Santa affixes in Chinese of Línxìa/Hézōu

Summary

Affix function number of borrowed affixes

Description

Information and examples are mainly from Li (1984). Hézōu (Dwyer 1992) is the older name for the city and province (Dwyer 1992:161; Lee-Smith 1996a:366). There seem to be two ethnic groups living there, speaking different dialects, the Hàn and the Huí, who are Muslims (Li 1984:320).

1 case marker (out of a total of 4 case markers in Chinese spoken in Línxìa/Hézōu)

  • -lɑ ‘comitative case’, e.g. ɑmɑ-lɑ ‘with mother’, tɑmən-lɑ ‘with them’ (examples from Li 1984:314). Note that Li (1984:312–315) clearly states that the four case markers are suffixes, and they are written with a hyphen, e.g. -la, even though they are called “postpositions” in Dwyer’s (1992) description. The comitative case suffix is used primarily by Hàn people in Línxìa, according to Dwyer (1992:169), and borrowed from Monguor, Santa, and/or Easter Yugur (Mongolic) according to Dwyer (1992). Li (1984:314) describes “comitative case suffix /lɑ/”, identifying it with a corresponding Santa (Mongolic) form, although he hypothesizes, based on ethnographic facts, that Mongolic influence on Línxìa/Hézōu is substratum influence, not borrowing. Lee-Smith (1996:868) gives a Turkic etymology for this marker.

Lee-Smith (1996:868) also gives a Turkic etymology for the object marker xa and a mixed Turkic/Tibetan etymology for the case marker glossed as “to/until”. I follow Dwyer’s (1992) and Li’s (1984) analysis, which is based on much more careful argumentation, and not addressed by Lee-Smith (1996). Note also that according to Slater (2003:329) it often “becomes impossible to trace the precise historical path of any given linguistic feature ［in China’s Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund］”.