The modern Chinese linguistic recursion system is essentially the same as the English one. If you have a highly embedded sentence, you can translate it word for word; the embedding is very much the same. In my youth, I believed this was just another datum in favor of Universal Grammar theory, but that is not true.
Everett recently demonstrated that pre-literate languages can lack embedding, it has long been known that Warlpiri does not have recursive structures like multiple embedding at all, and Fred Karlsson in "Constraints on multiple center-embedding of clauses" argues persuasively that the modern European center-recursion system was standardized by Cicero in Roman times, and that the rules for recursion spread through the influence of Cicero's writing. So that no languages at all were recursive to begin with.
It seems doubtful to me that this could have reached China until at least the late Middle Ages, so Chinese recursion is a particularly stringent test of the evolution of recursion in isolation from Cicero, in a culture literate in ancient times. It is possible that Chinese recursion evolved independently.
- What is the approximate date of the earliest Chinese 2- or more level center-embedded production? (2-level center embedding is a stringent test of Cicero-speak.)
- Is it before or after the date of the first translations of western recursive prose to Chinese?
- What is the general pattern of clause embedding in ancient Chinese? Does it show multiple embedding of clauses? When?
Although it seems highly unlikely to me, if you have evidence that Chinese recursed first, and Cicero read Chinese, that would be interesting. Bonus points for Sanskrit, although I would guess no multi-level embedding in ancient Sanskrit (based on ancient Hebrew) and considering the different expertise required, it should probably be a separate question.
