A Grammar of Guìqióng : A Language of Sichuan

In A Grammar of Guìqióng, Jiāng Lì describes the grammar of Guìqióng, a hitherto undocumented language spoken by alpine people in Kāngdìng county, China. Guìqióng has a lot to offer in its phonology, verbal and nominal morphology, syntax and glossary, distinguishing itself from the neighbouring Tibetan, Chinese, Qiangic and Loloish languages.The newly discovered features of Guìqióng include breathy vs. modal voice, indefinite number, ablative, ergative, instrumental, dative and genitive case markers, topic and emphatic markers, the diminutive suffixes, the pronominal and deictic systems, demonstratives and numerals, a rich store of differentiated copular verbs expressing equationality, inchoative, animacy vs. inanimacy, dependent existence and negation, verbal affixes indicating directions, present tense of experienced perceptions, gnomic tense, perfective vs. imperfective aspect, modality and evidentiality. Contents 6 Acknowledgements 10 Abbreviations 11 List of Illustrations 13 1 Introduction 16 1.1 Location 16 1.2 The Names of the People and the Language 20 1.3 Guìqióng in the Documented History 21 1.4 Archaeological Findings of the Guìqióng Area 22 1.5 Lingering Memories 24 1.6 Life Styles 25 1.7 Demographic Data of Guìqióng Speakers 32 1.8 Literature Review 35 2 Guìqióng Phonology 38 2.1 Guìqióng Vowels, Nasalisation and Diphthong 38 2.1.1 Guìqióng Vowel Initials and Their Tones 40 2.1.2 Phonetic Description of Guìqióng Vowels 41 2.2 Phonetic Description of Guìqióng Consonants 46 2.2.1 The Uvular Fricatives /χ/, /ʁ/ and /ʁ’/ and the Glottal Fricatives /h/ 46 2.2.2 The Velar Plosives and Nasals /k/, /kh/, /g/, /g’/, /’ŋ/ and /ŋ/ 48 2.2.3 The Palatal Nasals /’ɲ/ and /ɲ/ 50 2.2.4 The Alveolo-palatal Fricatives /ɕ/, /ʑ/ and /ʑ’/ 51 2.2.5 The Alveolo-palatal Affricatives /ʨ/, /ʨh/, /dʑ/ and /dʑ’/ 52 2.2.6 Retroflex /ʈ/, /ʈh/, /ɖ/, /’ɳ/, /ɳ/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/ and /ʐ’/ 53 2.2.7 The Retroflex Affricates /tʂ/, /tʂh/, /dʐ/ and /dʐ’/ 54 2.2.8 The Alveolars /t/, /th/, /d/, /d’/, /’n/, /n/, /s/, /z/, /z’/ and /ɬ/ 56 2.2.9 The Alveolar Affricates /ts/, /tsh/, /dz/ and /dz’/ 59 2.2.10 The Bilabial Consonants /p/, /ph/, /b/, /’b/, /’m/, /m/, /φ/ and /β/ 60 2.2.11 The Lateral Continuant /lh/, the Glides /’l/, /l/, /’j/, / j/, /’w/ and /w/ 63 2.3 Guìqióng Tones and Initials 64 2.3.1 A General Description of Guìqióng Tones 68 2.3.2 Guìqióng Tones and Their Markers 71 2.4 Guìqióng Syllables and Consonant Finals 73 2.5 Assimilation 73 2.6 Regressive Vowel Harmony 73 2.7 Prosody 75 2.8 Variation 76 3 Morphology 78 3.1 Nominal Morphology 78 3.1.1 Definite versus Indefinite Number of Nouns 78 3.1.2 Case 80 3.1.3 The Diminutives 94 3.1.4 Personal Pronouns 97 3.1.5 Demonstrative Determiners and Pronouns 103 3.1.6 Numerals 109 3.2 Verbal Morphology 118 3.2.1 Guìqióng Bare Stem Sentences 118 3.2.2 Guìqióng Copulas 121 3.2.3 Guìqióng Derivational Verb Roots 138 3.2.4 Directional Morphemes 144 3.2.5 Tense Marking 151 3.2.6 Aspect Marking 179 3.2.7 Modality Markers and Modal Verbs 213 3.2.8 The Evidential Constructions 263 3.2.9 The Causative Markers 273 3.2.10 Negation, Adverbs and Adverbials 280 3.2.11 The Instrumental and Oblique Nominaliser -’ji 290 4 Syntax 294 4.1 Simple Clause 294 4.1.1 Verbal Clauses 294 4.1.2 Non-verbal Clauses 296 4.2 Complex Clauses 297 4.2.1 Coordination 297 4.2.2 Subordination 298 4.2.3 Serial Verbs 314 4.3 Basic Word Order 316 4.4 Interrogative Constructions 317 4.4.1 Polar Questions 317 4.4.2 Question-word Questions 321 4.4.3 Rhetorical Questions 324 5 Pragmatics 325 5.1 New versus Old Information 325 5.2 Topic-comment Constructions 327 5.2.1 Topic Marker 328 5.3 Focus-presupposition Constructions 331 5.3.1 Emphatic Marker 332 Appendices 338 Appendix 1: Sayings, Stories and Recollections 340 Appendix 2: Guìqióng-English Glossary 363 Appendix 3: English-Guìqióng Glossary 411 References 458 Index 463 Jiang Lì describes the grammar of Guìqióng, a hitherto undocumented language spoken by alpine people in K?ngdìng county, China. Guìqióng has a lot to offer in its phonology, verbal and nominal morphology, syntax and glossary, distinguishing itself from the neighbouring Tibetan, Chinese, Qiangic and Loloish languages. 0The newly discovered features of Guìqióng include breathy vs. modal voice, indefinite number, ablative, ergative, instrumental, dative and genitive case markers, topic and emphatic markers, the diminutive suffixes, the pronominal and deictic systems, demonstratives and numerals, a rich store of differentiated copular verbs expressing equationality, inchoative, animacy vs. inanimacy, dependent existence and negation, verbal affixes indicating directions, present tense of experienced perceptions, gnomic tense, perfective vs. imperfective aspect, modality and evidentiality