Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University North East Indian Linguistics 7 (NEIL 7) edited by Linda Konnerth, Stephen Morey, Priyankoo Sarmah and Amos Teo A-PL 24 North East Indian Linguistics 7 (NEIL 7) edited by Linda Konnerth, Stephen Morey, Priyankoo Sarmah and Amos Teo This volume includes papers presented at the seventh and eighth meetings of the North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS), held in Guwahati, India, in 2012 and 2014. As with previous conferences, these meetings were held at the Don Bosco Institute in Guwahati, Assam, and hosted in collaboration with Gauhati University. This volume continues the NEILS tradition of papers by both local and international scholars, with half of them by linguists from universities in the North East, several of whom are native speakers of the languages they are writing about. In addition we have papers written by scholars from France, Japan, Russia, Switzerland and USA. The selection of papers presented in this volume encompass languages from the Sino-Tibetan, Austroasiatic, Indo-European, and Tai-Kadai language families, and describe aspects of the languages’ phonology, morphosyntax, and history. Asia-Pacific Linguistics ____________________ Open Access North East Indian Linguistics 7 (NEIL 7) edited by Linda Konnerth, Stephen Morey, Priyankoo Sarmah and Amos Teo A-PL 24 Asia-Pacific Linguistics ________________________________ Open Access EDITORIAL BOARD: Bethwyn Evans (Managing Editor), I Wayan Arka, Danielle Barth, Don Daniels, Nicholas Evans, Simon Greenhill, Gwendolyn Hyslop, David Nash, Bill Palmer, Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross, Hannah Sarvasy, Paul Sidwell, Jane Simpson. Published by Asia-Pacific Linguistics College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University Canberra ACT 2600 Australia Copyright in this edition is vested with the author(s) Released under Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International) First published: 2015 URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/95392 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Creator: Linda Konnerth, Stephen Morey, Priyankoo Sarmah and Amos Teo, editors. Title: North East Indian Linguistics 7 / Linda Konnerth, Stephen Morey, Priyankoo Sarmah and Amos Teo, editors. ISBN: 9781922185273 (ebook) Series: Asia-Pacific Linguistics; A-PL 24. Subjects: India, Northeastern – Languages – Congresses. Other Creators/ Konnerth, Linda, editor. Contributors: Morey, Stephen, editor. Sarmah, Priyankoo, editor. Teo, Amos, editor. Australian National University; Asia-Pacific Linguistics. Dewey Number: 495.4 Cover photo: A group of people walking across the Dihing river at sunset. Taken by Stephen Morey. Contents About the Contributors Foreword U. V. Joseph A Note from the Editors Phonology & Phonetics 1. Some phonological features of Dimasa and Tedim Chin ...........................................15 Monali Longmailai and Zam Ngaih Cing 2. Harigaya Koch phonology ..........................................................................................29 Alexander Kondakov 3. Poula phonetics and phonology: An initial overview .................................................47 Sahiinii Lemaina Veikho and Barika Khyriem 4. The fifth tone of Tenyidie ...........................................................................................63 Savio Megolhuto Meyase 5. Acoustic analysis of vowels in Assam Sora ...............................................................69 Luke Horo and Priyankoo Sarmah Morphosyntax 6. Differential marking of arguments and the grammaticalisation of .............................91 subjectivity values in War Anne Daladier 7. Verbal morphophonemics in Kamrupi Assamese .....................................................111 Mouchumi Handique and Kishor Dutta 8. Person marking system in Asho Chin .......................................................................125 Kosei Otsuka 9. Passive-like constructions in Boro ............................................................................139 Niharika Dutta and Pinky Wary 10. Hruso Kinship terms in a genealogical perspective ...................................................147 Lucky Dey 1 Numeral Systems 11. Numerals in Bugun, Deuri and Nocte .......................................................................163 Madhumita Barbora, Prarthana Acharya and Trisha Wangno 12. The counting unit system of Pnar, War, Khasi, Lyngam ..........................................179 and its traces in Austroasiatic composite cardinal systems Anne Daladier Historical Linguistics & Philological Studies 13. The origins of postverbal negation in Kuki-Chin ......................................................203 Scott DeLancey 14. The genetic position