Lecture | CHiLL series
From Sinitic Inheritance to Areal Convergence: Complex Sentences in Tangwang
- Date
- Wednesday 18 November 2026
- Time
- Series
- Chinese Linguistics in Leiden (ChiLL)
- Location
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 0.30
Abstract
Tangwang is a Northwestern Sinitic language spoken in the Hezhou linguistic area of Gansu, where Sinitic, Mongolic and other languages have long been in contact. It has often been described as highly Altaicized, and sometimes even as a mixed language. And indeed, Tangwang looks strikingly different from most Mandarin varieties. It has predominantly OV order, case marking and postpositions, and a clear distinction between finite and dependent verb forms. In this lecture, I will explore these differences through the way Tangwang builds complex sentences. We will look at several strategies for linking clauses, with particular attention to the different uses of 着 tʂə, clausal topicalization with 是 ʂʅ, and complementation. One especially interesting development is the extension of inherited Chinese 着 from a marker of non-finite verbal dependency to finite subordination and complementation. Many of these patterns have close parallels in neighboring Mongolic languages. Yet the grammatical material itself can largely be traced back to Chinese. Tangwang therefore seems to involve not grammatical replacement, but rather the reorganization of inherited Sinitic material in a multilingual contact environment. Tangwang thus points not to grammatical replacement or relexification, but to the reorganization and functional specialization of inherited Sinitic material under prolonged language contact. More generally, it shows how substantial typological convergence can coexist with genealogical continuity, while reminding us that contact-induced change must ultimately be demonstrated construction by construction, rather than inferred from structural similarity alone.
Biography
Redouane Djamouri is Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS and a member of the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie orientale (CRLAO-EHESS, Paris). His research focuses on the syntax of Archaic Chinese, particularly on the basis of epigraphic sources, as well as on the evolution of Chinese. He also investigates language contact in Northwestern China, where he has conducted extensive fieldwork, especially on the Tangwang variety in Gansu. His recent work examines the impact of contact with non-Sinitic languages on the syntax and morphology of Northwestern Sinitic varieties. He was the principal investigator of the ANR project Language Contact in Northern China : Historical and Typological Perspectives (LCNC) and, with Christine Lamarre and Julie Lefort, co-edited Language Contact in Northern China: Chinese and its Neighbouring Languages (Brill, 2025).