http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/himalayanlinguistics/rss Recent eScholarship items from Himalayan Linguistics Sat, 5 Sep 2026 16:53:48 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22n946vw <p>The place of articulation for the Assamese fricative consonant represented by the consonant letters শ, ষ, and স has been a subject of debate for a long time. Linguists from the last and the present centuries have expressed varying attitudes regarding the nature of this fricative sound. Although the prevailing stance among linguists of today aligns with the perspectives of the pioneering linguists of the Assamese language, a small contingent of linguists holds an alternative standpoint; and no consensus has been established thus far. The controversial nature of this particular phoneme is likewise reflected within the Kamrupi dialect as well. Aligned with Standard Assamese, many linguists opine that in the Kamrupi dialect also this fricative phoneme has a velar place of articulation. This paper, however, argues that this phoneme in Southern Kamrupi Assamese is pre-pharyngeal as far as its place of articulation is concerned. Additionally, Southern Kamrupi features the velar fricative... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22n946vw Wed, 2 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Kalita, Sourav https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8bm1n0cd <p>Oral tradition serves as a vital medium for transmitting wisdom, values, and collective memory across generations. Among the Lainong people of northwestern Myanmar, <em>Kaīvi</em> and <em>Kaīvi Yuīnyiū</em> represent distinctive oral genres that embody cultural knowledge, ritual practice, and poetic expression. This study investigates these traditions through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Lahe, Myanmar, where the <em>Kaīvi</em> festival continues to be celebrated. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach, the research integrates semi-structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews, document analysis, and autoethnographic reflection. Findings reveal that Lainong speakers demonstrate a strong commitment to preserving <em>Kaīvi</em> and <em>Kaīvi Yuīnyiū</em> despite the sociopolitical and urban pressures threatening their survival. The narrative-poetic form of these songs, composed in an archaic register of the Lainong language, encodes communal values and lived experiences... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8bm1n0cd Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Sainyiu, Anui https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9vn1n8t3 <p>Various categories of prefixes exist in the Mising language, including classifier prefixes, body part prefixes, prefixes related to vegetables, animals, fishes, kinship prefixes, directional prefixes, weather prefixes, and more. A comparative analysis has been conducted, contrasting the Mising language, part of the Eastern branch, with the Galo, Tagin, and Apatani languages, all belonging to the western Tani group. Expanding on the frequently utilized prefixes identified by JTS Sun—specifically, a-, sa-, ta-, and pa— this research delves into how these prefixes are used with nominal roots in the Tani language. The Tani languages belong to the Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan) family and lack sufficient research. This paper marks the inaugural endeavor to compare these four languages, explicitly focusing on prefixes.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9vn1n8t3 Mon, 3 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Doley, Normoda https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9hs839n5 <p>This study aims to discuss about word structure of the Boro, Garo, Rabha, Dimasa and Kokborok languages spoken in the North Eastern states of India. These languages fall under the Tibeto-Burman sub-family of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. There are linguistic affinities at all levels of structure among these languages. The basic vocabulary is mostly monosyllabic. More than one monosyllabic word (that is free morpheme) may be joined together as constituent to derive a new word or to form a compound word. It is a common phenomenon in the process of word formation. These languages do not possess the use of infix. An inflectional or derivational word may be formed by adding prefix or suffix (es). Suffixes may be agglutinated one after the other in a sequence to denote extended meaning (s). These are the common salient features occurring in word formation process among the Boro, Garo, Rabha, Dimasa and Kokborok languages. In this paper, chiefly the word formation process... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9hs839n5 Sun, 2 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 CHAINARY, SWARNA PRABHA BASUMATARY, PHUKAN CHANDRA https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gj4g792 This study explores the basic grammar of&nbsp;Mönkha (Black Mountain language)&nbsp;based on the variety spoken in the Jangbi village, Trongsa, Central Bhutan.&nbsp;Because of its unique lexical and grammatical features, it was referred to as of the three gems of Bhutan after the investigations of the first Linguistic Survey of Bhutan conducted by George van Driem and the Dzongkha Development Commission in the years 1990-1991.&nbsp;The translation of Mönkha examples into Dzongkha is intended for the convenience of Bhutanese and Tibetan readers, and to facilitate the comparative study of Dzongkha and Mönkha. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gj4g792 Sun, 2 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Dorji, Tenzin Dema, Sangay Bodt, Timotheus (Tim) Adrianus https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2024-0488 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/955239w9 This is a roman-based Khowar-English vocabulary/glossary/dictionary which I have chosen to call "glossary" since it makes no claim to completeness. It includes contextual and cultural notes when such information was supplied by the people who contributed to it.&nbsp; Each entry consists of a headword, English gloss or definition, and sources.&nbsp; Many entries include example sentences with English translations, derivational notes, or etymological notes. Sources for each entry (the persons who have contributed the item) are given for each entry. The two main target audiences for this work are speakers of Khowar and all kinds of linguists. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/955239w9 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Bashir, Elena https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8h61w7r8 This article provides five stories of Bragkhoglung Tibetan, a lesser-known Tibetic variety spoken in Zhagulu Town, Cone County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. The five folktales are entitled: ‘The Hare and the Lion’, ‘Hare’s Wisdom’, ‘The Hare and the Tiger’, ‘The Ewe and the Wolf’, and ‘Norbu Zangbo, the Business Loser’. These contain 296 lines (sentences) in total. A brief grammatical sketch, principally based on the materials from the stories, is also provided. Each of the five texts contains a full text in phonetic symbols, interlinear linguistic analysis consisting of phonological description, Tibetan transcription, and glossing as well as English sentence translation, full English translation of the story, and full Tibetan transcription based on the spoken language (Bragkhoglung Tibetatn). Each sentence is enumerated consistently within each story. The objective of the article is primarily as materials of linguistic research on Bragkhoglung... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8h61w7r8 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Zou, Yuxia Suzuki, Hiroyuki https://escholarship.org/uc/item/83v8d1wv The Kusundas, also known as Ban Rajas "Kings of the Forest", first came to the attention of the Western world in 1848 when Brian Hodgson, the British Resident to the Court of Nepal, introduced them in an article in the "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal", On the Chepang and Kusunda tribes of Nepal. The assumed affinity between Kusunda and Chepang was based on their similar lifestyles -- both were hunter-gatherer groups -- and the error has persisted to the present day. In fact, Kusunda is a linguistic isolate, very likely the sole survivor of an ancient aboriginal population once inhabiting the sub-Himalayan regions before the arrival of Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan speaking peoples. Though reported in the Ethnologue and other sources as extinct since 1985, three speakers were discovered in 2004, and the present grammar is based on almost three months of intensive research with them. This is the first comprehensive grammatical treatment of the language. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/83v8d1wv Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Watters, David https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7x04363m <p>This article is a sketch of the Sampang language, an underdocumented Kiranti language of the Central-Eastern branch.&nbsp;It is the first published work to cover all aspects of grammar, including phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7x04363m Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Perry, John Joseph https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6xs3r33s This work is a descriptive grammar of Denjongke, or Sikkimese Bhutia (also known as Lhoke or Sikkimese) (ISO 639-3 sip), an underdescribed and endangered Tibeto-Burman, Tibetic language spoken in the Indian state of Sikkim. The study is based on original fieldwork conducted over more than six years. The theoretical framework is functionalist-typological and may further be characterized as an application of Basic Linguistic Theory, which relies on the power of prose, instead of formalisms, to describe linguistic phenomena. Traditional grammatical terms are complemented by recourse to up-to-date typological information. The discussion is data-oriented and aims to describe Denjongke on its own terms, making a distinction between language-internal descriptive categories and cross-linguistic comparative concepts. (A complete abstract is included in the grammar) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6xs3r33s Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Yliniemi, Juha Sakari https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6vm893kj This typological overview of Thulung Rai (Eastern Nepal) is the first description of the language to be based on new field data since Allen's 1975 Sketch of Thulung Grammar. The author collected the current data in 1999-2000 and the differences reveal the intense contact situation with Nepali over the last thirty years. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6vm893kj Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Lahaussois, Aimee https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h50n7v5 A synoptic grammar of the Bumthang language of the central Bhutan highlands https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h50n7v5 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 van Driem, George https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5v01m1v6 Koyi Rai is a previously undescribed language of the Kiranti group of the Himalayan branch of Tibeto-Burman. Koyi, also referred to by speakers as Koyu or Kohi, is spoken in the Khotang district in Eastern Nepal, near the headwaters of the Rawa Khola, in the villages of Sungdel and, to a lesser extent, Dipsung. There are also some speakers in the villages of Lethang and Bharauli in the Tarai. My work was carried out in the Kathmandu Valley, political conditions at the time (2004) not being well-suited to fieldwork in the villages. There are said to be 2~3000 speakers. According to van Driem (2001: 711), the homeland of the Koyi is the Upper Dudh Kosi area, along with Khaling and Dumi, and the languages share a subgrouping: “Kohi [sic], Dumi and Khaling show shared phonological innovations ...”. Koyi appears to be quite distinct from Dumi, despite rumors of mutual intelligibility (van Driem 2001: 711). There are a number of lexical similarities between the two languages (despite... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5v01m1v6 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Lahoussois, Aimée https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qw4188m The evidential or egophoric systems of various modern Tibetic languages are described as containing a ‘factual’ copula and a complex ‘factual’ existential, in opposition to the egophoric copula yin and the egophoric existential linking verb yod, e.g., Central and East Tibetan red and yod.red. Other descriptive terms are ‘assertive’ or ‘statemental’. These two markers are also described as being ‘neutral’, falling thus outside the ‘evidential’ system. In my opinion, the terms ‘actual’ and ‘neutral’ are not very well defined. They are used as cover terms for various functions, such as referring to generic facts and shared or shareable knowledge, as indicating inferences and assumptions, even as describing mere hypothetical situations, as expressing or highlightening the speaker’s non-involvement, or for other socio-pragmatic strategies. The terminological choice poses quite some problems, both with respect to the crosslinguistic use of ‘factual’ in the sense of realis mood (as opposed... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qw4188m Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Zeisler, Bettina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4566c4bw Kharia is a South Munda language spoken primarily in the southwestern districts of the state of Jharkhand in central eastern India, as well as in the adjacent districts in eastern Chattisgarh and northwestern Orissa. It is also spoken in Assam, Tripura, West Bengal, Nepal and elsewhere. Its closest relative is Juang, spoken in Orissa. Kharia is the only South Munda language spoken in Jharkhand and is also the only South Munda language spoken in the direct vicinity of the North Munda languages, most notably Mundari, which is spoken in many of the same villages as Kharia in the more southerly Kharia-speaking areas, as well as the North Dravidian language Kurux, found more to the north. The present study is a revision of the second volume of my Habilitationsschrift or “professorial dissertation” which was submitted at the University of Osnabrück in 2006 (Peterson, 2006). Volume I of that three-volume study was an extensive grammar, which is currently being reviewed (in revised... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4566c4bw Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Peterson, John https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4221169b The Chantyal people are a relatively small ethnic group, numbering no more than 10,000. They can be divided into two groups, the Myagdi Chantyal and the Baglung Chantyal, named for the districts they inhabit within the Dhaulagiri Zone of central Nepal. Untill the recent immigration to towns and cities, the interaction between the two groups was, in general, quite limited. The Baglung Chantyal ceased to speak the Chantyal language some time in the 19th century and now know only the national language, Nepali; the majority of the Myagdi Chantyal continue to speak Chantyal in their home villages. There are approximately 2000 or so who still speak the Chantyal language. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4221169b Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Noonan, Michael https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3j72p8fs Khroskyabs is a rGyalronic (Tibeto-Burman) language of northwestern Sichuan province in the People's Republic of China. There are an estimated 10,000 speakers of Khroskyabs living in several villages and townships in the river valleys of part of the Tibetan plateau (Huang, 2003). Khroskyabs speakers identify as ethnically Tibetan, and the language is under immense social pressure both from Amdo Tibetan (the prestige language of the community) and Mandarin Chinese (the language of schooling). There is also some lexical borrowing from both Tibetan and Sichuan Mandarin. Khroskyabs exhibits many typologically interesting characteristics, including hierarchical alignment, verb stem alternation, partial stem reduplication in reciprocal verbs, and pervasive use of directional verb prefixes which have extended uses as aspect markers. Data for this sketch was conducted in the context of a year-long graduate Field Methods seminar with a native speaker who is committed to the documentation... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3j72p8fs Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Taylor-Adams, Allison Lhawa, Yulha https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1h4211k0 The present revised and expanded grammar of Dzongkha supersedes the earlier 1992 and 1998 English editions and the 2014 French edition of our Dzongkha language textbook. The grammar lessons in our Dzongkha language textbook have over the years appealed to an international readership eager to acquire a working command of Dzongkha, and this new textbook has been augmented with appendices in order better to serve our Bhutanese readership as well. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1h4211k0 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Tshering, Karma van Driem, George https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0xz4b55r There are three pluralizing strategies in Dolpo Tibetan (DT)2 — one for personal pronouns, an- other for animate nouns, and a third for inanimate nouns. The pluralizing strategy for personal pronouns appears to be old, similar to the system found in Classical Tibetan, but no longer found in ‘Standard Tibetan’.3 The strategies for animate and inanimate nouns point to relatively recent innovations, involving a set of morphemes whose literal meaning is roughly translated ‘all’. These more recent strategies are beginning to invade the semantic space of personal pronouns as well. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0xz4b55r Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Kopp, Kevin https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tm2v2sr The crosslinguistic concept of evidentiality, discriminating between direct and indirect knowledge, does not account for the Tibetic system, where the domain of direct is split up between external direct knowledge, based on immediate sense perception, and internal direct knowledge, based on acquaintance, control/ volition, responsibility, and/ or authority or engagement.&nbsp;&nbsp; With the so-called ‘factual’ auxiliary red , several Tibetic languages also differentiate assertions, which are said to be neutral with respect to evidentiality. Ladakhi does not seem to have a corresponding counterpart. However, many instances of red can be directly translated by the compound auxiliary inok of the Central Ladakhi dialects and its siblings ɦinak , ɦindak , ɦinɖak , and intsuk elsewhere. The opposite, however, is not true. inok &amp; Cie. do not present events neutrally, but express a speaker’s attitude towards the content and the addressee and, logivally, express the... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tm2v2sr Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Zeisler, Bettina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0s87040c Trung is a Tibeto-Burmna (Trans-Himalayan) language spoken by some 13,000 people in northwestern Yúnnán, north of Burma and east of Tibet, mainly in the Trung valley. Four regional varieties of the language have been distinguished. This grammar, based on linguistic research conducted on the language from 2008 until 2017, is the most detailed account of the language to date, including a corpus of phonologically transcribed, morphologically analysed and translated native Trung texts as well as a Trung-English-Mandarin dictionary. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0s87040c Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Perlin, Ross https://escholarship.org/uc/item/92z910mm <p>A pronominal dual formative derivable from *tsi, *ntsi, or *tsiŋ is attested sufficiently broadly across the Tibeto-Burman languages to require that these be reconstructed to the proto-language. In most of these languages only one of these forms occurs, and combines with pronouns to form compositional duals. However, several languages show clear association of *tsi with inclusive dual, and *ntsi with second person dual; there is also some evidence for an originally exclusive value of *tsiŋ. This paper presents the comparative evidence for these, with evidence from various clades supporting the reconstructed person values of the three forms, and suggests a preliminary account of the develoments which have resulted in the replacement in most languages of the original 3-term paradigm with compositional forms.&nbsp;</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/92z910mm Tue, 3 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 DeLancey, Scott https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3k3916qx <p>A Grammar of Malimasa with Annotated Texts and Glossary (玛丽玛萨话语法研究及标注文本)</p> <p>By Zihe Li (李子鹤)</p> <p>Beijing: Peking University Press (北京大学出版社) 2024</p> <p>Peking University Chinese Linguistics Research Series (“北大中国语言学研究丛书”)</p> <p>ISBN 978-7-301-34862-8</p> <p>xvii + 419 pages</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><br>Reviewed by Alexis Michaud</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3k3916qx Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Michaud, Alexis https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9vv0s3w6 <p>This article re-examines a 2005-2006 school-based survey of language use across Sikkim, a multilingual Himalayan state in northeastern India. 16,527 students in classes VIII–XII from 105 schools answered questions about languages used with grandparents, parents, and siblings, and which they considered to be their “mother tongue”. Two patterns emerge from our reanalysis. Heritage languages are still used with elders, showing family-based maintenance. Yet everyday conversations among younger people increasingly shift to other languages—often those used in school and public life—especially in conversations between siblings. About one in nine parent pairs (11.24%) no longer use any of their parents’ languages, and about one in eight sibling groups (12.97%) use none of their parents’ languages. The “mother tongue” that students officially reported through the survey often differs from what they speak, highlighting a gap between linguistic identity and language practice. There are... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9vv0s3w6 Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Basu, Samopriya Turin, Mark https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nx1m50x This work investigates the acoustic properties of Angami vowels with the aim of definitively establishing the phonologically contrasting vowels in the language. Contrary to some previous studies that report seven monophthongs and multiple diphthongs, this study concludes that there are six monophthongs and two diphthongs in the language. The acoustic characteristics associated with the monophthongs and the diphthongs are explored and reported in this work. For both monophthongs acoustic characteristics, such as, the first three formants (F1, F2, F3), and duration were explored. &nbsp;For diphthongs, acoustic features, such as, the first two formants (F1, F2), their discrete cosine transforms (DCT) and duration were explored. The salient of the vowels in terms of their acoustic properties was substantiated by statistical analyses. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nx1m50x Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Terhiija, Viyazonuo Sarmah, Priyankoo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7q75t5md <p>This research paper investigates the negative particles in the Pagro variety of Mising, a synthetic and agglutinative language with a subject-object-verb (SOV) word order. Similar to other Tani languages within the Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan) language family, Mising utilizes post-verbal negative particles. The study specifically examines the negative markers /-ma/ and /-jɔ/ across various sentence structures to provide a detailed understanding of negation in Mising. The analysis includes a range of sentence types, highlighting the distinct functions of the standard negation marker /-ma/ and the prohibitive negation marker /-jɔ/. While previous research by Prasad (1991) and KC Talukdar (1992) focused on the negative particles /-ma/ and /-yo/, this paper addresses existing research gaps by exploring negation in different sentence constructions, including declarative, interrogative, and imperative forms. Additionally, the paper discusses the presence of Negative Polarity Items... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7q75t5md Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Doley, Normoda https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5z62z3vd <p>Collocation in general, refers to the habitual and more predictable co-occurrences of lexical items in a syntactic construction. These lexical items co-occur by choice. Certain lexical items pull each other towards themselves and so their occurrence is more frequent than others. There is no explanation to why we say black tea but dark chocolate , or why blond goes only with hair and not with any other similar object. Collocation adorns an utterance with a more specific and unique sense. J.R Firth (1957) observed collocation as a part of the meaning of a word. This paper explores the basic morphological patterns of collocation in Assamese, a language of the Indo-Aryan family, spoken in the North-East Indian State of Assam. As collocations give interesting insights about how a language community perceives life and the world, I have chosen a few themes to see how creatively Assamese uses collocations and to observe their mappings with the morphological patterns. This paper also... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5z62z3vd Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Handique, Mouchumi https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5pm0s5gr <p>This paper presents a phonological sketch Maring, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in southeastern part of Manipur in Northeast India. It begins by highlighting some of the previous works done in Maring. Then it goes on to describe the phonemic inventory of the consonants, vowels and tones, as well as the syllable structure and the phonotactics. The paper also highlights some prevalent morphophonological processes occurring in the language. In the absence of a standard writing system, many disyllabic words are becoming monosyllabic both in the spoken form as well as in written form. This sometimes leads to form consonant clusters. Thus, this paper attempts to describe the sound system of Maring and bring forth some of the prevalent sound changes happening in the language. This will be helpful to the community for developing orthography and grammars, and for those working on the phonology, sound change, historical linguistics etc of the lesser known and less described languages... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5pm0s5gr Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Kanshouwa, Susie https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5109g699 <p>This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of reduplication in Khiamniungan, a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Northeast India and parts of Myanmar. Reduplication in Khiamniungan is common across worrd classes. The study identifies and categorizes four primary reduplicative strategies: (1) echo formations, where partial reduplication creates semantically modified words; (2) compounding reduplication, in which morphologically independent stems combine to form new lexical items; (3) full reduplication, used for emphasis, pluralization, quantification, and manner marking; and (4) expressive reduplication, which encodes sensory and onomatopoeic meanings. The paper highlights the syntactic and semantic functions of reduplicated forms, illustrating their role in quantification, habitual aspect marking, imperative constructions, and intensification. While complete reduplication is pervasive across word classes, partial reduplication and echo formations are comparatively less common... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5109g699 Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Thaam, Keen https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5531-2562 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0mf2p6v4 Changki is one of three Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Ao in Nagaland (India), the other two being Mongsen and Jungli, the prestige language. Though no proper research has been done, Changki has always been considered to be linguistically closer to Mongsen by the Ao as well as in earlier literature.&nbsp;With a phonemic inventory of four vowels, six diphthongs, 21 consonants, and three contrastive tones, the phonological system is similar to both Mongsen and Jungli, but closer to Mongsen. Several differences are also observed. Based on the phonological description, the present orthography is also discussed in this paper, with suggestions that will make the orthography more consistent and transparent, reducing learnability issues. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0mf2p6v4 Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 T, Temsunungsang Changkija, Amenla, I https://escholarship.org/uc/item/54v8c2p3 <p>Some Yi/Ngwi languages exhibit functionally versatile word classes, including nouns which can be used as both referential arguments and adjuncts, covering functions typically associated with adverbs. As a result, adverbs are often treated as a residual word class in the literature on these languages. This article aims to complement the picture of adverbiality in this subbranch of Tibeto-Burman by offering novel data on Phola, a Yi/Ngwi language of Yunnan. It is shown how adverbial expressions of time, space and manner exhibit unique constructional properties, which set them apart from nominal expressions. Very particularly, Phola adverbial expressions, in contradistinction to canonical nouns, must be relativised before they can be used as noun-modifiers. This suggests they are underlyingly part of the verb phrase, a property that lexical adverbs exhibit in languages where their existence as a word class is uncontroversial. The Phola facts are compared to those of other Ngwi... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/54v8c2p3 Wed, 1 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 González Pérez, Manuel David https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7813-1105 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7mh3m3x4 <p>This paper offers the first linguistic description of Igu, the shamanic language of the Kera’a (also 'Idu (Mishmi)'), and thus presents one of the first linguistic descriptions of an Eastern Himalayan ritual language. The Kera’a are a Tibeto-Burman-speaking society of ca. 10 000-16 000 members, based in and around the very northeastern Himalayan river valley of India, in the Dibang Valley and Lower Dibang Valley districts of Arunachal Pradesh. The Kera’a refer to their modern spoken language simply as Kera’a or Kera’a ekobe (‘Kera’a tongue’). For shamanic rituals, shamans recite in Igu (or Igu ekobe ), which the Kera’a consider to be a separate language from Kera'a. Igu is mastered and used by shamans (and their assistants) in rituals, as well as passively understood by knowledgeable elders. This paper demonstrates that Igu is a language in its own right, which partially differs on all core levels - lexical, phonological, morphological, syntactic - from Kera'a. While these... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7mh3m3x4 Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Reinöhl, Uta Pulu, Pachu Wallner, Usha https://escholarship.org/uc/item/31d744wj <p>This article describes the various usages of a little known past tense morpheme of the northern part of the Ladakhi Changthang: /-pak/, /-phak/, or {-puk} (&lt; pa.-ḥdug). To some extent, the functions of this morpheme correspond to the so-called ‘evidentially neutral’ or ‘factual’ marker pa.red of Standard Spoken Tibetan. However, the morpheme in question cannot be described as being ‘evidentially’ or ‘epistemically’ neutral.