A Study of Hmong-Mien Historical Grammar
| Project/Area Number |
17520250
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Linguistics
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| Research Institution | Chiba University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAGUCHI Yoshihisa Chiba University, Faculty of Literature, Associate Professor (10291303)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2007
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2007)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,230,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2007: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
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| Keywords | Hmong-Mien / Areal diffusion / Historical linguistics / East Asian languages / 歴史文法 |
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| Research Abstract |
Based on the research that we conducted in the previous year, I proceeded on to the comparative study of several grammatical features in the Hmong-Mien languages/dialects. The grammatical phenomena that I studied are: reduplication, polar interrogative formation, and locative construction. (a) On reduplication, I found that several Hmong dialects share a very idiosyncratic reduplicative process that involves vowel alternation in the reduplicant, and there is some evidence to show that this process can be reconstructed in the Proto-Hmong. Bian-min, a dialed of Mian, has another idiosyncratic process of reduplication that denotes augmentation. Although the augmentative reduplication is only found in stative verbs/adjectives in the other dialects, it has extended the application range to nouns and action verbs. Through the comparison between two varieties of Biau-min, we found that in one of the varieties, only material nouns can enter into the process. The fad suggests that the augmentat
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ive reduplication originated from the material nouns, wextending to the other types of noun. (b) On polar interrogative formation, I found that A-not-A pattern is the norm in Hmong-Mien. While using sentence final interrogative particles is another important option for most languages/dialects, one Hmong dialect, Luobohe Hmong, basically has no such particles, suggesting that the utilization of sentence final interrogative particles in Hmong is the result of contact with Chinese. c One of the most interesting results comes from the comparison of the locative constructions of Hmong-Mien. To express the location of some entity, and to express the location of action, all the languages/dialects utilize the locative verb "be at". However, to express the location of some entity at a position as a result of some action, another verb meaning "put" is used in several Hmongic languages. This pattern should be regarded as an archaic one, compared with the Chinese-like pattern using the locative verb found in some other languages/dialects. Less
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Report
(4 results)
Research Products
(10 results)
