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Word order in Miao-Yao (Hmong-Mien)
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Adam Sposato
Published/Copyright:
May 9, 2014
Abstract
Miao-Yao is one of the major language families of mainland Southeast Asia, with perhaps over one hundred member languages. Despite this, very little information on word order in Miao-Yao has been made available in English or other European languages. Relying primarily on recently published Chinese descriptions, this article presents data on fourteen word order features for eleven Miao-Yao languages for use in large-scale typological studies. It also discusses two typologically unusual word order feature values which have been claimed to be largely or entirely restricted to Sinitic, but which are in fact widespread in Miao-Yao: XVO order and co-occurring VO/RelN order.
Keywords: East Asian linguistic area; head-final/initial/medial; intersection zones; language contact; Miao-Yao; noun phrase; syntax; word order
Received: 2013-4-2
Revised: 2013-10-18
Published Online: 2014-5-9
Published in Print: 2014-5-1
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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Keywords for this article
East Asian linguistic area;
head-final/initial/medial;
intersection zones;
language contact;
Miao-Yao;
noun phrase;
syntax;
word order
