The Tonal and Intonational Phonology of Lhasa Tibetan Keh Sheng Lim A

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Tonal and Intonational Phonology of Lhasa Tibetan Keh Sheng Lim A The Tonal and Intonational Phonology of Lhasa Tibetan Keh Sheng Lim A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy degree in Linguistics Department of Linguistics Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies University of Ottawa © Keh Sheng Lim, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 Abstract This dissertation provides a comprehensive description of the tonal and intona- tional phonology of Lhasa Tibetan (LT) in the Autosegmental-Metrical framework. It is based on recorded data elicited from members of the Tibetan-Canadian com- munity in Ottawa and Toronto. The first two chapters of the dissertation contain background information about LT, a summary of previous research on LT tones and intonation, and an overview of the theoretical framework and conceptual tools used in the rest of the dissertation. The third chapter deals with word tonology. I establish that the prosodic struc- ture of LT brings evidence for four main constituents at or below the word level: a) the mora encodes vowel length contrasts, b) the syllable is the tone-bearing unit (TBU), c) the prosodic word, which is maximally binary, delimits the appli- cation of most tonal processes, and d) the prosodic word group, which matches grammatical words, is the domain of downstep. This prosodic structure provides evidence against the universality of the Prosodic Hierarchy (Selkirk, 2002; Nespor and Vogel, 2007) in that it has no phonological phrase, but has two word-level constituents. I then argue that LT has three lexical tones (H, LH, and L) – L being limited to some suffixes – and propose that these lexical tones are subject totone rules applying within the prosodic word and the prosodic word group. These tone rules are similar to those proposed by Duanmu (1992), but have been improved to accurately predict the tone patterns of long polysyllabic words. Based on phonetic evidence, I also come to the conclusion that LT no longer has stress, and that the stress pattern found in other Bodic varieties has been reinterpreted as a part of the tonal system. The fourth chapter analyses phrasal prosody. I argue that LT forms intona- tional phrases around clauses and marks them with final lengthening, pitch reset, and a limited set of boundary tones (H% and L%). Although communicative func- ii tions and information structure are mostly realized by means of final particles and morphosyntactic devices in LT, I show that boundary tones, focal tones, and deac- centing interact with word tones to form complex melodic patterns. In the fifth chapter, I present a phonologically-based F0 synthesis modelto verify the adequacy of the proposed Autosegmental-Metrical model of LT. This F0 synthesis model consists of three main components: a) the tonal targets defined in previous chapters, b) an F0 interpolation component based on the PENTA model (Xu, 2004), and c) an evaluation component allowing a comparison of the F0 con- tours of real LT utterances with resynthesized F0 contours of the same utterances. The F0 synthesis model is able to generate F0 contours that approximate the F0 contours of real LT recordings, suggesting that the proposed phonological model adequately captures the overall tonal and intonational phonology of LT. iii Acknowledgements My sincere thanks to Jurme Wangda, my Tibetan friend, teacher, and consul- tant. With his generous contribution of time, he helped me to connect with all of the Tibetan participants in this research. I am grateful to my Tibetan participants for their kindness and patience during the research, and for helping me to under- stand their language. I would particularly like to remember one of the participants, who will not have the opportunity to see the results of his contribution. His speech data, along with the data from the others, forms the foundation of this research. I will always be indebted to all of my participants for sharing their language and hospitality with me, and giving me a glimpse of their great culture. My work would have gone nowhere had it not been for the instruction and guidance of Dr. Marc Brunelle at the University of Ottawa—my supervisor for the last nine years. Marc never hesitated to critique my writing when it was not clear, and helped me to keep my thoughts organized. If what I have written is comprehensible, it is due to his nuanced insightful comments on each and every draft. It was a privilege to have Marc as my supervisor. His relentless commitment to his students is exemplary and