&nbsp;</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/31d744wj Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Zeisler, Bettina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2zw4c601 <p>Chhitkul-Rākchham has a postverbal marker, =<em>niŋ</em>, denoting “engagement”, a newly proposed category that encodes the relative accessibility of a state of affairs to the speaker and addressee. Statistically rare (60 instantiations in an 8-hour corpus consisting of monologues, conversations and stimuli tasks) and with its occurrence entirely pragmatically motivated, =<em>niŋ</em> is constrained to contexts where the speaker confidently assumes that the interlocutor shares the knowledge about the situation expressed by the clause to which it is attached. As such, it differs from two additional members of the same category, the tags <em>man</em>=<em>ta</em> and <em>ne</em>=<em>te</em>, which convey a lesser degree of assertiveness in comparison. Whereas =<em>niŋ</em> is independent from evidentiality (but not from reliability judgements), the previous two tags, where the perceptual =<em>ta</em> or an alternant (=<em>te</em>) is a key component, are not. Engagement is otherwise... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2zw4c601 Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Martinez, Philippe Antoine https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9s27g6r5 The paper attempts to describe the different causative constructions in Tenyidie. Based on the processes of derivation involved, they are divided into three different types. While the first type is derived from intransitive as well as transitive verbs which are from different semantic domain, the second and third types are derived from different subclass of intransitive verbs; the second type is associated with the ‘move’ class of verb and the third type is associated with the ‘change’ class of verb. The paper provides a glimpse of how phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics interact in the derivation of causative construction in Tenyidie. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9s27g6r5 Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Kraho, Kikrokhol https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tn318jp This contribution describes caritive expressions in Suansu, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Manipur, North-East India. Two distinct morphosyntactic caritive constructions can be identified in Suansu: the first, semantically restricted to human absentees, involves the comitative particle ʈʂidə and the negated main verb. The other strategy, more prominent and found in all semantic contexts, consists of a biclausal construction with a negated ancillary clause embedded in the main one. The types of verbs -and their specificity- used in the ancillary clause vary depending on the functions and meanings of the absentee. However, the use of the verb thõn ‘to be inside’ in the ancillary caritive clause appears to be predominant and extends to unexpected semantic contexts, signaling a possible grammaticalization process of this verb in caritive expressions. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tn318jp Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Ivani, Jessica Katiuscia https://escholarship.org/uc/item/13x604jx This paper presents a pan-dialectal synchronic survey and documentation of preinitials in the Horpa cluster (West Gyalrongic). Based on fieldwork and analysis of earlier Horpa scholarship, the study not only describes the preinitial systems of ten Horpa varieties covering all proposed branches of the Horpa cluster of West Gyalrongic, but it also identifies four key parameters of variation in the preinitial systems, namely the presence or absence of 1. guttural, 2. sigmatic, and 3. liquid contrasts in addition to the presence and absence of 4. weakened semivowel preinitials. The study contributes to the ongoing documentation and analysis of Horpa varieties, many of which are now endangered. Due to the phonological conservatism of the Gyalrongic languages, the Horpa preinitialed consonant clusters have the potential to offer insights and new perspectives for the investigation of Sino-Tibetan diachronic phonology. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/13x604jx Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Honkasalo, Sami Gates, Jesse P. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9662c0fw <p>This issue of Himalayan Linguistics marks twenty years for the journal. We reflect on the early history of Himalayan Linguistics, its contribution to the field, and the future of the journal.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9662c0fw Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Gawne, Lauren Anderson, Gregory Lin, You-Jing Hildebrandt, Kristine A. Genetti, Carol https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7wj516j9 <p>This memoriam honors Barbara Frances Kelly, our friend and colleague, who passed away on 14 December, 2022.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7wj516j9 Sat, 9 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Clancy, Patricia Clark, Eve Genetti, Carol Hildebrandt, Kristine Lahaussois, Aimée https://escholarship.org/uc/item/98b214bk <p>&nbsp;</p><p>This paper presents morphophonemic alternations in Thadou, a Tibeto-Burman language of the Kuki-Chin subgroup spoken in Northeast India and Myanmar (Burma). Section 1 introduces the language in terms of its place within the Kuki-Chin subgroup and the phonological and morphosyntactic features. Section 2 presents the phonemic inventories of Thadou, the modifications of vowels and consonants, syllable structure, and length contrasts. The remainder of the paper is devoted to discussing the various morphophonemic changes in Thadou. Section 3.1 discusses morphophonemic changes due, namely progressive and regressive assimilation. Section 3.2 to 3.5 discusses morphophonemic changes that take place when two morphemes/syllables concatenate according to the morphosyntactic rules of the language. These include deletion glide insertion, vowel change, vowel reduction, cluster formation, and consonant deletion. Section 4 and 5 deal with the segmental changes that verb stems display... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/98b214bk Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Haokip, Pauthang https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7r58b159 Three varieties of Kusunda, a moribund language isolate of Nepal, have been recorded in existing literature; in Hodgson (1857), in Reinhard &amp; Toba (1970), and in several recent publications analyzing material elicited from the language’s last two fluent speakers, Gyani Maiya Sen and Kamala Khatri. Each of these varieties exhibits a set of unique phonological and morphological innovations from their latest common ancestor, Proto-Kusunda (PK). This paper seeks to reconstruct the prefixing possessive marking system of PK, using morphological evidence from the 3 attested varieties. Proto-Kusunda is found to have exhibited obligatory possessive marking on a set of inalienably possessed nouns. Possessed nouns were marked with 2 sets of preposed affixes: *t- *n- *g-, which indexed the person of the noun’s possessor, and *-i- *-a- *-u- *-ja-, a set of derivational prefixes which categorized possessed nominals into a number of semantic fields. The formal and functional characteristics... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7r58b159 Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Spendley, Augie https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6x54t7j6 <p>The paper looks into the derivation of nominals in Biate at the word and sentence levels. &nbsp;The derivational process at the word level is productive compared to the nominalized clauses in the language.</p><p>Nominalization process is a key phenomenon in Kuki-Chin syntax. Most of the Kuki-Chin languages spoken in Assam, India, seem to follow the similar pattern of nominalization. Languages like Hrangkhol, Khelma, Hmar and others mainly has open syllabic structure like <em>–pa, -na, -tu </em>etc as a nominalizer to derive nominals both at the word and clausal level. Biate, has three morphological nominalizers: -<em>tu</em>, -<em>na</em>, -<em>a</em> and a zero morpheme which derives nominals at the word level. At the clausal level, the nominalizer –<em>a</em> and the zero morphemes is used.</p><p>Kuki-Chin languages like Hrangkhol and Khelma use gender markers <em>–pa </em>(masculine) and <em>–nu</em> (famine) to derive nominal at word level. However, the use of gender marker... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6x54t7j6 Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Boro, Raju Ram Barbora, Madhumita https://escholarship.org/uc/item/58g4915h <p>This paper provides an overview of Pangkhua, a South Central Tibeto-Burman (Kuki-Chin) language of Bangladesh. Pangkhua is an underdocumented and a largely endangered language spoken by about 2000 people in Rangamati District, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. In this overview, first, I examine Pangkhua’s position in the internal subclassifications of the South Central subgroup and show that its position in the subgroup is not as obvious as has often been regarded. Then, I discuss some of Pangkhua’s basic and typologically important characteristics including phonology, morphology, and syntax. As a first account of Pangkhua, this overview will facilitate areal-typological as well as historical and comparative South Central Tibeto-Burman linguistics research.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/58g4915h Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Akter, Mohammed Zahid https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nx9t03q <p> <em>Denjongke is atypical within Tibetic languages in how speaker’s inner sensations such as hunger, cold, feeling of illness and emotions are expressed. Whereas most other Tibetic languages use a sensorial evidential form in default expressions of speaker’s inner sensations (Tournadre 2021, 2023 preprint), Denjongke uses a variety of other forms. The sensorial forms may also be used when the speaker takes an outsider's perspective on their inner sensations in contexts such as surprise and sudden discovery. The reason why Denjongke, unlike Common Tibetan and some other Tibetic languages, can use personal forms for expressing the speaker’s inner sensations is that Denjongke personal forms are not associated with volitionality, whereas the personal/egophoric forms of Common Tibetan and some other Tibetic languages are strongly associated with volitionality.</em> <em> </em></p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nx9t03q Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Yliniemi, Juha Sakari https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3bc1m88z <p>This paper is a preliminary description of the phonology of Sherdukpen language, which is spoken in Rupa, a valley town in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. Sherdukpen is a highly endangered language with a population of around 4000 speakers in total (Eberhard et al. 2021). The language has not been adequately described and documented yet (cf. Jacquesson 2015). The analysis of the language is based on the data collected in my recent field visit to Rupa in December 2021.