ABSTRACT

This book is a grammar of Mangghuer, a Mongolic language spoken by approximately 25,000 people in China's northwestern Qinghai Province. Mangghuer is virtually unknown outside China, and no grammar of Mangghuer has ever been published in any language. The book's primary importance is thus as a systematic grammatical description of a little-known language. The book also makes a significant contribution to comparative Mongolic studies. In addition to the synchronic description of Mangghuer, extensive comparison with other Mongolic languages is included, demonstrating the genetic relationship of Mangghuer within that family. In the course of describing Mangghuer linguistic structures, the book also examines issues of interest to linguistic typologists.

chapter 1|24 pages

BACKGROUND

chapter 2|57 pages

PHONOLOGY

chapter 3|30 pages

NOUNS AND NOUN PHRASES

chapter 4|82 pages

THE CLAUSE

chapter 6|69 pages

CLAUSE COMBINING

chapter 7|37 pages

REPORTED SPEECH IN FOLKTALE NARRATIVES

chapter 8|16 pages

LANGUAGE CONTACT: SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS