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‘Superstrate Effects of Negation in Waxiang: A Case Study of Language Contact in Northwestern Hunan, China’

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SUPERSTRATE EFFECTS OF NEGATION IN WAXIANG: A CASE STUDY OF LANGUAGE CONTACT IN NORTHWESTERN HUNAN, CHINA Hilary Chappell CUHK/EHESS This paper investigates the phenomenon of stratification (cf. Yue-Hashimoto 1991) in the form of a set of negation strategies used in the Waxiang language of Northwestern Hunan, China. Waxiang is one of many endangered languages spoken in the remote mountainous area of northwestern Hunan, known as Xiangxi 湘西. It is an unclassified Sinitic vernacular, displaying quite conservative syntax and lexicon. Although it has developed in a region surrounded by genetically unrelated languages, in particular, Hmong (Hmong-Mien) and Tujia (Tibeto-Burman), its major influence in the last century has been from Southwestern Mandarin 西南官话, one of the eight main varieties of the Mandarin macro-group of dialects. Waxiang thus presents a case of the less-explored phenomenon of language contact between varieties that are genetically related. Up to the early 20th century, Waxiang remained spoken in highly isolated, almost monolingual, communities, according to the local gazetteers 地方志of the time. One century later, the situation has almost reversed itself, producing certain revealing language contact outcomes which implicate stratification, diffusion and hybridization rather than outright replacement of structure (cf. Wang & Lien 1993, Zhang 2000). The issue to be treated in this talk is a case study of syntactic patterns involving negation that are borrowed from Southwestern Mandarin into Waxiang, including polar interrogatives and potential verb complementation. These are found to co-exist stably side-by-side with the native forms. Given the conservative nature of Waxiang and the right typological preconditions, these kinds of phenomena may potentially illuminate certain features of the early stages involved in the processes of integrating and “nativizing” externally borrowed language structures, and particularly cases that do not necessarily lead to full replacement of structure (q.v. also Chappell 2001). Discourse data is taken from extensive fieldwork data on the Gaofeng dialect 高峰鄉, spoken in the county of Guzhang 古丈縣 in northwestern Hunan. REFERENCES : Chappell, Hilary. 2001. Language contact and areal diffusion in Sinitic languages: problems for typology and genetic affiliation, In: Alexandra Aikhenvald & R.M.W. Dixon (eds.) Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance: problems in comparative linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 328-357. Yue-Hashimoto, Anne. 1991. Stratification in comparative dialectal grammar: a case study in Southern Min, Journal of Chinese Linguistics 19.2 : 172-201. Wang, William S-Y. & Chinfa Lien. 1993. Bidirectional diffusion in sound change. Historical Linguistics: Problems and Perspectives, ed. by Charles Jones. London & New York: Longman, pp. 345-400. Zhang Min. 2000. Syntactic change in Southeastern Mandarin: How does geographical distribution reveal a history of diffusion?, In Memory of Professor Li Fang-Kuei: Essays of Linguistic Change and the Chinese Dialects, ed. by Ting Pang-Hsin & Anne O. Yue. 197-242. Taipei & Seattle: Academia Sinica and University of Washington.
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hal-04544126 , version 1 (12-04-2024)

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Hilary Chappell. ‘Superstrate Effects of Negation in Waxiang: A Case Study of Language Contact in Northwestern Hunan, China’. Symposium on Language and Cultural Contacts along the borders of China, Ancient and Modern,, Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese Department of Language and Literature, T.T.NG Centre for Chinese Language Research & EHESS, Paris, Mar 2024, Hong Kong, China. ⟨hal-04544126⟩
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