Chinese can be considered an isolating language for two main reasons: 1. Chinese words are generally monomorphemic, consisting of a single morpheme. However, Chinese does have some obligatory affixes in certain contexts like with classifiers and plural markings. 2. Even when affixes are present, the boundaries between morphemes are still clearly identifiable in Chinese. Examples are given showing how the addition of suffixes does not obscure the base morpheme. Chinese is thus largely isolating based on its monomorphemic words and clear morpheme boundaries, though it does have some obligatory affixation in limited contexts.

1. Chinese as an Isolating Language
J L Packard
Presented by
Lahcen GRAID

2. Introduction
The term “isolating” refers to:
I. Whether the words of a language are
monomorphemic.
II. Whether the morphemes of a language are
clearly identifiable.

3. I. Isolating Defined as Having
Monomorphemic Words
 Chinese is isolating because its words occur
without obligatory affixation
 Even when Chinese words contain affixes,
they are never obligatory
However,
 Chinese affixes are sometimes obligatory

4. Some common examples of obligatory
marking of an optionally selected
property in Chinese are:
2.The use of classifiers with nouns,
3.The marking of plural numbers on
human pronouns,
4.The use of aspect marking on verbs.

5. 1. The use of classifiers with
nouns
Classifiers are word-forming morphemes that
are required when nouns are modified by a
number and/or a determiner.
Example:
When the noun shu ‘book’ is modified by a
determiner such as na ‘that’, the classifier
ben ‘volume’ must occur between the
modifying element and the noun, yeilding na-
ben shu ‘that book.

6. 2. The marking of plural numbers
on human pronouns
The personal pronouns wo ‘I/me’, ni ‘you’ and
ta ‘he, she’ are obligatorily marked with the
plural suffix –men when the referent is plural
in number:
Examples:
 women ‘we, us ’
 nimen ‘you (pl)
 tamen ‘they, them’

7. 3. The use of aspect marking on
verbs
Verbs in chinese may occur with inflectional
suffixes that express various forms of
grammatical aspect.
Example:
The verbal aspect marker –le indicates that the
event associated with the verb has been
completed

8. II. Isolating Defined as Having
Clearly Identifiable Morphemes
In Chinese, morpheme boundaries are clearly
identifiable even in cases of affixation in which
the phonological form of the stem is affected.

9. Noun Noun plus –er Meaning
(ər) suffix
(1) niou niour ‘ox’
(2) ua uar ‘frog’
(3) ky kyr ‘song’
(4) gaɳ gãr ‘jar’
(5 p’an p’ar ‘pan’
(6) i iər ‘Clothes’
(7) in iər ‘seal’
(8) kuei kuər ‘ghost’
(9) ci cər ‘word’
(10) pei pər ‘cup’

10. Conclusion
Chinese scores rather high on the
isolating language scale when
defined according to the second
criterion.