Aims and objectives: This paper describes the multilingualism patterns practiced in the Zauzou community, a small ethnic group in Southwestern China. Zauzou is in contact with Lisu, Bai, Lama, and Mandarin Chinese. The present study aims to characterize the relationship between the social/linguistic factors including age, second language (L2), types of code-alternation, and the multilingualism patterns in this community. Design/methodology/approach: Self-reports and participant observation were used to discover any recurrent multilingualism patterns regulated by social/linguistic factors. Data and analysis: Self-reported data on Zauzou speakers’ language repertoire and language use were collected by means of demographic survey. Code-alternation between Zauzou and different L2s were collected from systematic linguistic fieldwork. Findings/conclusions: Zauzou is the dominant language in intragroup multilingualism, while intergroup multilingualism is dominated by Zauzou speakers’ L2s. Zauzou speakers exhibit a shift from the local multilingualism toward Mandarin-Zauzou bilingualism. The two patterns can be characterized by speakers’ age, L2, and the type of code-alternation. Zauzou-Mandarin bilingualism is realized as both code-mixing and code-switching, and is pervasive among the younger generation, while multilingualism is realized as code-switching and is dominant among older speakers. This shift is due to the new market economy and the language policy that promotes Mandarin in the whole area. Originality: This study presents naturalistic data on multilingualism practices in a small minority group in China, which is overlooked by most linguistic descriptions and sociolinguistic studies of lesser-studied languages in China. Significance/implications: This paper discovers three parameters to define two cross-linguistic multilingualism patterns in small indigenous societies: the local multilingualism and the national bilingualism, and the shift toward bilingualism that directly results from language policy and economy.

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This article presents a frequently used versatile classifier və¹³ in the endangered Ngwi language Zauzou. After investigating seven morphosyntactic contexts in which və¹³ may occur, this classifier exhibits considerable syntactic and semantic overlaps with ordinary classifiers and the inanimate plural quantifier in this language. və¹³ is used as the only classifier for unclassified nouns (i.e., some abstract and count nouns) and an alternative classifier for nearly all kinds of ordinary sortal or mensural classifiers for inanimates, especially when the canonical classifier is not known to the speaker. It shares a wide range of distributions with ordinary numeral classifiers and the plural quantifier and parallels these two classes of determiners in marking various referential values in different noun phrases. However, və¹³ is semantically special in that it may classify nouns of various semantic classes, including abstract and mass nouns, and is underspecified in number. It is compatible with singular, plural and mass interpretations. The final quantity in the reference must be determined in the context. Moreover, və¹³ is a lexical item involved in marking partitives, the function that is not found in ordinary classifiers and the plural quantifier. This study is a systematic description of an under-studied type of versatile classifier, highlighting the internal complexity of a classifier system in Tibeto-Burman languages.

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The lexemes ‘fruit’ and ‘stone’ are known as the origins of the numeral classifiers for small round objects in many Tibeto-Burman languages. This paper employs a correlation-based network construction method to investigate the colexification networks of the two concepts in 60 + 68 Tibeto-Burman languages. A total of 104 concepts colexified with ‘fruit’ and 99 concepts colexified with ‘stone’ are organized into macro semantic classes. Semantic networks on the basis of the similarities in colexification patterns of concepts, as well as languages networks on the basis of the similarities in colexification patterns of languages, are constructed for ‘fruit’ and ‘stone’, respectively. The results indicate that classifiers for small round objects evolved from either ‘fruit’ or ‘stone’ are directly colexified with class terms in compound nouns denoting varieties of fruits/stones and the shape class of small round objects, indicating that they are diachronically related. However, ‘fruit’ and ‘stone’ differ significantly in their modes of deriving a classifier. Moreover, languages that have developed classifiers from ‘fruit’ are mostly from the Ngwi subgroup, whereas languages whose classifiers are colexified with ‘stone’ evolved independently.