A Comparison of Taiwanese, Taiwan Mandarin, and Peking Mandarin

Abstract

Taiwan Mandarin (TM) is the variety which is learned and used, primarily as a second language, by the people of Taiwan, 80% of whom speak Taiwanese (Tw), a variety of Minnan, as a native language. Taking Peking Mandarin (PM) as the designated standard, this paper identifies those PM features which (a) are not common in TM, e.g. zero markers for future action, lack of contrast between simple past and perfect, the use of verbs or adjectives instead of auxiliary verbs in short answers; and (b) those that are shared by Tw and PM, e.g. the use of an inclusive lpl. pronoun and the discontinuous A-not-A question forms. In addition to the common phenomena of transference of features from a first language (Tw) to a second language (TM), and the adopting of features that are simple and regular-and therefore easy to process-there is a third important difference between TM and PM. TM displays an obvious drift toward those characteristics which are common to the southern Chinese dialects (Verb-Object languages), and away from those features of Altaic (Object-Verb languages) which are characteristic of PM. The structural and extralinguistic aspects of this trend are examined. On the basis of recent linguistic changes in TM and Tw, it is claimed that a significant correlation exists between sociolinguistic conditions and the way in which TM has changed. This correlation may be useful in reconstructing the sociolinguistic situation under which Altaic features were brought into PM and other northern Chinese dialects.*