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Report on the 19 Himalayan Languages Symposium Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area Volume 36.2 — October 2013 REPORT ON THE 19TH HIMALAYAN LANGUAGES SYMPOSIUM AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA 6 SEPTEMBER - 8 SEPTEMBER, 2013 André Bosch Australian National University Peter Appleby Christopher Weedall Australian National University Australian National University In what was a highly successful series of intellectual discussions, smoothly organized by the team from the School of Culture, History and Languages at the Australian National University, Canberra, this year’s Himalayan Languages Symposium was the nineteenth since its inception in 1995. A small but energized group of linguists came from every corner of the globe to meet in Canberra, Australia, including many from the nations that play host to these diverse and fascinating languages, including Nepal and India. This was thanks to grants provided by the ANU to assist academics from developing nations in making the long journey to Canberra. Following a warm welcome to the Australian National University in the opening remarks, the first plenary talk was given by Toni Huber, discussing an ethnographic perspective on the linguistic work being done in eastern Bhutan and far west Arunachal Pradesh. In this talk Huber presented case studies of ritual and kinship in the area, particularly amongst the East Bodish area, showing how linguistic evidence can be used in ethnographic study and how, in turn, ethno- graphic work can inform linguistic study. Sessions bifurcated after the first plenary. In one session, a group discussed the sub-groupings of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal. Isao Honda gave a thorough new perspective on the position of Kaike, having rejected its grouping among the Tamangic languages, while Kwang-Ju Cho gave an explanation for the current dialectal differences of Bantawa through diachronic analysis and contact with Nepali. Dan Raj Regmi rounded out the session with a discussion of contact- induced changes in Bhujel. Two sessions throughout the conference focused on languages of the Eastern Himalayas. In the first, phonology was discussed by Tim Bodt in relation to Duhumbi and Khispi contact and change, and Ismael Lieberherr looked at Puroik final nasals and stops which illustrated intriguing language contact scenarios. Keita Kurabe proposed a fascinating new subgroup for Jingpho dialects including Duleng-Shang-Dingga. On day two, a second session involved Norihiko Hayashi’s research on relational morphosyntax in Gelanghe Akha, and an entirely fresh perspective on the semantics of emotions in Khengkha by André Bosch. 143 144 André Bosch, Peter Appleby and Christopher Weedall The afternoon of day one gave attendees the option of focusing on Himalayan literature or hearing triumphant reports from the field. Exploring literature in the Himalayan language world, George van Driem investigated the oldest historical text of Limbu, Tsetan Namgyal examined loan words in Ladakhi, and Binayak Sundas considered Khaskura/Parbatiya in the 19th century. Meanwhile, Fuminobu Nishida presented a diachronic perspective on the phonology of the Brokkat language, Chris Weedall gave an overview of his scoping trip to document the Sajolang (Miji) language of Arunachal Pradesh, and Juha Yliniemi presented a discussion of the interplay of copulas and the mirative in Denjongke, a language of Sikkim in India, which led to lively debate with Scott DeLancey, Nicholas Evans, and others weighing in. A joint session was held to look at subgrouping in the languages of Northeast India, with Mark Post exploring the effect of language contact and areal innovations on the conceptualisation of the Tani subgroup of Tibeto-Burman. Scott DeLancey presented morphological correspondences between a variety of languages of the subgroups Kuki-Chin and Nocte-Tangsa, as well as Jinghpaw and various other languages of the area. Finally, Yankee Modi also looked at the Tani languages in the context of broader classification within the family. The next sessions opened with engrossing discussions focused on the epistemology of Tibeto-Burman. First, Lauren Gawne’s examination of verbal semantics and modal forms in questions answered the conjunct/disjunct distinction for Lamjung Yolmo. Similar evidentiality in semi-direct speech in Bunan along with several other languages was revealed by Manuel Widmer and this played smoothly into Marius Zemp’s discussion of the evolution of Purik evidentiality, resulting in much impromptu discussion between attendees. Meanwhile, Alexander Coupe presented examples of the extremely uncommon voiceless bilabial trilled affricate surfacing in the little-documented Sangtam language of Nagaland, undoubtedly an astounding typological find. Priyankoo Sarmah then presented his group’s acoustic description of Bodo vowels, followed by Krishna Boro’s look at a series of distinct aspectual and modal constructions involving the Boro verb za. One of the highlights of the conference included a workshop on the second day on Person-sensitive tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality (TAME) marking, organized by Lauren Gawne (University of Melbourne) and Mark Post (University of New England), which took up one stream of the second session on the Saturday. It involved looking at the role linguists working on Tibeto-Burman languages have to play in the on-going typological discussions regarding conjunct/disjunct and egophoric systems and resulted in a broad-scope discussion of person-sensitive phenomena found in the Himalayan region in an open forum setting. The workshop tied in well with the work of numerous other researchers at the conference, including Barbara Kelly, who, in the second plenary of the conference, looked at the challenges the Sherpa language presents to traditional understandings of this issue. HLS 19 conference report 145 In one of the final sessions, the complicated world of tone was in focus. Stephen Morey took the stand first in order to present his paper on tone in Tangsa languages. A tonal paradigm for the Tangsa languages was established before certain variations were discussed and possible reasons for these variations were put forward. Amos Teo presented a description of lexical tone and some relevant aspects of phonology and phonotactics in Sumi, a language of Nagaland. The final talk of the session was given by Temsunungsang, in which certain tonotactic constraints of Tibeto-Burman languages were discussed with case studies from Chungli Ao in Nagaland, Tedim Chin of Manipur and Burma, and Kezha in Nagaland. Finally, perspectives on morphosyntax were highlighted by J. C. Sharma’s exploration of diminutives in Western Pahari languages, in which it was argued that the cross-linguistically common phenomenon of the interplay of feminine gender with diminutives does not hold for these languages. K. S. Nagaraja described the linguistic devices used by speakers of Konyak to make temporal and spatial deictic references, while Anuradha Sudharsan explained that Dravidian languages do make use of finite subordinates, contrary to past descriptions of the Kannada language. Attendees were also given the chance to congratulate Gwendolyn Hyslop and Karma Tshering, both dedicated organizers of the symposium, and to welcome their newborn son Jamyang to the world. We all wish them the very best! The meetings held in Canberra were highly successful and enjoyable for all involved. Readers can look forward to many of the topics from the conference cropping up again in the next issue of the young Himalayan Linguistics journal. Enthusiasts of Himalayan languages can also look forward to what will hopefully be an even bigger meeting next year at the 20th Himalayan Languages Symposium, which is to be held at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, organized by Alexander Coupe. .
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