of Apatani within Tibeto-Burman ............................................213 Florens Jean-Jacques Macario 15. A progress report on the historical phonology and affiliation of PuroiK ...................235 Ismael Lieberherr 16. A methodology for studying Ahom manuscripts: .....................................................287 How collocations help us Poppy Gogoi 2 About the Contributors Editors Linda KONNERTH ([email protected]) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Linguistics at the University of Oregon, USA, where she also completed her PhD dissertation 'A grammar of Karbi'. She has recently started worKing on the Northwestern KuKi-Chin languages of Chandel District in Manipur and is writing a grammatical description of Monsang. Her publications include topics in historical-comparative linguistics, syntax, and information structure in Tibeto-Burman. Stephen MOREY ([email protected]) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Linguistics, La Trobe University. He is the author of two books, grammatical descriptions of tribal languages in Assam, from both Tai-Kadai and Tibeto-Burman families. He is the co-chair of the North East Indian Linguistics Society and has also written and does research on the Aboriginal languages of Victoria, Australia. Priyankoo SARMAH ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor in Linguistics at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He specializes in the phonetics and phonology of the languages spoken in North East India, such as Assamese, Bodo, Dimasa, Mizo and Tiwa. He has published articles on tones and vowels of North East Indian languages. Amos TEO ([email protected]) is a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Oregon, USA. He is also currently a visiting scholar at the Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale (LACITO) laboratory and the Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale (CRLAO) in Paris. He has published and presented on lexical tone in Tibeto-Burman languages of North East India and Nepal, including Sumi, Karbi and Lamjung Yolmo. Authors Prarthana ACHARYA ([email protected]) is a Research Scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gauhati (IIT-G). Her area of interest is phonetics and phonology, tone and intonation. Madhumita BARBORA ([email protected]) is a Professor at the Department of English and Foreign Language (EFL), Tezpur University, Assam. Her areas of specialization are syntax and documentation of endangered languages. Her work includes documentation of Bugun (Khowa) an endangered language of West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. Zam Ngaih CING ([email protected]) is currently a research scholar in the Department of Linguistics, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. Her research interests include language documentation and description, tone systems, language typology, and North-East Indian linguistics, particularly Tibeto-Burman languages. She is a native speaKer of Tedim Chin, a Kuki-Chin language from the Tibeto-Burman language family. Anne DALADIER ([email protected]) is a senior researcher at the LACITO, CNRS. She has worked in Intuitionistic Logic and Algebra at the CNRS and then with Zellig Harris (two books and a NSf project) on grammatical categories and on the non finite structures of 3 North East Indian Linguistics 7 languages. She has worked for 15 years on War, Pnar and Lyngam and has prepared three grammars of the core varieties of War, Lyngam and Pnar and the publication of large collections of oral texts and rituals. Scott DELANCEY ([email protected]) is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Oregon. He has published extensively in the areas of Tibeto-Burman, Southeast Asian, and North American linguistics and on functional syntax and grammaticalization. He also worKs with the Northwest Indian Language Institute in Oregon. Lucky DEY ([email protected]) has worKed on a variety of Sadri, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Her research interest includes descriptive syntax, endangered and lesser known languages. Kishor DUTTA ([email protected]) is associated with some independent research worKs of both Assamese and some Tibeto-Burman languages. He is an MA in Linguistics from Gauhati University. Niharika DUTTA ([email protected]) is a PhD student at Gauhati University. She is worKing on Phong, a dialect of Tangsa spoKen in the Changlang and Tirap districts of Arunachal Pradesh. She will be writing a descriptive grammar of Phong for her PhD dissertation. Poppy GOGOI ([email protected]) did her masters in Linguistics at Gauhati University, Assam. She worKed in the Ahom Manuscripts Archiving project as part of the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library from 2011 to 2014,