</p> This paper presents a description of the segmental inventories and the syllable structure of Sherdukpen. The consonant inventory consists of 23 consonants. Twelve of them are plosives, six fricatives, three approximants, three nasals and a trill. There are three series of stops: voiced, voiceless and voiceless aspirated. Sherdukpen has twenty two vowels among which five of them are nasal vowels five are secondary and one nasal secondary vowels. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3bc1m88z Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Boro, Hirak Jyoti Lahari https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jb2s6vt <p> <strong>Abstract</strong> </p><p>Areal patterns of numeral classifiers have been studied in several Asian languages for a long time. Emeneau (1956) was probably the first work that focused on the distribution of classifiers for defining India as a ‘linguistic area’. Although classifiers (except some ‘measure words’) are virtually absent in western Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi, they are extremely common in a number of Eastern Indo-Aryan languages. There are several studies on the classifier systems of Bengali, Assamese, Maithili and so on. But as yet there has been no study on Khortha, an eastern Indo-Aryan language that also has several classifiers. Some of these classifiers are borrowed from neighboring Munda (Austro-Asiatic) languages because of the prolonged contact between Indo-Aryan and Austro-Asiatic speakers in the eastern part of India. The classifier phenomenon in Khortha and Austro-Asiatic may profitably be seen as being part of a wider areal context, one that... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jb2s6vt Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Paudyal, Netra P. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/11c0h271 <p>The current paper is an attempt at a study of the grammar and meaning of atemporal complement clauses in Assamese from a Cognitive linguistics point of view. Assamese is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Assam, a northeastern province of India. It is the native tongue of the Assamese and is currently spoken by more than twenty million people both as a native tongue and as a link language in the northeastern India.</p><p>Grammar, in Cognitive linguistics, is not independent of meaning, rather any grammatical form is motivated by its underlying semantics, i.e. how the event or the situation is construed by the speaker. Thus, depending on the construal involved, clausal complementation takes different grammatical forms. One type of clausal complementation is atemporal complementation, traditionally called non-finite complementation. One core dimension that the construal of atemporal complementation is based on is atemporalization, which involves a conceptual shift from the relational... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/11c0h271 Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Sawarni, Bisalakshi Borah, Gautam K. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07z2h8dc <p>Speech and singing both make use of the same vocal apparatus, but studies analyzing the formant frequencies of spoken and sung vowels produced by the same subject generally show a difference in vowel quality as a result of articulatory modifications. Though such modifications may be codified and systematized in traditional musical styles, which place special emphasis on pedagogy, they appear more arbitrary in contemporary genres, which are usually passed down from mentors to students as aural traditions. While multiple studies have been conducted on the effects of singing on vowel space in various languages, this study is the first of its kind to take a look at such effects with reference to Nepalese pop rock. Since this study deals with bilingual speakers, the spoken vowels here have been compared with their sung counterparts only after establishing some deviations from those produced by monolingual speakers as referenced in previous phonetic studies of the language. This... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07z2h8dc Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Darnal, Arnav https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3s9992pg <p>Case in Lotha, (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Wokha District of Nagaland) is marked by suffixes that appear to the right of the noun it marks. In Lotha the ergative marker can combine with both nouns and pronouns, however, the nominative markers can only occur with pronouns. Lotha has aspectual split ergativity in which word class (noun vs. pronoun), aspect, and tense are determining factors. The ergative marker occurs mainly with the A argument of a transitive clause when it is in the past and the future. However, a highly volitional or powerful S may receive ergative marking as well. So, in Lotha, the A argument NP is generally marked distinctly from the S argument or O argument.&nbsp; The nominative markers occur in perfective and imperfective clauses marking the A argument (transitive) and S argument (intransitive). The nominative markers take different shapes on pronominals where, ‑<em>j</em> <em>ɔ</em> marks exclusively first person singular, ‑<em>n</em> ... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3s9992pg Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Ngullie, Yantsubeni https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4db313cv <p>This contribution introduces Kongai, a hitherto unreported Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Manipur, North-East India. This field report contains introductory sociolinguistic notes and preliminary information on Kongai phonological properties, such as syllable structure, rhymes, and prefixes. Additional linguistic data include the pronominal paradigm, comparative lexical materials, and a 100-items Swadesh wordlist.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4db313cv Tue, 3 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Ivani, Jessica Katiuscia https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9n88m4gr <p>This paper examines how the lexicon is organized in a typical South Central language. Items like nouns, verbs, and adverbial expressions belong to open classes; pronominals, demonstratives, numerals, quantifiers, interjections, onomatopoetic words, and case markers form closed classes. Directionals, tense/aspect markers, valence-changing elements, verbal classifiers, elaborate expressions, and reduplicative patterns are treated as bound elements. </p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9n88m4gr Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Van Bik, Kenneth https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8nn6c0s6 <p>Thebo is a small Tibetan dialect spoken at the border of Sichuan and Gansu Provinces, China. The morphosyntactic structures that express egophoricity and evidentiality in Thebo Tibetan differ from those of other Tibetan dialects in that they involve both dedicated markers and stem alternations. This work examines how egophoricity and evidentiality are realised in Thebo using first-hand fieldwork from the variety spoken in Gyi.ba Town. It presents both synchronic and diachronic analyses, and considers how the distribution of egophoricity markers reflects the grammaticalization of these categories. </p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8nn6c0s6 Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Tshering, Sangsrgyas https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7d6752jb This paper describes a phenomenon prevalent in South Central Tibeto-Burman languages, which we call multi-functional deictics (MFDs). Descriptively, MFDs are demonstratives that appear in multiple positions in the noun phrase, typically at the left edge and the right edge. They often co-occur and match in form, resulting in an apparent circumfix. MFDs are distinct from double definiteness or the reinforcer construction in Romance and Germanic languages, where a demonstrative co-occurs with a determiner or emphatic. In the case of MFDs, the two forms are both demonstratives, often identical. We find that MFDs are prevalent in South Central Tibeto-Burman. However, even the most basic questions about MFDs remain to be answered, such as whether their core meaning derives from distance in space, evidentiality, or something else; and what syntactic structures result in the two distinct positions. We provide a range of hypotheses for these questions and outline what kind of data is needed... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7d6752jb Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Baclawski Jr., Kenneth https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h50448c Many South Central languages have relatively unproductive sets of transitivizing (causative) and detransitivizing (middle) prefixal markers. This paper first surveys what we know so far about what markers are attested where in the group. Thereafter we suggest some possibilities as to the diachronic developments behind the distribution of markers which will form initial hypotheses for future research. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h50448c Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 So-Hartmann, Helga Peterson, David A. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5p52z5hq <p>This contribution introduces Challow, a previously unreported and undescribed Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Ukhrul district of Manipur, North-East India. It includes preliminary sociolinguistic, phonological, and lexical information, compared with data from other languages of the region. The study also offers a 100-items Swadesh wordlist of Challow lexical entries. At first glance, Challow reveals interesting properties, such as the presence of an original&nbsp;<em>p(ə̆)-</em>prefix so far unattested in the languages of the area, and typologically rare phonological processes.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5p52z5hq Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Ivani, Jessica Katiuscia https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mp7g87p South Central Tibeto-Burman (or Kuki-Chin) languages have diverse systems of lexical and grammatical tone. Previous literature on South Central suggests that researchers can expect to encounter broad variation between languages and dialects. The goals of this paper are twofold: (1) to offer an overview of tone research in South Central languages, and (2) to prepare the linguistic field researcher to incorporate tone study into their data collection and analysis. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mp7g87p Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Lotven, Samson https://escholarship.org/uc/item/48p1076m South Central (Kuki-Chin) languages often exhibit an alternation in the form of verbal stems based on their morphological or syntactic distribution. This paper surveys characteristics of this phenomenon in three languages (Lai, K’Cho, and Vaiphei) representing distinct branches of the South Central group in order to identify similarities and differences in the factors leading to use of one or another stem form. The study is meant to serve as an introduction to the phenomenon in South Central and hopes to provide a foundation for future investigations treating additional languages of the subgroup and in the surrounding Tibeto-Burman speaking area. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/48p1076m Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Bedell, George Mang, Kee Shein Nawl, Roland Siang Suantak, Khawlsonkim https://escholarship.org/uc/item/42x5w8h9 <p>The South Central languages show two distinct indexation paradigms: a set of postverbal agreement words, incorporating person-number indexation and tense/aspect/polarity marking, inherited from a pre-SC ancestor, and a set of proclitic pronouns, otherwise used as possessive clitics on nouns. The interaction of the two series differs across the branch. Some Northern Peripheral have full competing paradigms, with the choice of one or the other marking register. At the other extreme, languages in the Central group use only the innovative proclitic paradigm, though it may incorporate pieces from the archaic postverbal paradigm. In most Northwestern and some Southern Peripheral languages the paradigms are associated with transitivity and/or polarity, with the proclitic paradigm found in affirmative transitive and the postverbal in negative intransitive clauses. We find great variation across the branch in the interaction of indexation with transitivity. Many languages have innovated... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/42x5w8h9 Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 DeLancey, Scott https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3sq9r5bm <p>This piece briefly introduces this special issue devoted to the investigation of languages of the South Central (Kuki-Chin) subgroup of Tibeto-Burman. The motivations for the special issue and the contents of the papers are reviewed. Terminological, transcription, and interlinear gloss conventions followed in the papers are discussed. The subgrouping schema assumed in a number of the papers is presented in detail.</p><p>&nbsp;</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3sq9r5bm Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Peterson, David A. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3s85t2jx <p>This paper examines what we currently know about the distribution and characteristics of core case marking and related phenomena in South Central Tibeto-Burman (Kuki-Chin) languages. Markers and their functions are surveyed according to subgroup, and an assessment of their diachrony is formulated. The paper also considers two analytical challenges–potential tonal marking of grammatical information in case marking systems, and the simultaneous presence of other elements which may be confused with case marking.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3s85t2jx Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Peterson, David A. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2n8244bg <p>Lamkang (ISO 639-3 code: lmk) is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Manipur, India with under 10,000 speakers. As a part of revitalization and documentation efforts, members of the community have begun to record oral literature, personal histories, Bible translations, and the like in written form. The spelling conventions followed by these writers are mostly consistent with those used in current translations of the Bible. However, there continues to be variation across different writers. The different variants will need to be reconciled as the Lamkang move towards a single orthographic standard. In this paper, we present findings from samples of writing collected over the course of the first author’s 12 years of work with community writers and aim to characterize variations in the orthography in linguistic terms. We then compare these variations to orthographic variations in related South Central languages. Our goal is to provide an analysis of orthographic variation focusing... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2n8244bg Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Chelliah, Shobhana Garton, Rachel Khular, Sumshot Khullar, Rex https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1d326124 <p>The phonology of several Kuki-Chin (South Central Trans-Himalayan) languages have been described well, and there are fragmentary sketches of numerous others. Extensive diachronic work has also been done for the languages of this group. However, there is no comprehensive survey of the synchronic phonologies of Kuki-Chin languages. This chapter attempts to fill that gap so that researchers working on one of these languages, or doing broader typological surveys, can easily grasp the broad sound patterns in, and phonological questions raised by, Kuki-Chin. The chapter covers syllable structure, onsets, rhymes, and morphophonology. Onsets and rhymes are illustrated with complete inventories for Proto-Kuki-Chin and six attested Kuki-Chin languages from various subgroups (Falam, Mara, Thado, Daai, Lemi, Sorbung, and Monsang) and a comparative perspective on each of these inventories. This is followed by a discussion of the broader issues in Kuki-Chin sound inventories and phonotactics.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1d326124 Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Mortensen, David R. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00z2p5xw The present study is an investigation of the information-structural notion of focus through the morphosyntax of focus structures in Mùwe Ké (Tibeto-Burman, Mugu, Nepal).&nbsp; The focus structures mainly involve the obligatory marking of actors with the otherwise-optional ergative marker <em>-gane/-gadiː</em> and a preferred immediately preverbal position, both of which are shown to correlate with the notion of focus.&nbsp; The research and analyses are based on a corpus of field data collected over three years in Nepal, including the Questionnaire on Information Structure (Skopeteas et al. 2006).&nbsp; The paper is intended as a partner for and precursor to Archer (under review), which questions the notion of focus as a category and subsequently reanalyses the data presented here. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00z2p5xw Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Archer, Jon https://escholarship.org/uc/item/57k9r3v9 <p>This paper intends to introduce a Tangsa Naga language variety, Champang, in a very detailed and descriptive manner. Champang is an undocumented, undescribed and unwritten language that belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family. This language, therefore, doesn’t have any significant written literature. There is no work found directly relating to any of its various aspects, such as, its culture, history, religion, and the like areas. Nevertheless, many linguists have mentioned about Champang while giving a detailed description of the various Tangsa Naga varieties that are spoken along the South-East Asian belt, including Myanmar, Arunachal Pradesh, and some parts of Upper Assam.</p><p>This paper is the outcome of my first field visit to Yopakan, a remote village at the top of the Patkai mountains, in the Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh in India. In India, besides Yopakan, there are around twelve more villages where the Champang people are found living peacefully with... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/57k9r3v9 Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Begum, Asifa https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gw4v19t <p>This paper presents a synoptic account of verbal suffixation in the Ura dialect of Bumthang, a language of central Bhutan. Examining verbal allomorphy shows the persistence of exceptions to historical sound changes in contemporary allophonic and allomorphic processes, and reveals striking contrasts with the culturally dominant Tibetic languages of the area. We examine the ways in which some of the allomorphy is motivated by patterns seen in the phonology of the language more widely, while some of the changes reflect purely (arbitrary) morphophonological processes.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gw4v19t Sat, 18 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Donohue, Mark https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bq059cw The verbs གསོལ་ gsol `request' and གནང་ gnaṅ `agree, grant', because of theircomplementary semantics and parallel syntax, provide a convenient windowthrough which to caste light on the two forms of subordinate clausesthat they both govern, namely infinitives and terminative verbal nouns. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bq059cw Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Hill, Nathan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/43b8d137 The paper is the first attempt at reconstructing the word-family of <em>scogs</em> “among others” and detecting its manifold uses in OLT texts. The morpheme is traced back to a v4-stem of the verb √sʦog (CT v1 <em>gsog</em>), lit. “to cause to assemble”, itself derived from the verb root √ʦog by means of the causative prefix <em>s</em>-. After discussing its probable cognates and demonstrating historical links between them, I examine the ten constructions attested in the OLT corpus which contain the morpheme: finite clause, adverbial clause with past passive participle (I &amp; II), post-head relative clause, R-dislocation, relative clause extraposition, pre-head relative clause, off-subject nominalisation, and idiomatic phrase (I &amp; II). The paper sketches the lexicalisation path taken by the morpheme from a finite verb to an idiomatic phrase. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/43b8d137 Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Bialek, Joanna https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9wh8w6x6 In contrast to other Modern Tibetan auxiliaries, the linguistic history of the so-called ‘factual’ marker <em>red</em> cannot be traced. Two scholars have independently pointed to the occurrence of red in the 15^th-century <em>Mi.la.ras.paḥi rnam.thar</em>. In all likelihood, this occurrence is the result of an editorial intervention. However, this text reveals an interesting distribution of five different <em>verba dicendi</em>, ingeniously used by the author of the text, to help understanding who talks to whom. Another suggested occurrence of <em>red</em> in the <em>Padma thaŋ.yig</em> is the result of an unfortunate misreading. On the other hand, some editions of the <em>Gser.gyi phreŋ.ba</em> do contain a single instance of <em>red</em> as a copula, which cannot be further analysed. The problematic status or <em>red</em> in all these texts demonstrates that in the reconstruction of the linguistic history of a language, the philological method cannot be set aside.