Contact-Induced Language Change in the History of the Chinese Language

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-75003-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 32, 500 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Languages of Asia

What happens when Chinese is shaped by centuries of contact with Mongolic, Tungusic, Turkic, and Tibetic languages? This volume explores this question through striking case studies of lects like Tangwang and Wutun, where Chinese exhibits unexpected features such as OV word order, case suffixes, and restructured verbal morphology. Drawing on rare fieldwork data, this volume reveals how deep multilingual interaction transforms grammatical systems. It offers a unique contribution to the study of language change, typology, and contact linguistics—essential reading for anyone interested in how languages evolve in complex sociolinguistic environments.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Djamouri, Redouane

Lamarre, Christine

Lefort, Julie

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Über Autor(innen)

Redouane Djamouri, Director of Research at CNRS and member of CRLAO, specializes in Archaic Chinese syntax and semantics. His recent work explores language contact in China, especially with Altaic languages, and includes field research on Tangwang since 2008.

Christine Lamarre, professor emerita at Inalco and member of CRLAO, specializes in morpho-syntactic variation in Sinitic languages. Her research covers modality, motion, aspect, and tense, with fieldwork in Northern China and studies based on historical Chinese grammar texts.

Julie Lefort, postdoctoral fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, researches Sino-Mongolian language contact in Gansu, focusing on Dongxiang and hybrid varieties like Linxia and Tangwang. Her work combines fieldwork, typology, and contact-induced grammaticalization, with several related publications.