I am very grateful to him. I would like to thank Dr. Andrés Salanova, who provided valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this dissertation. Dr. Salanova’s encouragement and friendship are deeply appreciated. I would also like to express my gratitude towards my committee members: Dr. Lev Blumenfeld, Dr. Andrés Salanova, Dr. Kevin McMullin, and Dr. Nancy Caplow. They have provided significant insights and critiques that not only im- prove the quality of this dissertation but also inspire future research topics. I would like to specifically thank Dr. Nancy Caplow for generously contributing her exper- tise in verifying the Tibetan data in this dissertation. Her feedback has adverted some significant embarrassments and has helped me improved the readability of transcriptions for other researchers. iv Much of my early interest in tonal phenomena came through Dr. Keith Snider, professor of Linguistics at the Canada Institute of Linguistics. He introduced me to tonal phenomena, which have been central to my research interests for the good part of the last decade. He encouraged me to pursue my doctorate, and I am forever grateful to him. I would also like to thank my editor, Lyra Magloughlin, for her invaluable help in spotting grammatical and stylistic infelicities in my original manuscript. Even with the support of all these people I could never have completed this dissertation without the support and encouragement of my wife, Mabel Lee. I am forever in debt to you! I am also grateful to our children, Magdalene and Jared, who have shown great understanding and patience. Last but not least, I would like to sincerely thank my parents, Kim Tee and Chian Seng, who have always supported my endeavours. v Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Lhasa Tibetan (LT) . 4 1.1.1 Sociostylistic registers . 6 1.1.2 History of the development of Written Tibetan (WT) . 6 1.1.3 Modern research in Tibetan . 8 1.2 Phonological and morphological sketch of LT . 10 1.2.1 Segmental inventory . 10 1.2.2 Transcription of Written Tibetan . 11 1.2.3 Syllable structure . 12 1.2.4 Morphology . 13 1.3 Tonogenesis in LT . 17 1.3.1 Tone in traditional Tibetan grammar . 20 1.3.2 General path to tonogenesis in LT . 21 1.3.3 Recent studies on Tibetan tonogenesis . 24 1.3.3.1 From stress to tone . 24 1.3.3.2 Homonym rate and tonogenesis . 25 1.4 Organization . 27 2 Previous linguistic research on word tone, stress, and intonation in LT 28 2.1 Previous research on word tone . 28 2.1.1 Two-tone analyses . 31 2.1.2 Four-tone analyses . 34 2.1.3 The tonal analysis of polysyllabic words . 36 2.1.3.1 Tone Sandhi of polysllyabic words . 36 2.1.4 Prosodic structure of polysyllabic words . 40 2.2 Previous research on word stress . 44 2.3 Previous research on intonation . 45 2.3.1 Prosodic Structure . 46 2.3.2 Autosegmental Metrical (AM) Theory . 49 2.3.3 Previous work on the interaction between tone and intona- tion in LT Monich (2011) . 53 2.3.4 LT Speech synthesis . 56 vi 3 The word tonology of LT 58 3.1 Word stress in LT . 58 3.1.1 Meredith (1990) . 60 3.1.2 Monich (2011) . 61 3.2 Word tonology of LT . 65 3.2.1 Tones of affixes . 66 3.2.2 Prosodic structure of LT . 67 3.2.2.1 The mora (µ)...................... 68 3.2.2.2 The syllable (σ) .................... 68 3.2.2.3 The prosodic word (!) . 69 3.2.2.4 The prosodic word group (Ω) . 72 3.2.3 Revised Lhasa Tone Rules (RLS) . 73 3.2.3.1 RLS in monosyllabic and disyllabic words . 73 3.2.3.2 Application of RLS in polysyllabic words . 77 3.3 Experiment I: Surface realization of the tones of LT words . 83 3.3.1 Methods . 83 3.3.1.1 Subjects . 83 3.3.1.2 Stimuli . 85 3.3.1.3 Procedure . 90 3.3.1.4 Equipment . 90 3.3.1.5 Measurements . 90 3.3.2 Results and discussion . 91 3.3.2.1 Surface realization of tones in LT words . 91 3.4 Experiment II: Status of word stress of LT words . 98 3.4.1 Methods . 98 3.4.1.1 Stimuli . 98 3.4.1.2 Measurement . 99 3.4.2 Results and Discussion . 100 4 The intonational phonology of LT 106 4.1 The intonational phrase and its cues . 107 4.2 Communicative functions and boundary tones . 110 4.2.1 Continuative intonation . 112 4.2.2 Non-continuative intonation . 114 4.2.3 Interrogatives . 117 4.3 Information structure . 119 4.4 Spelling chant melody . 127 4.5 Tonal inventory of Lhasa Tibetan . 130 5 F0 Synthesis Model of LT 131 5.1 Criteria for an adequate F0 synthesis model . 132 5.2 Overview of various F0 synthesis models . 133 5.3 Selection of the F0 synthesis model . 135 vii 5.4 Quantitative Target Approximation (qTA) . 138 5.5 LT F0 synthesis model (LTF0) . 141 5.5.1 Tone target component . 142 5.5.2 Interpolation component . 143 5.5.2.1 Individual pitch range .
