A typological and historical study of grammar in Hmongic languages

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00595
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: Taguchi Yoshihisa 千葉大学, 大学院人文科学研究院, 教授 (10291303)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ミャオ語 / 文法記述 / 文法化 / テキスト集

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project aims to study the grammar of Hmongic languages based on collected data of the relevant languages, and also aims to explore the historical developments of the grammar. Although this project was severely influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, it still was able to produce certain amounts of valuable results. In terms of descriptive linguistics, the project succeeded in describing the forms and functions of some relative clause constructions, and those of purposive prefix found in serial verb constructions. The project published a text collection of a Hmongic language, Lan Hmyo. In terms of historical linguistics, the project produced two papers through comparing the data of several Hmongic languages, one discussing the issue of grammaticalization of an ACQUIRE verb, and the other the issue of grammaticalization of a TAKE verb.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ミャオ系諸語は，ミエン語系諸語とともにミャオ・ヤオ語族をなすが，世界の諸語族の中でも共時的記述において遅れている言語群である。本研究では、これまでほとんど全く記述されていないミャオ語を大量のテキストを収集整理して、それを利用して文法研究の成果を出すことができた。また、テキストはテキスト集として出版し、一般に公開することで、他の研究者に利用可能なものとした。