Abstract: In this study, a novel natural language watermarking scheme of Chinese texts based on syntactic transformations is proposed. In the proposed scheme, the so-called sentence weight defined in the study is used to carry the watermark bit. During the embedding process, the transformable sentences are first grouped and then their sequence is permuted to enhance the imperceptibility of watermark bit hiding positions. To improve watermarking reliability and capacity, error correcting coding is also applied.