Himalayan Linguistics a Geolinguistic Study of Directional Prefixes in The
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THE TONES of NUMERALS and NUMERAL-PLUS-CLASSIFIER PHRASES: on STRUCTURAL SIMILARITIES BETWEEN NAXI, NA and LAZE* Alexis Michaud LACITO-CNRS
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area Volume 34.1 — April 2011 THE TONES OF NUMERALS AND NUMERAL-PLUS-CLASSIFIER PHRASES: ON STRUCTURAL SIMILARITIES BETWEEN NAXI, NA AND LAZE* Alexis Michaud LACITO-CNRS Abstract: Numeral-plus-classifier phrases have relatively complex tone patterns in Naxi, Na (a.k.a. Mosuo) and Laze (a.k.a. Shuitian). These tone patterns have structural similarities across the three languages. Among the numerals from ‘1’ to ‘10’, three pairs emerge: ‘1’ and ‘2’ always have the same tonal behaviour; likewise, ‘4’ and ‘5’ share the same tone patterns, as do ‘6’ and ‘8’. Even those tone patterns that are irregular in view of the synchronic phonology of the languages at issue are no exception to the structural identity within these three pairs of numerals. These pairs also behave identically in numerals from ‘11’ to ‘99’ and above, e.g. ‘16’ and ‘18’ share the same tone pattern. In view of the paucity of irregular morphology—and indeed of morphological alternations in general—in these languages, these structural properties appear interesting for phylogenetic research. The identical behaviour of these pairs of numerals originates in morpho- phonological properties that they shared at least as early as the stage preceding the separation of Naxi, Na and Laze, referred to as the Proto-Naish stage. Although no reconstruction can be proposed as yet for these shared properties, it is argued that they provide a hint concerning the phylogenetic closeness of the three languages. Keywords: tone; numerals; classifiers; morpho-tonology; Naxi; Na; Mosuo; Laze; Muli Shuitian; Naish languages; phylogeny. 1. -
An Internal Reconstruction of Tibetan Stem Alternations1
Transactions of the Philological Society Volume 110:2 (2012) 212–224 AN INTERNAL RECONSTRUCTION OF TIBETAN STEM ALTERNATIONS1 By GUILLAUME JACQUES CNRS (CRLAO), EHESS ABSTRACT Tibetan verbal morphology differs considerably from that of other Sino-Tibetan languages. Most of the vocalic and consonantal alternations observed in the verbal paradigms remain unexplained after more than a hundred years of investigation: the study of historical Tibetan morphology would seem to have reached an aporia. This paper proposes a new model, explaining the origin of the alternations in the Tibetan verb as the remnant of a former system of directional prefixes, typologically similar to the ones still attested in the Rgyalrongic languages. 1. INTRODUCTION Tibetan verbal morphology is known for its extremely irregular conjugations. Li (1933) and Coblin (1976) have successfully explained some of the vocalic and consonantal alternations in the verbal system as the result of a series of sound changes. Little substantial progress has been made since Coblin’s article, except for Hahn (1999) and Hill (2005) who have discovered two additional conjugation patterns, the l- and r- stems respectively. Unlike many Sino-Tibetan languages (see for instance DeLancey 2010), Tibetan does not have verbal agreement, and its morphology seems mostly unrelated to that of other languages. Only three morphological features of the Tibetan verbal system have been compared with other languages. First, Shafer (1951: 1022) has proposed that the a ⁄ o alternation in the imperative was related to the –o suffix in Tamangic languages. This hypothesis is well accepted, though Zeisler (2002) has shown that the so-called imperative (skul-tshig) was not an imperative at all but a potential in Old Tibetan. -
High Vowel Fricativization As an Areal Feature of the Northern Cameroon Grassfields
High vowel fricativization as an areal feature of the northern Cameroon Grassfields Matthew Faytak WOCAL 8, | August 23, 2015 Overview High vowel fricativization is an areal or contact feature of the northern Grassfields, which carries implications for Niger-Congo reconstructions 1. What is (not) a fricativized vowel? 2. Where are they (not)? 3. Why is this interesting? Overview High vowel fricativization is an areal or contact feature of the northern Grassfields, which carries implications for Niger-Congo reconstructions 1. What is (not) a fricativized vowel? 2. Where are they (not)? 3. Why is this interesting? Fricative vowels Vowels with a fricative-like supralaryngeal constriction, which may or may not consistently result in audible fricative noise Not intended to encompass: • Devoiced or voiceless vowels Smith (2003) • Pre-/post-aspirated vowels Helgason (2002) Mortensen (2012) • Articulatory overlap at high speech rate • Wall noise sources in high vowels Shadle (1990) Prior mention Vowels that do fit one or both of the given definitions: • Apical vowels in Chinese Lee (2005) Feng (2007) Lee-Kim (2014) • Viby-i, G¨oteborges-i, etc. in Swedish Holmberg (1976) Engstrand et al. (2000) Sch¨otzet al. (2011) • Fricative vowels in Bantoid Medjo Mv´e(1997) Connell (2007) Articulatory evidence of constriction Olson and Meynadier (2015) Articulatory evidence of constriction z v " " High vowel fricativization (HVF) Fricative vowels arise from normal high vowels /i u/, often in tandem with raising of the next-lowest vowels Faytak (2014) i u e o i -