Recommended publications
  • Economic Empowerment of Indigenous Women in Nepal
    ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN NEPAL Economic Empowerment of Indigenous Women in Nepal National Indigenous Women's Federation United Nations Development (NIWF) Programme (UNDP) in Nepal 2018 First Published in 2018 by: National Indigenous Women's Federation (NIWF) Buddhanagar-10, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel.: +977-1- 4784192 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.niwf.org.np/ United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) UN House, Pulchowk, GPO Box: 107 Kathmandu, Nepal Phone : +977 1 5523200 Fax : +977 1 5523991, 5223986 Website: http://www.np.undp.org First Edition: 2018 (500 copies) ISBN: 978 - 9937 - 0 - 4620 - 6 Copyright @ 2018 National Indigenous Women's Federation (NIWF) and UNDP This book may be reproduced in whole or in part in any form for educational, training or nonprofit purposes with due acknowledgment of the source. No use of this publication may be made for sale or other commercial purposes without prior permission in writing of the copyright holder. Printed at: Nebula Printers, Lazimpat Picture of front cover page: Courtsey of Dr. Krishna B. Bhattachan Disclaimer: The views expressed in the book are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of UNDP in Nepal. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, our heartfelt gratitude goes to all Indigenous Women, specially Raute women of Dailekh and Dadeldhura, Majhi women of Ramechhap, Tharu women of Bardiya and Saptari, Yakkha women of Sankhuwasabha, and Thakali Women of Mustang, who provided us their precious time and information for the successful completion of this study. Our special thanks go to all other respondents, including the customary leaders, Government officials, and all those people(s) who have provided their help and support, directly or indirectly.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Documentation in the Aftermath of the 2015 Nepal Earthquakes: a Guide to Two Archives and a Web Exhibit
    Vol. 13 (2019), pp. 618–651 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24914 Revised Version Received: 4 Nov 2019 Language documentation in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: A guide to two archives and a web exhibit Kristine Hildebrandt Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Tanner Burge-Beckley Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Jacob Sebok Southern Illinois University Edwardsville We describe two institutionally related archives and an online exhibit represent- ing a set of Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal. These archives and exhibit were built to house materials resulting from documentation of twelve Tibeto-Burman languages in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes. This account includes a detailed discussion of the different materials recorded, and how they were pre- pared for the collections. This account also provides a comparison of the two different types of archives, the different but complementary functions they serve, and a discussion of the role that online exhibits can play in the context of language documentation archives. 1. Introduction 1 The field of documentary linguistics has made use of a widear- ray of increasingly sophisticated computing technologies in recent years in order to archive, catalogue, and ultimately preserve vast quantities of audio, video, and text materials from endangered and vulnerable languages for future access by com- munity members and scholars alike. Notable examples of data archival reposito- ries, hosted and managed by higher educational institutions
    [Show full text]
  • On Bhutanese and Tibetan Dzongs **
    ON BHUTANESE AND TIBETAN DZONGS ** Ingun Bruskeland Amundsen** “Seen from without, it´s a rocky escarpment! Seen from within, it´s all gold and treasure!”1 There used to be impressive dzong complexes in Tibet and areas of the Himalayas with Tibetan influence. Today most of them are lost or in ruins, a few are restored as museums, and it is only in Bhutan that we find the dzongs still alive today as administration centers and monasteries. This paper reviews some of what is known about the historical developments of the dzong type of buildings in Tibet and Bhutan, and I shall thus discuss towers, khars (mkhar) and dzongs (rdzong). The first two are included in this context as they are important in the broad picture of understanding the historical background and typological developments of the later dzongs. The etymological background for the term dzong is also to be elaborated. Backdrop What we call dzongs today have a long history of development through centuries of varying religious and socio-economic conditions. Bhutanese and Tibetan histories describe periods verging on civil and religious war while others were more peaceful. The living conditions were tough, even in peaceful times. Whatever wealth one possessed had to be very well protected, whether one was a layman or a lama, since warfare and strife appear to have been endemic. Security measures * Paper presented at the workshop "The Lhasa valley: History, Conservation and Modernisation of Tibetan Architecture" at CNRS in Paris Nov. 1997, and submitted for publication in 1999. ** Ingun B. Amundsen, architect MNAL, lived and worked in Bhutan from 1987 until 1998.
