SITU IN SITU: TOWARDS A DIALECTOLOGY OF JIĀRÓNG (RGYALRONG) by JESSE P. GATES A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES LINGUISTICS We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard. ............................................................................... Jamin R. Pelkey, PhD; Thesis Supervisor ................................................................................ Roderic F. Casali, PhD; Second Reader ............................................................................... Guillaume Jacques, PhD; Third Reader TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY December 15, 2012 © Jesse P. Gates i To Alina, Micah, and Ian (big and little) I always knew you In your mother’s arms I have called your name I’ve an idea Placed in your mind To be a better man I’ve made a crown for you Put it in your room And when the bridegroom comes There will be noise There will be glad And a perfect bed And when you write a poem I know the words I know the sounds Before you write it down When you wear your clothes I wear them too I wear your shoes And the jacket too I always knew you In your mother’s arms I have called you son I’ve made amends Between father and son Or if you haven't one Rest in my arms Sleep in my bed There is a design To what I did and said - Sufjan Stevens (Vitto’s Ordination Song, used with permission) ii Abstract The language varieties classified under the official ISO heading Jiarong [ISO 639-3: jya], a.k.a. rGyalrong, spoken in parts of the mountainous north-western Sìchuān province of China, have been generally accepted as a single, distinct, synchronic language belonging to the rGyalrongic subgroup within Tibeto-Burman. The research provided in this thesis casts doubt on the hypothesis that rGyalrong is a single synchronic language and reveals some of the previously undocumented variation within rGyalrongic. The research in this study provides evidence that intelligibility of a representative lect from the east-central rGyalrongic region is low among speakers of many lects in the southern rGyalrongic region. In addition, ethnic identity at the lowest embedded layer is not cohesive throughout the rGyalrongic regions. Language attitudes, contact, ethnohistory, perceptual dialectology, core lexical comparisons, and structural comparisons are also examined. As a result rGyalrong emerges as five distinct languages—Situ, South-central, Japhug, Tshobdun, Zbu—with Situ and Japhug having the most robust evidence. This study integrates the field research of the author—including the first rigorous intelligibility testing among rGyalrongic language varieties—as well as previous research by external sources. iii Acknowledgments This MA thesis is the first fruits from research that I have been conducting over the past six years. I wish to express thanks to many generous individuals who have helped me along the way. In addition, I owe a debt of gratitude to those who have allowed me to incorporate their research into this project. However, I alone am responsible for the synthesis of the data, analysis, and interpretation presented in this work—including all errors and shortcomings. Funding was provided by Marielle Prins (Universiteit Leiden and independent scholar) for all of my RTT testing in 2007—including the travel, lodging, and salary for language consultants. I am very grateful to her for generously financing this work. The data from Tshe-dbang sGron-ma (2009-2011) discussed in §1.4.2 all belong to the Nagano rGyalrongic Languages Survey Project, directed by Nagano and edited by Prins (forthcoming), and are used with permission. The Nagano project provided funding for travel and lodging expenses to and from the data points. Tshe-dbang sGron-ma was hired by Prins to do data collection using funding from SIL for Tshe-dbang sGron-ma’s salary and funding from the Nagano Project for travel expenses. Luobsang, whom I also owe a debt of thanks (further introduced in §1.4.1), was hired by SIL to help with some sociolinguistic language survey tasks such as phonetic transcription and computer data management in the fall of 2009 and summer of 2010, but he also used funding from the Nagano Project for expenses from one data collection trip in 2009. Steve Penner’s influence saturates this work. What I have learned from conversations with Steve concerning the history, culture, geography, linguistics, and sociolinguistics of the area in consideration is equal to many books put together. The iv main research questions that have driven this thesis are largely the result of Steve’s prodding question, “Who speaks what where?” In addition, Steve was instrumental in the intelligibility assessment component of this research project—accompanying me on trips to most of the data points