On the Origin of the 'K-VP' Question Form in Yunnan Dialects and Related Issues
This 2009 paper by Ding Chongming and Rong Jing (Beijing Normal University) investigates the origin of the "K-VP" ("ge-VP") A-not-A question form found across Yunnan's Chinese dialects. Surveying 72 of Yunnan's 129 counties, the authors find 60 use "K-VP", 9 use "VP-not-VP", and 3 have both, with "VP-not-VP" concentrated near Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and international borders. Cross-checking 16 minority-language grammars, they find only one language — Naxi — has a comparable "K-VP" question, ruling out substrate influence as the form's general source. Historical records of Ming-dynasty military colonization from the Jianghuai region are used to argue the form was imported by Han settlers and spread outward from prestige centers like Kunming. A dedicated case study concludes that Naxi's "K-VP" question, coexisting with an older "V Neg V"-type reduplicated question, likely arose later through contact with Chinese dialects following the Ming conquest of Lijiang, rather than from Proto-Sino-Tibetan inheritance or independent development.
This page publishes the bibliographic record and the project's summary. The scanned article text belongs to its publisher and is shown to readers under a research-use policy; it is not reproduced in this record.