龙山土家语的并列连词nie与taxa

The Medial and Postpositional Conjunctions nie and taxa in Longshan Tujia

北部土家语有两种并列连词,分别是居中型的nie与后置型的ta xa。本文通过考察龙山多个土家语方言点,有4个方面的发现:第一,nie倾向连接无生名词,它虽兼作伴随介词,但仅能介引共同受事者。而ta xa只能连接有生名词,作伴随介词时倾向介引共同施事者;第二,nie和ta xa对连接项的限制,反映出两者的语法化路径不同;第三,nie兼具数词“二”与介词和连词功能;第四,nie从实义数词“二”开始虚化,先获得双数标记功能,再进一步被重新分析为介词和连词。

There are two types of coordinating conjunctions in Northern Tujia, the medial nie and the postpositional taxa. We have conducted field research in several Tujia-speaking villages in the Longshan County, and the following conclusions have been reached:(i) The medial conjunction nie expresses strong preferences in conjoining inanimate NPs. While nie also functions as a comitative postposition, it can only introduce co-patients. The postpositional taxa can only conjoin animate NPs, and it tends to introduce co-agents when functioning as a comitative postposition.(ii) By revealing the constraints on the conjuncts of nie and taxa, the grammaticalization paths of these can be reconstructed.(iii) nie is polysemous, i.e., [TWO = Comitative/Conjunction].(iv) The form nie is grammaticalized through the path [TWO > Dual marker > Comitative/Conjunction].