Altaic Elements in the Línxià dialect [of NW Chinese]: Contact-induced Change on the Yellow River Plateau / 臨夏方言的阿爾台語成分: 黃河高原的語言交叉及其變化

Abstract

Language contact between the Han and non-Han languages of China have often been assumed to be unidirectional and generally limited to the lexicon, while morphosyntactic interference on dominant languages is assumed to be moderate and comparatively recent. However, in the Linxia variety of Northwestern Mandarin, three examples in this paper illustrate that the opposite is true: the dominant language, NW Mandarin, consistently retains phonological and lexical features, while undergoing heavy interference in morphosyntax.