    [Show full text]
  • Some Principles of the Use of Macro-Areas Language Dynamics &A
    Online Appendix for Harald Hammarstr¨om& Mark Donohue (2014) Some Principles of the Use of Macro-Areas Language Dynamics & Change Harald Hammarstr¨om& Mark Donohue The following document lists the languages of the world and their as- signment to the macro-areas described in the main body of the paper as well as the WALS macro-area for languages featured in the WALS 2005 edi- tion. 7160 languages are included, which represent all languages for which we had coordinates available1. Every language is given with its ISO-639-3 code (if it has one) for proper identification. The mapping between WALS languages and ISO-codes was done by using the mapping downloadable from the 2011 online WALS edition2 (because a number of errors in the mapping were corrected for the 2011 edition). 38 WALS languages are not given an ISO-code in the 2011 mapping, 36 of these have been assigned their appropri- ate iso-code based on the sources the WALS lists for the respective language. This was not possible for Tasmanian (WALS-code: tsm) because the WALS mixes data from very different Tasmanian languages and for Kualan (WALS- code: kua) because no source is given. 17 WALS-languages were assigned ISO-codes which have subsequently been retired { these have been assigned their appropriate updated ISO-code. In many cases, a WALS-language is mapped to several ISO-codes. As this has no bearing for the assignment to macro-areas, multiple mappings have been retained. 1There are another couple of hundred languages which are attested but for which our database currently lacks coordinates.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal Vol. LX. No. 2. 2018
    JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY VOLUME LX No. 4 2018 THE ASIATIC SOCIETY 1 PARK STREET KOLKATA © The Asiatic Society ISSN 0368-3308 Edited and published by Dr. Satyabrata Chakrabarti General Secretary The Asiatic Society 1 Park Street Kolkata 700 016 Published in February 2019 Printed at Desktop Printers 3A, Garstin Place, 4th Floor Kolkata 700 001 Price : 400 (Complete vol. of four nos.) CONTENTS ARTICLES The East Asian Linguistic Phylum : A Reconstruction Based on Language and Genes George v an Driem ... ... 1 Situating Buddhism in Mithila Region : Presence or Absence ? Nisha Thakur ... ... 39 Another Inscribed Image Dated in the Reign of Vigrahapäla III Rajat Sanyal ... ... 63 A Scottish Watchmaker — Educationist and Bengal Renaissance Saptarshi Mallick ... ... 79 GLEANINGS FROM THE PAST Notes on Charaka Sanhitá Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar ... ... 97 Review on Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar’s studies on Äyurveda Anjalika Mukhopadhyay ... ... 101 BOOK REVIEW Coin Hoards of the Bengal Sultans 1205-1576 AD from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Bangladesh by Sutapa Sinha Danish Moin ... ... 107 THE EAST ASIAN LINGUISTIC PHYLUM : A RECONSTRUCTION BASED ON LANGUAGE AND GENES GEORGE VAN DRIEM 1. Trans-Himalayan Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Xiâng, Hokkien, Teochew, Pínghuà, Gàn, Jìn, Wú and a number of other languages and dialects together comprise the Sinitic branch of the Trans-Himalayan language family. These languages all collectively descend from a prehistorical Sinitic language, the earliest reconstructible form of which was called Archaic Chinese by Bernard Karlgren and is currently referred to in the anglophone literature as Old Chinese. Today, Sinitic linguistic diversity is under threat by the advance of Mandarin as a standard language throughout China because Mandarin is gradually taking over domains of language use that were originally conducted primarily in the local Sinitic languages.
