Zhoutun

This book presents a description of the grammar of Zhoutun, an endangered Sinitic variety spoken by less than 1000 people in the Qinghai Province of northwest China. With vocabulary predominantly from Chinese and Tibetan syntax, Zhoutun is one of the Sinitic varieties most distant from Standard Chinese.

Autorentext

Chenlei Zhou is an associate professor at the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His main research interests are linguistic typology, language contact and Chinese grammar, and he has published more than 20 articles in journals such as Lingua; Language and Linguistics; and the Journal of Chinese Linguistics.

Inhalt

Contents

Dedication

Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ****

Chapter 2: Phonology

Chapter 3: Nouns and noun phrases

3.1 Definition

3.2 Word formation

3.2.1 Affixation

3.2.2 Reduplication

3.2.3 Compounding

3.3 Number

3.3.1 =m

3.3.2 =li

3.4 Case relations

3.4.1 Dative-accusative =xa/=a

3.4.2 Comitative-instrumental =laÞ

3.4.3 Ablative =tha

3.4.4 Locative =li and =xÞ

3.4.5 Genitive =t

3.4.6 Comparative khaÞ

3.5 Referentiality

3.5.1 Generic

3.5.2 Individual

Chapter 4: Verbs and verb phrases

4.1 Definition

4.2 Aspect

4.2.1 Perfective

4.2.2 Future

4.2.3 Ingressive

4.2.4 Progressive

4.2.5 Resultative

4.2.6 Experiential

4.2.7 The expression of tense

4.3 Modality

4.3.1 Dynamic modality

4.3.2 Epistemic modality

4.3.3 Deontic modality

4.3.4 Evidentiality

4.3.5 Negation

4.4 Serial verb construction

4.5 Verb-complement constructions

4.5.1 Verb-direction constructions

4.5.2 Verb-result construction

4.5.3 Verb-degree construction

4.6 Valance changing

4.7 Possession and Existence

Chapter 5: Adjectives and adverbs

5.1 Adjectives

5.1.1 Identify adjectives and verbs

5.1.2 Adjectives as modifiers

5.1.3 Adjectives as predicates

5.2 Adverbs

5.2.1 Position

5.2.2 Some common adverbs

5.2.3 Reduplication

Chapter 6: Minor word classes

6.1 Pronoun

6.1.1 First person

6.1.2 Second person

6.1.3 Third person

6.1.4 Reflexive

6.1.5 Locutor-referential

6.2 Demonstratives

6.2.1 The system

6.2.2 Animate and inanimate referents

6.2.3 Location referents

6.2.4 Manner and degree

6.3 Interrogative words

6.3.1 tu-words

6.3.2 a- words

6.3.3 -m words

6.3.4 Others

6.4 Numerals

6.4.1 Cardinal and ordinal numerals

6.4.2 Fractional numerals

6.5 Classifiers

6.5.1 Nominal classifiers

6.5.2 Verbal classifiers

6.5.3 The position of Num+CL and noun

6.6 Final particles

6.6.1 ti

6.6.2 pa

6.6.3 li

6.6.4 xuÞ

6.6.5 k

6.6.6 ta

6.6.7 ia

6.6.8 m

6.6.9 p

6.6.10 sa

6.6.11 Summary

6.7 Adpositions

6.7.1 Prepositions

6.7.2 Postpositions

6.8 Coordinators

6.8.1 Conjunctive coordinator

6.8.2 Disjunctive coordinators

Chapter 7: Clause structure

7.1 Word order

7.2 Ditransitive construction

7.3 Copula clause

7.4 Comparative clause

7.4.1 Comparative construction

7.4.2 Comparative construction of equality

7.4.3 Superlative construction

7.5 Imperative clause

7.5.1 The form of imperative clauses

7.5.2 The negation of imperative clause

7.6 Interrogative clause

7.6.1 Yes-no question

7.6.2 Wh-question

7.6.3 Alternative question

7.6.4 Tag question

7.7 Subordinate clause

7.7.1 Relative clause

7.7.2 Complement clause

7.7.3 Adverbial clause

7.8 Topic structure

References

Appendix

I. Narrative: The past life in Zhoutun

II. List of abbreviations