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9wh8w6x6 Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Zeisler, Bettina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33q9g6m4 <p>Liangmai, a Tibeto-Burman member spoken in North East India (NEI), has twenty consonant phonemes and six vowel phonemes with four contrastive tones. Three stops and three nasals permitted at the end of a syllable and all consonants occurs at the beginning of a syllable. A voiceless libio-dental fricative which is rare in other NEI languages is a major consonant. Vowel system has several diphthongs. The close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ can appear as an allophone of close front unrounded vowel /i/ and close back rounded vowel /u/ as in <em>dūip</em> <strong><em>í</em></strong> <em>n ~ dūip</em> <strong><em>ɨ́</em></strong> <em>n </em>‘spring’ and <em>t</em> <strong><em>ū</em></strong> <em>n ~ t</em> <strong><em>ɨ̄</em></strong> <em>n</em> ‘push’. With or without coda, the position nucleus of a syllable is occupied by an obligatory vowel and also by a syllabic consonant. Syllable has&nbsp; CV and CVC patterns.&nbsp;... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33q9g6m4 Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Mataina, Wichamdinbo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2h45z85d <p>Thewo Tibetan is a Tibetic language of China spoken along the Bailong River in Northern Sichuan Province and Southern Gansu Province. Although typically listed as a dialect of Choni Tibetan (ISO 639-3 cda), Thewo is reported to have a high degree of internal variation (Renzengwangmu 2013). The goal of this paper is to examine whether or not this internal variation can be explained in part by Chamberlain’s (2015) hypothesis of linguistic watersheds. Chamberlain (2015) argues that the distribution of watersheds on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau provides a spatial model through which we can predict the geographical spread of language variation. This paper’s research reveals some spatial correlation between the distribution of the watersheds and dialectal variation in the Thewo speaking region of Diebu County. These results can neither disprove Chamberlain’s hypothesis nor fully explain the spatial distribution of language variation in Thewo Tibetan. However, the results do demonstrate... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2h45z85d Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Powell, Abe https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1w6749j5 <p>This paper presents a comprehensive description of non-finite verbs in Assamese, a language that belongs to the Indo-Aryan family. Non-finite verbs exist in multi-verb constructions, which include both single and multi-clausal constructions. In single clauses, they occur with different auxiliaries and carry various aspectual and modal meanings. In multi-clausal constructions, on the other hand, they occur in dependent clauses and mark various syntactic relations that they have with the main clause. This paper primarily deals with two aspects: firstly, it discusses the forms of non-finite verbs, and secondly, it analyses the syntactic functions they carry in single and multi-clausal constructions. The syntactic functions of non-finite verbs in multi-clausal constructions are examined from two perspectives – their functions within superordinate constructions, and their functions within a construction.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1w6749j5 Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Bez, Gitanjali https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vz927sb <p>Many different kinds of nominal categorial prefixes are employed in the Bodo, Dimasa, Kokborok and Tiwa languages, such as classifier prefixes, class prefixes, genus prefixes, person possessive prefixes, body part prefixes, nominalizing prefixes, adjectivizer prefixes, etc. Usually, these prefixes have lexical meanings as they are exact or obsolete forms of corresponding existing lexemes. The exact forms are used as free words whereas the obsolete forms are used exclusively as bound morphemes. They may refer to respective classes, genera, species, persons, body/plant parts, etc. because they carry the corresponding meaning. Hence, it is very likely that these prefixes originally belonged to a noun category which have been incorporated to the co-occurring bases; whereas, the other types of categorial prefixes like nominalizer and adjectivizer belong to derivational category.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vz927sb Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Brahma, Aleendra https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1cq303bg <p>Tawang Monpa, also known as Dakpa, is an East Bodish language spoken in Arunachal Pradesh in India, and in Trashigang in Bhutan. This article is a brief description of the main grammatical features of the language. In the section about nouns and the noun phrase the use of the case markers and a topic marker will be discussed in detail, in addition to other features related to the noun phrase. In the section about verbs and the verb phrase negation and various adverbial suffixes will be discussed in detail, as well as a set of tense, aspect, modality, evidentiality suffixes. Pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and deictic expression will also be described, in addition to sections about the structure of the simple clause and clause combination.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1cq303bg Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Tombleson, Anette Helgestad https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1661q78p <p><strong>Abstract: </strong>This paper presents the case-marking system of Khengkha, an East Bodish language spoken in Bhutan, which employs case markers for a variety of functions. A monologue, a conversation among three native Khengkha speakers (two males, aged 27 and 41, and one female, aged 58) and an interview were audio recorded to gather data. The study found that the A argument is primarily marked with ergative markers while the S argument is unmarked. But some S arguments which are associated with emphasis and contrastive focus are seen marked. With regard to the O argument, there is one set of bivalent verbs that requires the O argument to be unmarked and there is another set of verbs which always mark the O argument. Similarly, the case marker of the instrumental, genitive, locative, allative and ablative are also discussed, followed by a detailed discussion on the case marking of the dative subject, which follows a similar process to Indo-Aryan languages.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1661q78p Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Dorji, Tenzin https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0rc1x17p <p>The present paper is an attempt to describe and analyse the structure of causatives in Hmar, a Kuki-Chin subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family, spoken by around 98,550 speakers as per the Census of India, 2011. This paper discusses the two types of causatives in the language: Morphological and Lexical. Hmar has two morphological causative forms, viz the prefix /<em>sùk</em>-/ and suffix /-<em>tìr</em>/, that are productively employed in the derivation of causative structures. Lexical causatives, on the other hand, are uncommon and unproductive. The language is found to have a handful of causative forms that can be considered as fragments of the historical causative morphology. However, they are discussed under lexical causatives as they are irregular and no longer productive as a morphological operation. The paper further discusses the phenomenon of double causation in the language and identifies two patterns of deriving double causative structures.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0rc1x17p Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Infimate, Marina Laltlinzo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0h18q85h This paper gives a brief introduction to the&nbsp;<em>Himalayan Linguistics</em> special issue&nbsp;<em>Language Contact in the Amdo Sprachbund. </em>It briefly reviews some of the scholarship regarding language contact in the region, and traces the history of recognition that Amdo should be considered a Sprachbund. It suggests that Campbell’s (2017) concept of a “trait-sprawl area” offers a good way to characterize this Sprachbund. The seven papers included in the volume are also briefly summarized. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0h18q85h Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Slater, Keith W https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9fj8j3rf The present article is a review of&nbsp;The Dura language: Grammar and phylogeny by Schorer (2016). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9fj8j3rf Wed, 3 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Pons, Marie-Caroline https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qr4s19d <p>This paper seeks to analyse and describe the nature of morphophonemic variation in the nominal morphology of Assamese, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Assam. Previous discussions of morphophonemic variation in the language have focused on the phonological aspects of such variation (Goswami and Tamuli, 2003: 410-13). However, the present study seeks to examine the nature and range of phonological variations within morphemes triggered by nominal morphological processes such as (a) deictic inflections for relational nouns, (b) case inflections for nouns and pronouns and (c) nominal word-formation via derivation and compounding.</p><p>Identifying the phonological and morphological factors behind the morphophonemic variation in nominal morphology will serve to uncover the patterned nature of the underlying regularities of a major area of Assamese grammar. Moreover, in seeking to align the morphophonemic variations with specific nominal morphological processes rather than treating... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qr4s19d Sat, 24 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Sharma, Seuji https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2x53c6w5 <p>This paper discusses the various functions of the multifunctional case marker -<em>ha</em> in Wutun, a mixed Sinitic language with Northwest Mandarin lexicon and Amdo Tibetan syntax spoken in Tongren County, eastern part of Qinghai Province, Amdo Sprachbund. I will show that the use of -<em>ha </em>is connected to Differential Argument Marking and it is motivated partly by semantic factors and partly by information structure. The case marker -<em>ha </em>often occurs on the Recipient, Patient or Causee argument in clauses with two animate arguments and it can therefore be used to disambiguate arguments. Its use is also connected to affectedness, which can be operationalized in terms of definiteness and saliency. Patient arguments are more likely to be marked with -<em>ha </em>if they are totally affected (e.g.&nbsp;<em>The dog ate the dumplings</em>) than only partially affected (e.g.&nbsp;<em>The dog ate some dumplings</em>). However, the use of -<em>ha</em> cannot be explained... