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Tai Kadai Languages of India: a Probe Into the Seventh Language Family

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Tai Kadai Languages of India: a Probe Into the Seventh Language Family Tai Kadai languages of India: A probe into the Seventh Language Family Anvita Abbi Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India is represented by six language families, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman in the mainland India and two, Asutronesian, (the Angan group, i.e. Jarawa- Onge) (Blevins 2008) and Great Andamanese (Abbi 2006, 2008) in the Andaman Islands. Each of these language families is historically and typologically distinct from each other. The Northeast of India is marked by intense linguistic diversity and functional multilingualism as it houses speakers from the Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic Mon-Khmer languages. In addition, there are endangered languages of the Tai Kadai group such as Khamyang, Phake, Turung, Aiton, Nora-an extinct language, and nearly extinct language Tai- Ahom. The linguistic structures of the languages belonging to the Tai Kadai are very distinct from those of the Tibeto-Burman, although contact with Burmese and Indo-Aryan language such as Assamese cannot be ruled out. The current paper draws out attention to the distinctive features of the Tai-Kadai group of languages spoken in India as well as those which are the result of areal pressures. Some of the typologically distinct markers for the Tai languages seem to be contour tone system, isolating morphology, SVO word order (Das 2014), lack of distinction between alienable and inalienable possession, presence of associative plurals, presence of enclitics, and words indicating tense, aspect, and mood attached at the end of the verb phrase, i.e. adjunct to the complements. This presentation is an attempt to draw examples from various Tai Kadai languages but particularly from Tai Khamti and Tai Ahom languages to present a case for a distinct language family from the rest of the six language families of India both genealogically and typologically. The author also brings in the discussion on contact induced structural changes in Tai-Khamti, a vibrant language of the family. As most of the languages of the Tai-Kadai family have less than 10,000 speakers, their vulnerability to endangerment, a matter of great concern, is analysed on the vitality index proposed by the UNESCO. The sociological and political reasons behind the failure of the revival of Tai Ahom despite it being the dominating language of the priestly class are also explored. The data is drawn from the first-hand research conducted in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam on Tai-Khamti and Tai– Ahom respectively. References 1/149 Abbi, Anvita. 2006. Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. Muenchen: Lincom GmbH. Abbi, Anvita. 2008. Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa? Language Sciences 31: 791–812. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2008.02.002. Blevins, Juliette. 2007. A long lost sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands. Oceanic Linguistics 46 (1): 155–198. Das, Bishakha. 2014. A Descriptive Grammar of Tai-Khamti. Ph.D. Dissertation. Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Unpublished. 2/149 Cormac Anderson Minimal vowel systems in cross-linguistic perspective This paper presents the results of a comprehensive cross-linguistic survey of minimal vowel systems and discusses a number of theoretical issues which arise from them. Although the existence of minimal vowel systems has been acknowledged since the early days of structuralist linguistics (e.g. Jakovlev 1923), even today they are often neglected or misunderstood in discussions around phonological typology, and vowel system typology in particular. Minimal vowel systems pose difficulties for many mainstream phonological theories and for vowel system modelling and for this reason an exhaustive survey of such systems is a desideratum; one that is addressed here. A 'minimal' vowel system is considered to be one in which the fewest phonological contrasts can serve to define the members of the set of vowels. Typically, this means that only first formant, and not second formant, distinctions are necessary to define the set of vowels. While such systems have been described as 'vertical' or 'linear' by previous scholars, these terms are avoided here in order to include analyses with one vowel (e.g. Barreteau 1988) or no vowels whatsoever (e.g. Kuipers 1960). The survey was carried out by conducting a review of the secondary literature on vowel systems to identify relevant languages, followed by a detailed analysis of their phonological descriptions. In some instances, minimal vowel systems have been described widely across phylogenetic or areal groups of languages, such as in Northwest