Pu-Xian Min (PXM) and Hainan Min (HNM) are intriguing cases from the perspective of language transfer. They descended from a common ancestor, Southern Min, then went their separate ways from the mainstream due to contact with other languages. PXM, spoken in the cities of Putian and Xianyou in eastern coastal Fujian, was heavily influenced by Eastern Min, whereas HNM, the lingua franca of northern, eastern and southern coastal areas of the Hainan Province, has a distinctive imprint from the Kra-Dai languages Ong-Be and Hlai.
Contact-induced Phonological and Lexical Changes in Chinese Dialects: Case Studies of Pu-Xian Min and Hainan Min
PXM and HNM are prime examples of what Winford (2005) called ‘borrowing’ and ‘imposition’ respectively. This project investigates the phonological and lexical changes induced by borrowing and imposition through systematic comparisons of PXM and HNM. Our goals are to reconstruct the contact history of these two clusters of Min and to verify contact-induced phonological and lexical changes in them. The project consists of 3 phases. First, PXM and HNM will be reconstructed. The reconstructed forms of the dialects, as opposed to their modern forms, will form the basis of our subsequent analyses. Second, PXM and HNM will be examined in the light of Winford’s (2005) suggestion that changes resulted from imposition are more systematic and predictable than those resulted from borrowing. If the suggestion is valid, phonological and lexical changes will be more systematic and predicable in HNM than PXM. Third, we will investigate whether type of transfer (i.e. borrowing vs imposition) is a factor affecting the borrowability and the borrowability scale of loanwords, as seen in the cases of PXM and HNM. This project will offer new perspectives on the formation and development of Southern Chinese dialects, in which language contact plays an important role.
