Syntax Of The Hmong Aizhai Reference

This dissertation presents a study of the Aizhai speech of the Xiangxi dialect of the Miao language (hereafter referred to as Aizhai Miao). This study uses both the principles of reference grammar and the basic theoretical concepts of general linguistics and traditional Chinese grammar to give,a synchronic comprehensive and systematic account of the grammatical structure of Aizhai Miao. The dissertation is divided into 12 chapters.Chapter 1:Introduction. This chapter presents the geographic distribution of the Miao language, its genetic lineage and the situation of language use in the Aizhai district. It discusses the value of the present work, and presents its theoretical orientations and methodology. It also explains the origin of language material.Chapter 2. Review of previous research on Miao grammar. This chapter offers a summary of the main contributions to Miao grammar studies followed by a short introduction to the word classes, syntax and morphology of the Miao language.Chapter 3. Phonological system. This chapter presents the main phonological characteristics of Aizhai Miao, provides a description and an analysis of consonants, vowels and tones as well as the syllable structure and the rules governing tone alteration.Chapter 4. Parts of speech. This chapter studies the characteristics of 13 word classes:nouns, locatives, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, classifiers, adverbs, adverbials, interjections, prepositions, conjonctions and auxiliaries. A particular emphasis is put on the following:noun prefixes and gender; verb prefixes, verbal aspect, verb reduplication, particularities of object-taking verbs in Aizhai Miao; verbalization of adjectives, adjective reduplication, object-taking adjectives, differences and similarities between object-taking adjectives and object-taking verbs.Chapter 5. Phrasal structure. This chapter presents a description of 10 types of phrases. A special emphasis is put on phrasal structure and semantic relations between the internal components, rules governing the order between internal components in parallel phrase structures, differences between modifier-modified and modified-modifier phrasal structures. Chapter 6. Syntactic constituents. This chapter offers a description and analysis of the linguistic units that can serve as subject, predicate, adjectival modifier, adverbial modifier, verbal complement, etc. A comparison is drawn between the structures modifier-modified and modified-modifier.Chapter 7. Simplex sentences. This chapter offers a description and analysis of verbal-predicate, adjectival-predicate and nominal-predicate sentences. A particular emphasis is put on serial verb constructions.Chapter 8. Complex sentences. In this chapter, a distinction is made between coordinate and subordinate sentences, which are further divided into five and six categories respectively, according to the semantic relation between the two clauses. Each category is described and analysed.Chapter 9. Syntactic mood. This chapter proposes a description and a complete analysis of declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative sentences.Chapter 10. Special syntactic patterns. This chapter offers a description and an analysis of passive sentences, comparative sentences, topic sentences and disposal sentences.Chapter 11. Morphology. This chapter studies the basic morphological principles of Aizhai Miao as well as loan words. A particular emphasis is put on the semantic and syntactic characteristics of quadrisyllable words and on the influence of loan words on Aizhai Miao.Chapter 12. General conclusion. This chapter includes an overview of the main points of the dissertation and summarizes the main characteristics of Aizhai Miao's grammar. It also discusses the innovation of the dissertation as well as its incomplete aspects and gives directions for further research.The main characteristics of Azhai Miao are the following:the language shows a predominance of analytic features although agglutinative devices are also observed.This work is the first comprehensive study of the Aizhai Miao language. It tackles numerous points that had never been studied before, such as the comparison between object-taking verbs and adjectives, the passive construction, the comparative construction, and offers an in-depth analysis of questions that had been studied before, but not thoroughly, such as the formation principles of quadrisyllable words and the semantic characteristics of verb reduplication.Although linguistic phenomena are extensively described, the presents study does not always provide rigorous analyses and lacks theoretical content. The dissertation is followed by five eappndices:1) A long corpus; 2) 3 folk stories; 3) 92 riddles; 4) 1000 quadrisyllable words; 5) 3000 Miao classified words.