Caucasian (Hewitt 2005), the Arandic languages of Australia (Breen 2001), the Sepik-Ramu languages of Papua New Guinea (Foley 1986; Comrie 1991), the Goidelic languages (Ó Siadhail and Wigger 1975; McConville 2013), and the Central Chadic languages (Barreteau 1987). In other cases, individual languages have been described as having minimal vowel systems, such as Chinese (Chao 1968), Marshallese (Bender 1968), the Caddoan language Wichita (Rood 1976), the Salishan language Nuxálk (Nater 1984), and the Arnhem language Anindilyakwa (Leeding 1989). The great geographical and phylogenetic diversity of these languages offer fertile terrain for scholarly attention in phonological typology, but unfortunately, this has not always been forthcoming. While minimal vowel systems are described in early surveys of vowel systems such as Trubetzkoy (1939) and Hockett (1955), and are discussed in Liljencrants and Lindblom's (1972) work in dispersion theory, in subsequent overviews and attempts at modelling they have often been dismissed (e.g. Crothers 1978), or not discussed at all (Lass 1984; Maddieson 1984; Schwartz et al. 1997). 3/149 The survey shows that the majority of minimal vowel systems are two-member or three- member vertical systems, with a smaller number of descriptions with only one vowel (e.g. Smith 1999) and isolated instances without contrastive vowels (Kuipers 1960; Pulleyblank 1983). Often, but not always, the vowels in minimal systems exhibit extensive allophony conditioned by surrounding consonants or by prosodies applying over larger phonological domains. It is argued that these phenomena are best captured by an abstract model of phonology which does not reify the segment. In such a model, a number of further vowel systems, in which only second formant, but not first formant distinctions, are necessary to define the set of vowels, can be understood in the same terms as the minimal vowel systems discussed in this paper. List of works cited Barreteau, Daniel (1987). 'Du vocalisme en tchadique' in Barreteau ed. Langues et cultures dans le bassin du lac Tchad. Paris: ORSTOM, 161-91. Barreteau, Daniel (1988). Description du Mofu-Gudur: Langue de la famille tchadique parlée au Cameroun. Livre 1: Phonologie. Paris: Orstrom. Bender, Byron W. (1968). 'Marshallese phonology' in Oceanic Linguistics 7, 16-35. Breen, Gavan (2001). 'The Wonders of Arandic Phonology' in Simpson et al. eds., 45-69. Chao, Yuen Ren (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press. Comrie, Bernard (1991). 'On Haruai vowels' in Pawley ed. Man and a Half: Essays in Pacific Anthropology in Honour of Ralph Bulmer. Auckland: The Polynesian Society, 393-97. Crothers, John (1978). 'Typology and universals of vowel systems' in Greenberg et al. eds., 93-152. Foley, William A. (1986). The Papuan languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halle, Morris (1970). 'Is Kabardian a vowel-less language?' in Foundations of Language 10.6, 95–103. Hewitt, George (2005). 'North West Caucasian' in Lingua 115, 91–145. Hockett, Charles F. (1955). A Manual of Phonology. Baltimore: Waverley. Jakovlev, Nikolai F. (1923). Таблицы фонетики кабардинского языка [Tables for the phonetics of the Kabardian language]. Moscow. Kuipers, Aert H. (1960). Phoneme and Morpheme in Kabardian (Eastern Adyghe). The Hague: Mouton. Lass, Roger (1984). 'Vowel System Universals and Typology: Prologue to Theory ' in 4/149 Phonology Yearbook 1, 75-111. Leeding, Velma Joan (1989). Anindilyakwa Phonology and Morphology. PhD dissertation, University of Sydney. Liljencrants, Johan and Lindblom, Björn (1972). 'Numerical Simulation of Vowel Quality Systems: The Role of Perceptual Contrast ' in Language 48.4, 839-62. Maddieson, Ian. (1984). Patterns of sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McConville, Mark (2013). ‘Reverse-engineering the morphophonology of Gaelic vowels from orthography: Language planning to linguistic theory, and back again’ in Cruickshank and McColl Millar eds. After the Storm: Papers from the Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster triennial meeting, Aberdeen 2012. Aberdeen: Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ireland, 61-81. Nater, Hendricus Franciscus (1984). The Bella Coola Language. Ottowa: National Museums of Canada. Ó Siadhail, Micheál and Wigger, Arndt (1975). Córas Fuaimeanna na Gaeilge. Baile Átha Cliath: Institiúid Ard-Léinn. Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1983). Middle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press. Rood, David S. (1976). Wichita Grammar. New York: Garland. Schwartz, Jean-Luc; Boë, Louis-Jean; Vallé, Nathalie ; Abry, Christian (1997). 'Major trends in vowel system inventories' in Journal of Phonetics 25, 233-53. Smith, Tony (1999). Muyang Phonology. Yaoundé: SIL. Trubetzkoy, Nikolai S. (1939). Grundzüge der Phonologie. Prague: Travaux du Cercle Linguistique
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