FUNDAMENTALS OF IU MIEN (YAO) GRAMMAR (YU MIEN, SOUTHEAST ASIAN LINGUISTICS, LAOS, VIETNAM, CHINA)

Fundamental of Iu Mien (Yac) Grammar is a basic grammatical study of the language of the Mien (Iu Mien, Yu Mien or Yao) people, as spoken with minor local variations in northern Thailand, northern Laos, north Vietnam and parts of China. The approach is descriptive, but there are frequent references to features general to the linguistic area, and certain features of theoretical relevance are discussed. Data was gathered from 1979 down to the present time from members of the Mien community who had fled Laos and resettled eventually as refugees in Richmond, California, and published material was also drawn upon. Chapter I provides a brief general introduction to the language in its genetic and contact affiliations with other languages and cultures; it also provides a phonological sketch. Chapter II describes the basic units of the language: utterance, sentence, clause, part of speech, and discusses various kinds of sentences and clauses in combination and singly, touching on aspects of verb serialization. Chapter III discusses the noun phrase with special attention to compounds, numerals and classifiers. Chapter IV deals in detail with certain aspects of verbs, verb phrases and clauses, including certain verbal collocations and returning to other aspects of verb serialization. Chapter V presents some brief concluding remarks.