Aktionsart and Aspect in Qiang
The 2005 International Course and Conference on RRG, Academia Sinica, Taipei, June 26-30 AKTIONSART AND ASPECT IN QIANG Huang Chenglong Institute of Ethnology & Anthropology Chinese Academy of Social Sciences E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The Qiang language reflects a basic Aktionsart dichotomy in the classification of stative and active verbs, the form of verbs directly reflects the elements of the lexical decomposition. Generally, State or activity is the basic form of the verb, which becomes an achievement or accomplishment when it takes a directional prefix, and becomes a causative achievement or causative accomplishment when it takes the causative suffix. It shows that grammatical aspect and Aktionsart seem to play much of a systematic role. Semantically, on the one hand, there is a clear-cut boundary between states and activities, but morphologically, however, there is no distinction between them. Both of them take the same marking to encode lexical aspect (Aktionsart), and grammatical aspect does not entirely correspond with lexical aspect. 1.0. Introduction The Ronghong variety of Qiang is spoken in Yadu Township (雅都鄉), Mao County (茂縣), Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture (阿壩藏族羌族自治州), Sichuan Province (四川省), China. It has more than 3,000 speakers. The Ronghong variety of Qiang belongs to the Yadu subdialect (雅都土語) of the Northern dialect of Qiang (羌語北部方言). It is mutually intelligible with other subdialects within the Northern dialect, but mutually unintelligible with other subdialects within the Southern dialect. In this paper we use Aktionsart and lexical decomposition, as developed by Van Valin and LaPolla (1997, Ch. 3 and Ch. 4), to discuss lexical aspect, grammatical aspect and the relationship between them in Qiang. -
"Brightening" and the Place of Xixia (Tangut)
1 "Briiighttteniiing" and ttthe plllace of Xiiixiiia (Tanguttt) iiin ttthe Qiiiangiiic branch of Tiiibettto-Burman* James A. Matisoff University of California, Berkeley 1.0 Introduction Xixia (Tangut) is an extinct Tibeto-Burman language, once spoken in the Qinghai/Gansu/Tibetan border region in far western China. Its complex logographic script, invented around A.D. 1036, was the vehicle for a considerable body of literature until it gradually fell out of use after the Mongol conquest in 1223 and the destruction of the Xixia kingdom.1 A very large percentage of the 6000+ characters have been semantically deciphered and phonologically reconstructed, thanks to a Xixia/Chinese glossary, Tibetan transcriptions, and monolingual Xixia dictionaries and rhyme-books. The f«anqi\e method of indicating the pronunciation of Xixia characters was used both via other Xixia characters (in the monolingual dictionaries) and via Chinese characters (in the bilingual glossary Pearl in the Palm, where Chinese characters are also glossed by one or more Xixia ones). Various reconstruction systems have been proposed by scholars, including M.V. Sofronov/K.B. Keping, T. Nishida, Li Fanwen, and Gong Hwang-cherng. This paper relies entirely on the reconstructions of Gong.2 After some initial speculations that Xixia might have belonged to the Loloish group of Tibeto-Burman languages, scholarly opinion has now coalesced behind the geographically plausible opinion that it was a member of the "Qiangic" subgroup of TB. The dozen or so Qiangic languages, spoken in Sichuan Province and adjacent parts of Yunnan, were once among the most obscure in the TB family, loosely lumped together as the languages of the Western Barbarians (Xifan = Hsifan). -
Complexity As L2-Difficulty : Implications for Syntactic Change
Erschienen in: Theoretical Linguistics ; 45 (2019), 3-4. - S. 183-209 https://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0012 Theoretical Linguistics 2019; 45(3-4): 183–209 George Walkden* and Anne Breitbarth Complexity as L2-difficulty: Implications for syntactic change https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0012 Abstract: Recent work has cast doubt on the idea that all languages are equally complex; however, the notion of syntactic complexity remains underexplored. Taking complexity to equate to difficulty of acquisition for late L2 acquirers, we propose an operationalization of syntactic complexity in terms of uninterpret- able features. Trudgill’s sociolinguistic typology predicts that sociohistorical situations involving substantial late L2 acquisition should be conducive to simplification, i.e. loss of such features. We sketch a programme for investigat- ing this prediction. In particular, we suggest that the loss of bipartite negation in the history of Low German and other languages indicates that it may be on the right track. Keywords: sociolinguistic typology, syntactic change, L2 acquisition, simplification, Interpretability Hypothesis 1 Context and big picture 1.1 Typology, complexity, and language change The traditional notion that all languages are equally complex, as expressed in Hockett (1958), has recently come under attack from a number of quarters. Notably, in his seminal work Sociolinguistic Typology, Trudgill (2011) has sug- gested that different types of sociolinguistic situation lead to differential sim- plification and complexification: for instance, long-term co-territorial language contact is predicted to lead to additive complexification, whereas short-term contact involving extensive adult second-language (L2) use is predicted to lead to simplification. -