and helping with RTT test administration. Steve has given me permission to include an RTT narrative in Appendix C. Thank you, Steve, for sharing your knowledge and time—and for being a good friend. Ken Hugoniot, Marielle Prins (again), Guilluame Jacques, Rod Casali, Royce Flaming, Hiroyuki Suzuki, Eric Harland, David Gatehouse, Sang-Seob Shin, Luobsang (again), and Tshe-dbang sGron-ma (again) all deserve their own paragraph of thanks if space would only allow. There are others as well—please do not be offended if I have not included you here. I am grateful to all the rGyalrong who participated in intelligibility testing and wordlist elicitation, and also answered my numerous questions. This thesis is a tribute to the rGyalrong. I hope that this work enriches and blesses the rGyalrong as they have enriched and blessed my life. My thesis supervisor, Jamin Pelkey, has truly embodied the concept of mentor for me. Here is more than just a thesis that you mentored, Jamin—you mentored a life. I give thanks for the many new things to think and talk about that you introduced to me: the triadic categories of Charles Sanders Peirce, Radiolab’s Words, Terrence Malick films, the chiastic structure of Ephesians and Collosians, and the novels of Walker Percy just to name a few things. Each I will probably be pondering for rest of my life. Thank you also for your attention to the details of this thesis. Without your guidance, insightful comments, and edits I’m afraid this thesis would be almost unreadable. v I thank my parents, Gary and Mary Gates, for their love and support. When I was a teenager, my parents let me in on China’s “best kept secret” of ethnolinguistic diversity. Dad and Mom accompanied me on a fieldwork trip to Mǐyàluó/Myag-lo and Dad even held the audio-digital recorder a few times. Above all, I am grateful for the love of my life, my companion and wife Alina. You have been there for me—even in my darkest hours. Thank you for putting up with many months of my being absorbed in my own world of research. Alina, you even inputted some of my questionnaire data into Excel spreadsheets—remember that? Hey, Micah and Ian, thanks for giving up some playtime with Daddy so I could get this thesis done! And no acknowledgments section would be complete without expressing gratitude to the One who is “over all, and through all, and in all” (Ephesians 4: 6). Once again, to all of you—thank you. vi General Abbreviations and Conventions 1 First person 2 Second person 3 Third person s Singular person p Plural person PTB Proto Tibeto-Burman PST Proto Sino-Tibetan RTT Recorded text test TAM Tense, aspect, and modality WT Written Tibetan vii Data Source, Location Conventions, and Abbreviations In this study, a letter followed by a hyphen (e.g. H-) indicates the elicitor (source) of the data. The letters following the hyphen (e.g. GQ) indicate the location where the data was collected. Thus, ‘H-GQ’ means that Huáng (2007) was the elicitor of data collected from Guānyīnqiáo/Thugs-chen-zam Township, ‘P-JZ’ means that Prins (1997) was the elicitor of data collected from Jiǎomùzú/Kyom-kyo Township, etc. For the location of the village where the data was collected (when known), see §1.4 and Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. When only a location abbreviation is given (e.g. JZ) in the body of the text, the author is referring to all townships in that county or all villages in that township, unless otherwise specified (e.g. in the case of RTT locations). Because of these above conventions and to avoid redundancy the following will only list the data elicitor once and the data location once. For English translations of autonomous administrative units I will only include the short name (e.g. Ābà/rNga-ba Tibetan and Qiāng Autonomous Prefecture > Ābà/rNga-ba Prefecture). Abb. Data source D- Tshe-dbang sGron-ma (2009-2011) G- Gates (2010) H- Huáng (2007) P- Prins (1997) Abb. (Proposed language name) Location [Map reference number(s)] BAI (Situ): Ābà/rNga-ba Prefecture, Mǎ’ěrkāng/'Bar-kams County, Báiwān/Brag-bar Township 阿坝藏族羌族自治州马尔康县白湾乡 [5a, 5b] BD Gānzī/dKar-mdzes Prefecture, Dānbā/Rong-brag County, Bādǐ/Brag-steng Township 甘孜藏族自治州丹巴县巴低乡 [25, 52, 53] BE Gānzī/dKar-mdzes Prefecture, Dānbā/Rong-brag County, Biāněr Township 甘孜藏族自治州丹巴县边耳乡 [27a, 27b] BJ (South-central): Ābà/rNga-ba Prefecture, Xiǎojīn/bTsan-lha County, Bājiǎo Township 阿坝藏族羌族自治州小金县八角乡 [31a, 31b, 47] BM (South-central): Gānzī/dKar-mdzes Prefecture, Dānbā/Rong-brag County, Bànshànmén Township 甘孜藏族自治州丹巴县半扇门乡 [29] BW Gānzī/dKar-mdzes Prefecture, Dānbā/Rong-brag County, Bāwàng/Dpal-dbang Township 甘孜藏族自治州丹巴县巴旺乡 [26] BX (South-central): Yǎ’ān Municipality, Bǎoxìng County, Yáojí Township 雅安市宝兴县硗碛藏族自治乡 [42, 57] BZ (Situ): Ābà/rNga-ba Prefecture, Mǎ’ěrkāng/'Bar-kams