The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[rikforto]

There's a few ways to interpret what you've written, so you tell me which is the main position you're defending. It may not be any of these, feel free to clarify:

1. A text in Classical Chinese read with vernacular pronunciation constitutes a translation in and of itself, hence the Author could comprehend a substantial amount of text
   
2. The Author was mainly creating a phonetic record of a recitation, and could phonetically recite the text but had low comprehension
   
3. The VMS represents a translation as well as a phonetic encoding; e.g. there are substantial changes to make it conform with the vernacular that go beyond phonology