University of California Press (University of California, Office of the President)
University of California Press (University of California, Office of the President) Year Paper vol Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction James A. Matisoff University of California, Berkeley This paper is posted at the eScholarship Repository, University of California. http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucpress/ucpl/vol 135 Copyright c 2003 by the author. Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction Abstract This 800-page volume is a clear and readable presentation of the current state of research on the history of the Tibeto-Burman (TB) language family, a typologically diverse group of over 250 languages spoken in Southern China, the Himalayas, NE India, and peninsular Southeast Asia. The TB languages are the only proven relatives of Chinese, with which they form the great Sino-Tibetan family. The exposition is systematic, treating the reconstruction of all the elements of the TB proto-syllable in turn, including initial consonants (Ch. III), prefixes (Ch. IV), monophthongal and diphthongal rhymes (Ch. V), final nasals (Ch. VII), final stops (Ch. VIII), final liquids (Ch. IX), root-final *-s (Ch. X), suffixes (Ch. XI). Particular attention is paid to variational phenomena at all historical levels (e.g. Ch. XII “Allofamic variation in rhymes”). This Handbook builds on the best previous scholarship, and adds up-to-date material that has accumulated over the past 30 years. It contains reconstruc- tions of over a thousand Tibeto-Burman roots, as well as suggested comparisons with several hundred Chinese etyma. It is liberally indexed and cross-referenced for maximum accessibility and internal consistency. -
第四届中国西南地区汉藏语国际研讨会program and Abstract Book
FOURTH WORKSHOP ON SINO-TIBETAN LANGUAGES OF SOUTHWEST CHINA 第四届中国西南地区汉藏语国际研讨会 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE SEPTEMBER 8-10, 2016 PROGRAM AND ABSTRACT BOOK Table of Contents General Information & Special Thanks to Our Sponsors ......................................................... 3 Program Synoptic Schedule ..................................................................................................................... 4 Thursday, September 8 .............................................................................................................. 5 Friday, September 9 ................................................................................................................... 6 Saturday, September 10 ............................................................................................................. 7 Abstracts (in presentation order) Scott DeLancey, Reconstructing Hierarchical Argument Indexation in Trans-Himalayan .... 8 James A. Matisoff, Lahu in the 21st century: vocabulary enrichment and orthographical issues ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Guillaume Jacques, The life cycle of multiple indexation and bipartite verbs in Sino-Tibetan ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Jackson T.-S. SUN and Qianzi TIAN, Argument Indexation patterns in Horpa languages: a major Rgyalrongic subgroup .................................................................................................. -
Relativization in Qiang∗
LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS 9.4:735-768, 2008 2008-0-009-004-000247-1 Relativization in Qiang∗ Chenglong Huang Chinese Academy of Social Sciences In this paper, we review the strategies of relativization and discuss the different types of relative clauses and morpho-syntactic properties of relative clauses in eight varieties of Qiang. The Qiang language shows six types of relativization in terms of whether there is a head noun or not, and the relative positions of the head noun and relative clause. Double-headed relative clauses are unusual cross-linguistically. Head-internal relative clauses are modified by a demonstrative-(numeral)-classifier/ (in)definite-classifier, which helps readers to identify head-internal relative clause structures as NPs. In Qiang, different nominalizers, the genitive marker, and the definite marking or indefinite marking are used as clues in identifying the clause as relative; the choice of nominalizers or the genitive marker depends on the semantic role of the head in the relative clause. In some varieties of Qiang there are also some relative clauses that are not marked by nominalizers but are marked by person with aspect marking. Similar to English and Mandarin Chinese, almost all NPs, like actor, undergoer, experiencer, destination, instrument, source, location, time, etc., may be relativized on, therefore, there is no restricted neutralization (S/A pivot or S/P pivot) in nominalized relative clauses, while there is restricted neutralization in non- nominalized relative clauses (finite relative clauses), i.e. S/A is the same marking. Key words: Sino-Tibetan, relative clauses, typology 1. Introduction There are 306,072 Qiang people in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan (四川阿壩藏族羌族自治州), China (2000 census). -
