Resumen de Contact, attrition, and structural shift: evidence from Oroqen

Li Fengxiang

• Oroqen is a Tungusic language spoken in Northeast of China and Inner Mongolia. A considerable amount of data from Oroqen reveal patterns that shed light on our understanding of the complex interplay between language contact and language attrition induced changes. Oroqen has undergone drastic restructuring over a relatively short time span of a few decades. I demonstrate that time depth and intensity of contact correlate very closely with the rate and extent of structural borrowing and structural shift that occurred in Oroqen. I argue that the determining factors are sociolinguistic in nature though some of the changes were initially internally motivated.