    [Show full text]
  • A Panchronic Study of Aspirated Fricatives, with New Evidence from Pumi Guillaume Jacques
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Archive Ouverte a LUniversite Lyon 2 A panchronic study of aspirated fricatives, with new evidence from Pumi Guillaume Jacques To cite this version: Guillaume Jacques. A panchronic study of aspirated fricatives, with new evidence from Pumi. Lingua, Elsevier, 2011, 121 (9), pp.1518-1538. <10.1016/j.lingua.2011.04.003>. <halshs- 00605893> HAL Id: halshs-00605893 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00605893 Submitted on 4 Jul 2011 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destin´eeau d´ep^otet `ala diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publi´esou non, lished or not. The documents may come from ´emanant des ´etablissements d'enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche fran¸caisou ´etrangers,des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou priv´es. A panchronic study of aspirated fricatives, with new evidence from Pumi. Guillaume Jacques CNRS, CRLAO 54 bd Raspail 75006 Paris Abstract: Aspirated fricatives are typologically uncommon sounds, only found in a handful of languages. This paper studies the diachronic pathways leading to the creation of aspirated fricatives. A review of the literature brings out seven such historical pathways. An eighth, heretofore unreported pattern of change is revealed by Shuiluo Pumi, a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in China. These diachronic data have non-trivial implications for phonological modeling as well as for the synchronic typology of sound patterns.
    [Show full text]
  • 7=SINO-INDIAN Phylosector
    7= SINO-INDIAN phylosector Observatoire Linguistique Linguasphere Observatory page 525 7=SINO-INDIAN phylosector édition princeps foundation edition DU RÉPERTOIRE DE LA LINGUASPHÈRE 1999-2000 THE LINGUASPHERE REGISTER 1999-2000 publiée en ligne et mise à jour dès novembre 2012 published online & updated from November 2012 This phylosector comprises 22 sets of languages spoken by communities in eastern Asia, from the Himalayas to Manchuria (Heilongjiang), constituting the Sino-Tibetan (or Sino-Indian) continental affinity. See note on nomenclature below. 70= TIBETIC phylozone 71= HIMALAYIC phylozone 72= GARIC phylozone 73= KUKIC phylozone 74= MIRIC phylozone 75= KACHINIC phylozone 76= RUNGIC phylozone 77= IRRAWADDIC phylozone 78= KARENIC phylozone 79= SINITIC phylozone This continental affinity is composed of two major parts: the disparate Tibeto-Burman affinity (zones 70= to 77=), spoken by relatively small communities (with the exception of 77=) in the Himalayas and adjacent regions; and the closely related Chinese languages of the Sinitic set and net (zone 79=), spoken in eastern Asia. The Karen languages of zone 78=, formerly considered part of the Tibeto-Burman grouping, are probably best regarded as a third component of Sino-Tibetan affinity. Zone 79=Sinitic includes the outer-language with the largest number of primary voices in the world, representing the most populous network of contiguous speech-communities at the end of the 20th century ("Mainstream Chinese" or so- called 'Mandarin', standardised under the name of Putonghua). This phylosector is named 7=Sino-Indian (rather than Sino-Tibetan) to maintain the broad geographic nomenclature of all ten sectors of the linguasphere, composed of the names of continental or sub-continental entities.
