A reference grammar of the Puxi variety of Qiang

Abstract

This thesis provides a comprehensive and in-depth description and typological analysis of the Puxi variety of Qiang. The investigation of this dissertation is a significant first step toward understanding the Qiang language from typological and functional perspectives. Chapter 1 of this study introduces the geographical distribution of the Puxi variety of Southern Qiang, the ethnological background and demography of the speakers, previous research on the language, aspects of language use, the classification of the varieties, the genetic affiliation, data collection and research methodology. Chapter 2 introduces some typological features in phonology, morphology and syntax of the Puxi variety of Qiang. The Puxi variety of Qiang is a verb-final, agglutinative, atonal language, and the most common word order is SV (intransitive clause) /APV (transitive clause). In chapter 3, we discuss the rather complex phonological system of the Puxi variety of Qiang. Most of the final consonants are not preserved Proto-Tibeto-Burman finals. The finals now found in the Puxi variety resulted from two syllables having merged, with the initial of the original second syllable becoming the final of the original initial syllable. In chapter 4, we discuss word classes, and give the semantic and syntactic function of each class. Nouns, verbs, adjectives (which are a subclass of stative verbs) are open classes, while adverbs, pronouns, numerals and quantifiers, classifiers and measure words, interjections, and final particles are closed classes. In chapter 5, we give a detailed description of the forms and functions of nominal morphology, in particular, the enclitic postpositions, which mark relations between the verb and its arguments or between the arguments themselves. Together with word order, these postpositions mainly express the semantic and pragmatic roles of the major arguments of a clause or complex sentence. Chapter 6 studies the many types of morphology of the verb complex, concentrating on the person marking, aspect marking, orientation marking, negative marking and the mutual interaction of the markings as well. In chapter 7, we focus on the minimal sentence structures, such as the basic constituent order, interrogatives, negation, existential and possessive construction, comparative construction, topic-comment construction and topicalization. In chapter 8, we describe the various combinations of elements possible in a sentence of the Puxi variety, like conjunctive and disjunctive constructions, syntactic processes, and other complex sentences. In chapter 9, we discuss the characteristics and the structure of discourse found in narrative texts.