Grammatical diversity across the yue dialects

Bit-Chee Kwok; Andy C. Chin; Benjamin K. Tsou

doi:10.1353/jcl.2016.0002

Grammatical diversity across the yue dialects

Bit-Chee Kwok^*, Andy C. Chin, Benjamin K. Tsou

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Chinese and History

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

There is a general belief that Yue constitutes a highly uniform dialect group, with its members sharing a good number of structures and lexica with the regional prestige dialect, Cantonese. Based on our first hand data collected from the field, this paper∗ describes the lesser known grammatical diversity across the Yue dialects, which can be illustrated by the different uses of the following features: (a) ideophonic suffixes; (b) diminutive suffixes and tone sandhi; (c) perfective aspect markers and their position in the VP, and (d) neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity across Yue cannot simply be overlooked.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	109-152
Journal	Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Volume	44
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1353/jcl.2016.0002
Publication status	Published - Jan 2016

Funding

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 'Workshop on Peripheral Yue' hosted by City University of Hong Kong in May 2011, and at the 'Forum on "Y.R. Chao and Linguistics"' hosted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education in August 2012. The study was supported in part by a Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (CERG) from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (Project No.: CityU 144507), and a Strategic Research Grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project No.: 7002797). We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Xiaoyan Chen, Xingquan Hou, Shin Kataoka, Huayong Lin, Yi Lin, Fengyu Qin, Huihua Rong and Yongjie Wang for their professional help in organization of our fieldwork data; and to Professors Zhongmin Chen, Samuel H.-N. Cheung, Paul Law, Thomas H.-T. Lee, Phoebe Lin, William S.-Y. Wang, Fuxiang Wu, Anne Yue-Hashimoto, Chusheng Zhuang as well as the anonymous reviewers for providing us with useful comments and suggestions. Of course, all errors are our sole responsibility.

Research Keywords

Dialects
Ideophonic
Language diversity
Neutral question form
Perfective aspect
Suffix diminutive
Yue

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title = "Grammatical diversity across the yue dialects",

abstract = "There is a general belief that Yue constitutes a highly uniform dialect group, with its members sharing a good number of structures and lexica with the regional prestige dialect, Cantonese. Based on our first hand data collected from the field, this paper∗ describes the lesser known grammatical diversity across the Yue dialects, which can be illustrated by the different uses of the following features: (a) ideophonic suffixes; (b) diminutive suffixes and tone sandhi; (c) perfective aspect markers and their position in the VP, and (d) neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity across Yue cannot simply be overlooked.",

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AU - Tsou, Benjamin K.

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N2 - There is a general belief that Yue constitutes a highly uniform dialect group, with its members sharing a good number of structures and lexica with the regional prestige dialect, Cantonese. Based on our first hand data collected from the field, this paper∗ describes the lesser known grammatical diversity across the Yue dialects, which can be illustrated by the different uses of the following features: (a) ideophonic suffixes; (b) diminutive suffixes and tone sandhi; (c) perfective aspect markers and their position in the VP, and (d) neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity across Yue cannot simply be overlooked.

AB - There is a general belief that Yue constitutes a highly uniform dialect group, with its members sharing a good number of structures and lexica with the regional prestige dialect, Cantonese. Based on our first hand data collected from the field, this paper∗ describes the lesser known grammatical diversity across the Yue dialects, which can be illustrated by the different uses of the following features: (a) ideophonic suffixes; (b) diminutive suffixes and tone sandhi; (c) perfective aspect markers and their position in the VP, and (d) neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity neutral question forms. The survey includes nine dialects from different subgroups, most of which are spoken far away from the Pearl River Delta where Cantonese dominates. Our study reveals that while Cantonese has obvious influence over other members of Yue, the grammatical diversity across Yue cannot simply be overlooked.

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KW - Language diversity

KW - Neutral question form

KW - Perfective aspect

KW - Suffix diminutive

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Grammatical diversity across the yue dialects

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Research Keywords

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