Analysis Of Gelao Language Word Formation

Gelao is an ethnic minority group distributed in southwestern part of China. Gelao people have their own language, which is severely endangered, only very few people still use it. It was reported that less 6000 people use this language as their mother tongue. According to the findings in ethnologic field, the speakers of the Gelao had been reduced since long time ago.Dagouchang is a Gelao village in Pingpa county located in the mid-west of Guizhou province. In this thesis, the present writer describes some of the features in word formation found in this linguistic location.The Gelao language spoken here is classified under the Gao dialect. At first, the writer introduces its phonology system in general. The system we discuss here shares lots of common grounds with the one described by Prof. Zhang Jimin, a famous scholar in this field. But we have different opinions also, for example, we consider front vowel "a" and back vowel "a" as different phonemes.Secondly, the writer gives a detailed description to word formation of the Dagouchang Gelao language. In this language location, only nouns have prefixes, among them, "mo21","zc21","pew55" etc. occur in high frequency. However, in other language locations such as Judu and Malipo, not only nouns, but also verbs and adjectives have prefixes. In addition, Judu Gelao language is rich of adjective suffix.