Beyond Plural Marker: A New Approach to the Nature of -Men 们 In Linxia Dialect (In Chinese)

After investigating the usages of -men in Linxia Dialect. It is found that -men in Linxia dialect is not only used to express plurality, but also approximation, respect, exaggeration and so on. These semantics are consistent with the uses of the plural marker in Altaic Turkic family. We believe that the special usages in Linxia dialect are the result of language contact. Different from previous scholars who think that -men is a plural marker, a meaningless affix or a topic marker, we argue that the core semantics of -men in Linxia dialect is to express “bigness”. We regard it as an augmentative marker.