    [Show full text]
  • Vocabulary of Shingnyag Tibetan: a Dialect of Amdo Tibetan Spoken in Lhagang, Khams Minyag
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Prometheus-Academic Collections Asian and African Languages and Linguistics No.11, 2017 Vocabulary of Shingnyag Tibetan: A Dialect of Amdo Tibetan Spoken in Lhagang, Khams Minyag Suzuki, Hiroyuki IKOS, Universitetet i Oslo / National Museum of Ethnology Sonam Wangmo IKOS, Universitetet i Oslo Lhagang Town, located in Kangding Municipality, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China, is inhabited by many Tibetan pastoralists speaking varieties which are similar to Amdo Tibetan even though it is located at the Minyag Rabgang region of Khams, based on the Tibetan traditional geography. Among the multiple varieties spoken by inhabitants living in Lhagang Town, the Shingyag dialect is spoken in the south-western part of the town. It is somewhat different from other Amdo varieties spoken in Lhagang Town in the phonetic and phonological aspects. This article provides a word list with ca. 1500 words of Shingnyag Tibetan. Keywords: Amdo Tibetan, Minyag Rabgang, dialectology, migration pattern 1. Introduction 2. Phonological overview of Shingnyag Tibetan 3. Principal phonological features of Shingnyag Tibetan 1. Introduction This article aims to provide a word list (including ca. 1500 entries) with a phonological sketch of Shingnyag Tibetan, spoken in Xiya [Shing-nyag]1 Hamlet, located in the south-western part of Tagong [lHa-sgang] Town (henceforth Lhagang Town), Kangding [Dar-mdo] Municipality, Ganzi [dKar-mdzes] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China (see Figure 1). Lhagang Town is in the easternmost part of Khams based on the traditional Tibetan geography, however, it is inhabited by many Tibetans whose mother tongue is Amdo Tibetan.2 Referring to Qu and Jin (1981), we can see that it is already known that Amdo-speaking Tibetans live in Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Sonam Wangmo.
    [Show full text]
  • Tibetan Vwa 'Fox' and the Sound Change Tibeto
    Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area Volume 29.2 — October 2006 TIBETAN VWA ‘FOX’ AND THE SOUND CHANGE TIBETO-BURMAN *WA > TIBETAN O Nathan W. Hill Harvard University Paul Benedict (1972: 34) proposed that Tibeto-Burman medial *-wa- regularly leads to -o- in Old Tibetan, but that initial *wa did not undergo this change. Because Old Tibetan has no initial w-, and several genuine words have the rhyme -wa, this proposal cannot be accepted. In particular, the intial of the Old Tibetan word vwa ‘fox’ is v- and not w-. འ Keywords: Old Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, phonology. 1. INTRODUCTION The Tibetan word vwa ‘fox’ has received a certain amount of attention for being an exception to the theory that Tibeto-Burman *wa yields o in Tibetan1. The first formulation of this sound law known to me is Laufer’s statement “Das Barmanische besitzt nämlich häufig die Verbindung w+a, der ein tibetisches [sic] o oder u entspricht [Burmese namely frequently has the combination w+a, which corresponds to a Tibetan o or u]” (Laufer 1898/1899: part III, 224; 1976: 120). Laufer’s generalization was based in turn upon cognate sets assembled by Bernard Houghton (1898). Concerning this sound change, in his 1972 monograph, Paul Benedict writes: “Tibetan has initial w- only in the words wa ‘gutter’, wa ‘fox’ and 1 Here I follow the Wylie system of Tibetan transliteration with the exception that the letter (erroneously called a-chung by some) is written in the Chinese fashion འ as <v> rather than the confusing <’>. On the value of Written Tibetan v as [ɣ] cf.
    [Show full text]
  • )53Lt- I'\.' -- the ENGLISH and FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD 500605, INDIA
    DZONGKHA SEGMENTS AND TONES: A PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION KINLEY DORJEE . I Supervisor PROFESSOR K.G. VIJA Y AKRISHNAN Department of Linguistics and Contemporary English Hyderabad Co-supervisor Dr. T. Temsunungsang The English and Foreign Languages University Shillong Campus A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics SCHOOL OF LANGUAGE SCIENCES >. )53lt- I'\.' -- THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD 500605, INDIA JULY 2011 To my mother ABSTRACT In this thesis, we make, for the first time, an acoustic investigation of supposedly unique phonemic contrasts: a four-way stop phonation contrast (voiceless, voiceless aspirated, voiced and devoiced), a three-way fricative contrast (voiceless, voiced and devoiced) and a two-way sonorant contrast (voiced and voiceless) in Dzongkha, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Western Bhutan. Paying special attention to the 'Devoiced' (as recorded in the literature) obstruent and the 'Voiceless' sonorants, we examine the durational and spectral characteristics, including the vowel quality (following the initial consonant types), in comparison with four other languages, viz .. Hindi. Korean (for obstruents), Mizo and Tenyidie (for sonorants). While the 'devoiced' phonation type in Dzongkha is not attested in any language in the region, we show that the devoiced type is very different from the 'breathy' phonation type, found in Hindi. However, when compared to the three-way voiceless stop phonation types (Tense, Lax and Aspirated) in Korean, we find striking similarities in the way the two stops CDevoiced' and 'Lax') employ their acoustic correlates. We extend our analysis of stops to fricatives, and analyse the three fricatives in Dzongkha as: Tense, Lax and Voiced.
