Studies Of Contact-Induced Endangerment In Tujia Language

Language contact is a kind of common language phenomenon which will definitely arouse weak language system's convergence tendency towards strong language system which leads to the endangerment of weak language system.As a result of being in a inferior position during the long term contact with Chinese,Tujia language goes into its endangerment.During the long contact process,Chinese system has invaded Tujia inner language system in a total way varying from phonemic and morphemic level to syntactic and semantic level without any exceptions.Through the comparative study,we found that Tujia language system's endangerment lies in its word level and syntactic assimilation to Chinese ones.On the one hand,there occurs ‘Adjective + Noun' structure pattern in Tujia lexical system,some of which are loanwords,some of which are half-loanwords.Loanwords are formed in a totally borrowed way with the borrowed morphemes and borrowed ‘Adjective + Noun' word order.Half-loanwords are the ones which borrow either Chinese morphemes or Chinese word order.Those half-loanwords still possess much more Tujia language's characters,but the loanwords have already lost their original appearance which stimulates the process of its endangerment.On the other hand,apart from the word level's endangerment,there is other bigger evidence like syntactic evidence also showing that Tujia language's syntax is greatly invaded.And syntactic structure changes will cause the loss of its grammar core.We find that in Tujia syntax level,some of obvious evidence for syntactic loss lies in the structural change of Tujia inherent quantifier phrases and some inherent sentence patterns' change.The phrase structure changes from ‘Noun Phrase + Number + Quantifier' order into Chinese order as ‘Number + Quantifier + Noun Phrase'.Beside quantifier phrases,Tujia syntax pattern like Tujia comparative sentence pattern is also shaken and gradually assimilates to Chinese comparative sentence pattern.