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The study of relative clauses (RCs) in Sinitic has attracted considerable attention in typological literature, especially because of the exceedingly rare correlation of Verb-Object order and prenominal relatives (Tang 2006; Dryer 2013b). As to the structural differences of RCs within Sinitic, although previous studies have brought to light several key issues (e.g. Liu 2005), there is much work yet to be done in this area. Basing on data from a convenience sample of 44 Sinitic languages, in this paper we will try to sketch a typology of relativization in Sinitic languages according to two parameters, namely the position of the head and relativization strategies. Also, we will highlight some meaningful correlations and implications constraining diversity in the domain of relativization in Sinitic.
Abstract
Macanese, the near-extinct Portuguese creole of Macao, is an Asian Portuguese Creole language closely related to Malaccan Papia Kristang. In this paper, I argue that a distinctive feature of Macanese vis-à-vis other Asian Portuguese Creoles is its system of negation; specifically, its usage of the negators nunca and nádi. Negators deriving from Portuguese nunca ‘never’ and não há-de ‘shall not’ are attested in several Asian Portuguese Creoles: while their usage varies considerably, the former usually acts as the negator for realis predicates, whereas the latter typically negates irrealis predicates. In this paper I argue that, differently from other Asian Portuguese Creoles, Macanese nunca is also the only available negator for adjectival and nominal predicates, independently from tam features. Through a comparison with other Asian Portuguese creoles, and with the adstrates and substrates of Macanese, I also discuss the possible origin of these features.
Abstract
The received view that the differences among Sinitic languages are mostly limited to their phonology and, to a lesser extent, to the lexicon (Chao 1968), has been challenged in recent years, with plenty of studies showing that Chinese ‘dialects’ are, indeed, diverse at all levels, including morphology and (morpho-)syntax (see Chappell 2015a for an overview). Some major differences within the Sinitic branch follow areal patterns, in which contact is often claimed to play a crucial role. In our contribution, we would like to propose that there is an area within Northern China, spread over the Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong provinces, in which we find Sinitic languages possessing some features not seen (or, at least, uncommon) elsewhere. These include: 1. reduced/nonconcatenative morphology (see Arcodia 2013, 2015; Lamarre 2015); 2. object markers based on speech act verbs (see Chappell 2013); and 3. structural particles with an l-initial (see Chen A. 2013, a.o.). Based on our own survey of a sample of 96 dialects, we shall discuss the distribution of these features, as well as their possible origins.
Chinese is often defined as a ‘textbook example’ of an isolating language, with comparatively few affixes that are usually etymologically transparent (). After ‘deconstructing’ the notion of the isolating morphological type, I shall discuss data from a number of Chinese dialects spread over the Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong provinces. I will show that there seem to be some areal clusters with productive morphological phenomena not expected to occur in isolating languages, which can be explained both by the cross-linguistically widespread tendency towards the reduction of certain items in speech production and, arguably, by processes of convergence among dialects. (This article is in English.)