    [Show full text]
  • 12Th Himalayan Languages Symposium & 27Th Annual
    12th Himalayan Languages Symposium & 27th Annual Conference of Linguistic Society of Nepal Program Schedule November 26, 2006 Opening 9.30 – 11.00 Chief Guest: Dr. Kamal Krishna Joshi Chairman University Grants Commission Welcome Speech: Mr. Bijay Kumar Rauniyar Secretary-Treasurer Linguistic Society of Nepal Presidential Address: Prof. Dr. Jai Raj Awasthi President Linguistic Society of Nepal Keynote Speech: Dr. Anju Saxena Department of Linguistics and Philology Uppsala University Sweden Messages: (Speakers to be mentioned later) Message from the Chief Guest: Dr. Kamal Krishna Joshi Vote of Thanks: Prof. Dr. Govind Raj Bhattarai Vice-president Linguistic Society of Nepal Refreshment 11.30 – 12.00 1 Sessions Session I: 12.00 – 13.40 Session I A: Phonology and Morphophonemics Session I B: Morphology and Morphology Gong vowels and tones Personal pronouns in Dhangar / Jhangar David Bradley Y. P. Yadava, Ram Kishun Urawn and Suren Sapkota Sound change in Kirānti-Kõits across Western Kirānti Verbal morphology in Gopali language Lal-Shyãkarelu Rapacha Rudra Laxmi Shrestha Statistical study on Nepali syllable structure Compound verb in Chintang R. Lohani and B. N. Regmi Novel Kishore Rai and Netra Prasad Paudyal Morphophonemics of Kumal verbs Tenses and aspects in Dhankute Tamang Bhim Lal Gautam Kedar Prasad Poudel Lunch Break: 13.40 – 14.30 Session II: 14.30 – 17.15 Session II B: Session II B: Sociolinguistics Session II A: Language Documentation and Sociolinguistics Ethno-genetics and ethno-linguistics of six indigenous Language documentation
    [Show full text]
  • Review of Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages
    Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2017 Review of Lauren Gawne Nathan W. Hill (eds.). 2016. Evidential systems of Tibetan languages. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 40(2), 285–303 Widmer, Manuel DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.00002.wid Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-168681 Journal Article Accepted Version Originally published at: Widmer, Manuel (2017). Review of Lauren Gawne Nathan W. Hill (eds.). 2016. Evidential systems of Tibetan languages. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 40(2), 285–303. Linguistics of the Tibeto- Burman Area, 40(2):285-303. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.00002.wid Review of Evidential systems of Tibetan languages Gawne, Lauren & Nathan W. Hill (eds.). 2016. Evidential systems of Tibetan languages. de Gruyter: Berlin. vi + 472 pp. ISBN 978-3-11-047374-2 Reviewed by Manuel Widmer 1 Tibetan evidentiality systems and their relevance for the typology of evidentiality The evidentiality1 systems of Tibetan languages rank among the most complex in the world. According to Tournadre & Dorje (2003: 110), the evidentiality systeM of Lhasa Tibetan (LT) distinguishes no less than four “evidential Moods”: (i) egophoric, (ii) testiMonial, (iii) inferential, and (iv) assertive. If one also takes into account the hearsay Marker, which is cOMMonly considered as an evidential category in typological survey studies (e.g. Aikhenvald 2004; Hengeveld & Dall’Aglio Hattnher 2015; inter alia), LT displays a five-fold evidential distinction. The LT systeM, however, is clearly not the Most cOMplex of its kind within the Tibetan linguistic area.
    [Show full text]