A Typological Study of Evidentiality in Qiangic Languages

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-52626-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 80 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 167 g

Reihe: Brill Research Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences / Brill Research Perspectives in Linguistics

As an intriguing but little understood language group within the Tibeto-Burman family, Qiangic languages are widely reported to have evidentiality, the grammatical means of expressing information source. How does this category function in this language group? Does it show any common features across these languages? And does it have any unique properties? Drawing on data from over a dozen languages and dialects, and cast within an informative typological framework, this study is the first attempt to answer these questions. It is found that evidentiality in Qiangic languages can be classified into three broad types. The study further demonstrates that modern systems cannot be inherited from Proto-Qiangic, and it also reveals certain features of the reported evidential that seem to be typologically rare.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bai, Junwei

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Abbreviations vii

Abstract

Keywords

1 Introduction

2 Evidentiality in Qiangic Languages

3 Discussion

4 Summary

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Junwei Bai obtained his Ph.D. in anthropological linguistics from James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, in 2020, under the supervision of Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon, and is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow of The College of Arts, Society, and
Education at the same university. His main research interest is the Munya language, which belongs to the Qiangic branch of the Tibeto-Burman family.