Sino-Tibetan Languages 393
Sino-Tibetan Languages 393 Gair J W (1998). Studies in South Asian linguistics: Sinhala Government Press. [Reprinted Sri Lanka Sahitya and other South Asian languages. Oxford: Oxford Uni- Mandalaya, Colombo: 1962.] versity Press. Karunatillake W S (1992). An introduction to spoken Sin- Gair J W & Karunatillake W S (1974). Literary Sinhala. hala. Colombo: Gunasena. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University South Asia Program. Karunatillake W S (2001). Historical phonology of Sinha- Gair J W & Karunatillake W S (1976). Literary Sinhala lese: from old Indo-Aryan to the 14th century AD. inflected forms: a synopsis with a transliteration guide to Colombo: S. Godage and Brothers. Sinhala script. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University South Asia Macdougall B G (1979). Sinhala: basic course. Program. Washington D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, Department Gair J W & Paolillo J C (1997). Sinhala (Languages of the of State. world/materials 34). Mu¨ nchen: Lincom. Matzel K & Jayawardena-Moser P (2001). Singhalesisch: Gair J W, Karunatillake W S & Paolillo J C (1987). Read- Eine Einfu¨ hrung. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ings in colloquial Sinhala. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Reynolds C H B (ed.) (1970). An anthology of Sinhalese South Asia Program. literature up to 1815. London: George Allen and Unwin Geiger W (1938). A grammar of the Sinhalese language. (English translations). Colombo: Royal Asiatic Society. Reynolds C H B (ed.) (1987). An anthology of Sinhalese Godakumbura C E (1955). Sinhalese literature. Colombo: literature of the twentieth century. Woodchurch, Kent: Colombo Apothecaries Ltd. Paul Norbury/Unesco (English translations). Gunasekara A M (1891). A grammar of the Sinhalese Reynolds C H B (1995). Sinhalese: an introductory course language. -
The Place of Vietnamese in Austroasiatic André-Georges Haudricourt
The place of Vietnamese in Austroasiatic André-Georges Haudricourt To cite this version: André-Georges Haudricourt. The place of Vietnamese in Austroasiatic. 2017. halshs-01631477 HAL Id: halshs-01631477 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01631477 Preprint submitted on 9 Nov 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Non-final version (November 9th, 2017). In preparation for: Haudricourt, André-Georges. Evolution of languages and techniques. (Ed.) Martine Mazaudon, Boyd Michailovsky & Alexis Michaud. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 270). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. The place of Vietnamese in Austroasiatic (1953) Originally published as: La place du vietnamien dans les langues austroasiatiques, Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 49(1): 122– 128. translated by Alexis Michaud Abstract Vietnamese must be classified in the Austroasiatic language family, between the Palaung-Wa group to the north-west and the Mon-Khmer group to the south-west. The Vietnamese language has been considered as related to the Mon language for more than a century (Logan 1852: 658; Forbes 1881; Müller 1888, vol. 4, p. 222; Kuhn 1889; Schmidt 1905: 5; Przyluski 1924: 395; Benedict 1942). -
Overview of Sino-Tibetan Morphosynt Ax
~<2- SI)'LD:TI ~ ",fe,. 'l (~,1', Lt.._ r"I(~ MORPHOSYNTAX: AN OVERVIEW 23 CHAPTER TWO 1.2 *Voicing alternation In both oe and Tibeto-Burman (TB), we find pairs of cognate lexical items which differ OVERVIEW OF SINO-TIBETAN pbonetically o~~Y. in terms of the. voicing or aspiration of the initial, and differ semantically in lerms of tranSItivlty, where the ltem with the voiced initial is intransitive, and the item with ~ vo.iceless initial ~s transitive. Benedict (1972: 124) discussed this for TB, but argued that MORPHOSYNT AX m Chinese no conslstent pattern of morphological alternation could be recognized. Most scbolars now would see the Chinese forms as parallel to the TB forms, and part of a cognate Randy J. LaPolla pbenomenon. Pulleyblank (1973a, 2000) argues these variant forms should be the result of an intransitivizing prefix *a- (a non-syllabic pharyngeal glide) which voiced the initial of the original transitive roots. Mei (1989) includes this prefix in a paradigm with the *s- directive preflX an~ the *-s direction of action changing suffix (below).3 Both Pulleyblank and Mei base the l~ea for the prefix mainly on the Written Tibetan a-chung ('small a') prefix (here 1 SINO-TmETAN marked Wlth. an apostrophe). Pulleyblank also equates this prefix with the a- nominalizing At the earliest reconstructable stage of the development of the Sino-Tibetan (ST) language prefix found In Burmese. Baxter (1992) adopts this view in reconstructing Chinese forms and family, possibly as much as eight thousand years aga (Thurgood 1994), the proto-Ianguage was ~ *~- for.the ~orm oft~e.prefix,4 ~.g.