A Study On Numerals In Parauk Wa

This thesis mainly aims to discuss the numeral system of Parauk Wa and the effects language contact has on Wa numeral systems.The whole thesis includes six chapters and a conclusion.Chapter One introduces the reasons,the objects and the scope of this study,the academic and applied values,a literature review according to language family,the definition of the terms and their semantic meanings used in this thesis,the research methods and the resources of language materials in this thesis.Chapter Two carefully describes the cardinal numerals of Parauk Wa,including simple numerals(atoms,bases,‘zero' and ‘half')and complex numerals(11-19,21-29,30-99,100+).Chapter Three elaborates semantic functions of numerals in Parauk Wa,including the expressions of ordinals,multiplicative numerals,fractions and approximate numeration.Chapter Four presents compounding functions of numerals in Parauk Wa,including the compounding ability of numerals with words in other classes and the word order in phrases.Chapter Five discusses the syntactic functions of numerals and [NUM+CL] construction in Parauk Wa.Chapter Six analyzes the effects language contact has on Wa numeral systems in detail.This chapter divides the Wa languages into four zones according to the number of loaned numerals.The borrowing situations of four zones are whole-shift,part-shift,part-blending,part-borrowing and the borrowing of new concepts.The reasons of borrowing of numerals from the perspective of language contact are also analyzed.In the end,this chapter concludes that a part of Wa numerals are actually borrowed from Old Chinese through Dai(Thai)language(Dai 2004).This thesis makes a conclusion in the end of every chapter from chapter two to chapter six and generalizes the apparent features of every chapter.Chapter Seven reviews and summarizes the whole thesis and points out the difficulties,innovations and drawbacks in this thesis with a hope that arises the understanding of Wa numerals in the academy by careful description and analysis on the numeral system of Parauk Wa,in order to provide a case study for further study in Mon-Khmer and Austroasiatic languages.