On the structure of the clause in Proto-Sino-Tibetan and its development in the daughter languages
试探原始汉藏语的子句结构及其演变
Randy J. LaPolla 罗仁地
Abstract 摘要
In Sino-Tibetan historical linguistics, much has been done in reconstructing the sound system of Proto-Sino-Tibetan and in reconstructing a large number of cognate lexical items assumed to have been part of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, and there has been considerable work in terms of what morphology can or cannot be reconstructed to Proto-Sino-Tibetan, but it is much harder to say that two syntactic patterns are cognate than to say that two morphological paradigms or particular words are cognate. Within the family we find that modern Sinitic varieties vary from most of the Tibeto-Burman languages in terms of basic clause structure. In this paper we look at information structure in Old Chinese to attempt to find a directionality to the changes found in the long period we think of as Old Chinese, and to look back to the starting point of those changes to see what the clause structure of the precursor of Old Chinese might have been. As it turns out to be more similar to the dominant patterns of Tibeto-Burman languages, it allows us to hypothesize what the patterns were in Proto-Sino-Tibetan.
Subject Keywords 主题词
Sino-Tibetan languages 汉藏语 Historical linguistics 历史语言学 Information structure 信息结构 Syntactic reconstruction 句法构拟
Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series (ISSN 2409-2878), Number 29 (2019): 122-144
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