exist among many chengyu, or Chinese idioms.
The Classical Chinese words and examples will be written in traditional characters, and the modern vernacular will be written in both simplified and traditional characters.
| Classical Chinese word | Part of speech | Baihua word(simplified) | Baihua word(traditional) | Meaning | Classical Chinese example | Baihua translation (simplified) | Baihua translation (traditional) | English meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 日 | noun | 太阳[3] | 太陽 | sun | 雲開見 | 拔开云雾，见到太阳。[4] | 拔開雲霧，。 | The clouds opened and the sun shone through. | |
| 目 | noun | 眼睛 | 眼睛 | eye | 每毙一人掩其[5] | 因此每射杀一个人，。 | 因此每射殺一個人，。 | Whenever he killed a man, he covered his eyes. | |
| 虎 | noun | 老虎 | 老虎 | tiger | 不入[6] | 不敢进入，。 | 不敢進入，。 | One may only catch the tiger cub by entering the tiger's den. | |
| 犬 | noun | 狗 | 狗 | dog | 一犬吠形，百犬吠聲[7] | 一只，。 | 一隻，。 | One barking dog sets all the street abark. |