The noun phrase structure in the Zhuang Dialect of Tian Deng

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the structure of noun phrase in the Zhuang dialect of Tian Deng. This study further aims at providing an in-depth study of the classifier system of Southern Zhuang, in order to establish whether noun classifiers can be regarded a distinct category from numeral classifiers, and whether they are involved in encoding definiteness. In order to meet these objectives, the analysis is based on naturalistic data collected during two months of fieldwork in the Dizhou village, Tiandeng County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The findings are as follows. Modifiers come in three sub-types: quantifying modifiers, deictic modifiers, and attributive modifiers. Quantifiers primarily occur in prenominal position, as in Sinitic languages, and deictic and attributive modifiers in postnominal position, as in Tai languages. Although a classifier can occur with a noun in absence of any modifier, doubts remain as to the existence of a fully productive noun classifier system. Indeed, only the classifier tu4 ‘CLF:NON-HUMAN’ was found to routinely co-occur with a noun, both in citation form and in conversational data. At any rate, it can be established that it is not involved in encoding definiteness, though there is evidence supporting a correlation with specificity.