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2x53c6w5 Sun, 18 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Sandman, Erika https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9f33w65j The purpose of this study is to present some aspects of the sound system of Gān’gōu Chinese, a Northwest Mandarin variety of the Amdo Sprachbund, and to compare them with other Northwest Mandarin languages. The grammatical structure of Gān’gōu has been shown to exhibit an Altaic-type orientation (verb-final syntax, case system etcetera), while the phonology of Gān’gōu, which has only recently been examined, is of a Sinitic type. The questions asked are, how has the phonology of Gān’gōu changed as compared to its ancestor Old Mandarin on the one hand and Mandarin languages outside the Amdo Sprachbund on the other? How is it similar to other Northwest Mandarin varieties and where does it possibly differ? It has been found that Gān’gōu shows significant phonological similarities with the other members of the Northwest Mandarin branch. Also, many of the phonological innovations in Gān’gōu seem to be typical of the languages of the Amdo Sprachbund as a whole, further establishing the... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9f33w65j Thu, 1 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Kerbs, Richard https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1r99m2sb <p>Uipo, also called Khoibu, is an underdescribed Tibeto-Burman language spoken by around 1800 people in the Chandel district of Manipur. Uipo has four lexical tones: a high falling tone, a low level tone, a low falling tone and a high level tone. These are called Tone 1, Tone 2, Tone 3 and Tone 4 respectively. When tones are combined within one word, there are two sandhi rules that explain how the tones change. This article will look at the different context where tone sandhi occurs, focusing on compounds, possessive constructions, and nominal attribution. For instance, a noun that start with a Tone 1 or a Tone 2 syllable will get a Tone 4 when following a Tone 2 possessive prefix. There are examples of minimal pairs that become homonymic in certain morphological contexts, and these are used to illustrate that the tonal category of a given words has really changed. Interestingly, what otherwise seem like phonological rules have some specific lexical exceptions. For instance,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1r99m2sb Thu, 1 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Sæbø, Lilja Maria https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4602d4p6 <p>The unit of study is Tirap district which lies in the south-eastern part of Arunachal Pradesh; and the languages or varieties are Nocte, Khappa, Ollo and Tutsa.</p><p>Presently, Tirap is mainly inhabited by Nocte; few villages in the district show occupancy by Nocte-Ollo and Nocte-Khappa. Noctes form the bulk of population of Tirap. This study probes the so-called sub-tribes of Nocte – Ollo and Khappa. Khappa is regarded as a literary medium of Nocte; hence the variety is used in composing songs and poetry. Ollo seeks to be an independent tribe in near future. Tutsa was regarded as a sub-tribe of Nocte, until 1991 the former got registered as an independent tribe.</p><p>The study is an attempt to lay out grammatical features based on the usage of auxiliary verbs and Be Verbs found in these languages/ varieties – Nocte, Khappa, Ollo and Tutsa; and trace how far the morphology of these languages bears the same source or show resemblances. The features taken into account here... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4602d4p6 Wed, 30 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Das, Bishakha https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3d7919cw <p>Causatives are valence increasing operation where another core argument, a causal agent (causer), is added for expressing a semantic or logical effect of causation on the non-causative verb. Causative construction comprises of the causer –the agent of the predicate of cause, and the causee – the agent of the caused event (Payne 1997: 176). This paper described the formation of causatives in Maring, a lesser-known Tibeto-Burman language spoken in southeaster part of Manipur, India. Maring has three causatives, <em>təu-, -kjər </em>and <em>pi-</em>. While <em>təu- </em>is used for direct causation and for deriving causatives from adjectives, <em>kjər- </em>is used for indirect causation. On the other hand, p<em>i- </em>is a benefactive marker that also gives causative interpretation. This paper will discuss and analyse the three causatives found in Maring – their origin, characteristics and productivity etc </p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3d7919cw Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Kanshouwa, Susie https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dn7w1jn This paper studies two grammatical cases in the Gansu-Qinghai linguistic area. Accusative-dative, a syncretic case largely attested in Sinitic languages, is also found in Bao’an and Tu, even if in a very limited use. The Sinitic languages have acquired this syncretic case marking through pattern reduplication due to language contact, while Bao’an and Tu have this innovation owing to the internal mechanisms of their language. The second phenomenon concerns possessor constructions in which the subject-possessor must be marked by a dative case. This marking is seen in all non-Sinitic languages in the Gansu-Qinghai linguistic area and has begun to appear in Sinitic languages. Multiple paths for borrowing between and inside languages in this area present an intertwined model of language borrowing. Linxia City and its closest counties should be the spreading center of these new syntactic devices, and Muslim populations speaking different languages may form a spreading net. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dn7w1jn Tue, 22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Xu, Dan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tw6m0nx <p>Natural Mangghuer texts exhibit a high rate of borrowing of lexical resources from Chinese. In this paper, I examine borrowings which are synonymous (or nearly so) with existing Mangghuer content words. I identify two different structural types of borrowings. <em>Bound synonyms</em> appear only as elements of compounds or fixed expressions, often in onomastic expressions or nouns that have a hyponymic relationship to an existing noun. <em>Free synonyms</em> are borrowed as independent words. Evidence from three disparate types of Mangghuer language data shows that any bound or free synonym may appear in nonce borrowings, idiosyncratic borrowings, or community-wide borrowings, a typology drawn from Poplack (2018). The data suggests that although nonce borrowing is probably common (resulting in <em>nonce synonymy</em>), many Chinese borrowings have become established to varying degrees in the speech community, with the result that Mangghuer has a greatly enriched vocabulary.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tw6m0nx Mon, 14 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Slater, Keith W https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2r08b3q6 <p>Among the categories grammaticalised in the noun phrase, the domain of number shows several formal and functional similarities in genetically distinct languages of Amdo. In most languages of the area, it is grammaticalised in a complex way, with several morphemes expressing distinct plural categories. This paper describes the attested categories and their functional characteristics in order to retrace cases of linguistic copying and show the respective contribution of each language group to this domain. Hence, the paper shows that the grammatical domain of plurality in Amdo, both from a functional and a formal point of view, presents characteristics of linguistic convergence based on multiple model-languages.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2r08b3q6 Mon, 14 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Simon, Camille https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8828t98k <p>This paper attempts to discuss the convergence phenomena in the Amdo Sprachbund in the light of genetic and cultural/religious factors. As an ethnolinguistically diverse region, the Amdo Sprachbund constitutes a natural laboratory for the study of language contact and human interaction at large. Unsurprisingly, populations within the Amdo Sprachbund show considerable signs of genetic admixture which sometimes result in disagreement between genetic structure and linguistic affiliation. More remarkably, their languages appear to show varying degrees of structural convergence towards Amdo Tibetan depending on their religious practice. To wit, syllable-initial consonant clusters and a three-term evidential system, two features which are clearly attributable to Tibetic influence, are only found in languages whose speakers practise(d) Tibetan Buddhism. These observations suggest that genetic and various sociohistorical factors should be taken into account in the study of areal linguistics... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8828t98k Sun, 13 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Szeto, Pui Yiu https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0h33222z <p>Numerous languages of North East India are classified according to extralinguistic factors such as district and state borders or superficial similarities in culture. This has resulted in highly diverse language varieties — often with little or no mutual intelligibility — falling under a single label despite these considerable linguistic and cultural differences. Likewise, varieties which are closely related or lacking any meaningful differences may be classified as distinct entities, such as with the Phong variety which is classified as either Tangsa or as Nocte depending on the district in which the speaker resides.</p><p>Based on an analysis of sound correspondences and lexical variation between varieties, this paper argues the case for treatment of Tangsa-Nocte not as two closely related branches within the Sal languages, as earlier classifications may suggest, but rather as a single dialect continuum.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0h33222z Tue, 8 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 van Dam, Kellen Parker Rahman, Syed Iftiqar https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8752m8qq <p>This paper explores a special pronoun, the locutor-referential pronoun tha in Zhoutun, a Tibetanized Chinese variant spoken in the Amdo Sprachbund. Two rules of the use of tha are found in this paper. Rule 1: If tha occurs in a complement clause of a speech verb, it refers to the internal locutor. Rule 2: If tha occurs in an environment other than a complement clause of a speech verb, it refers to the narrative locutor. If only rule 1 is followed, then tha can be considered a logophoric pronoun; however, the speciality of tha lies in the fact that it can also be used in the context to which rule 2 applies, a usage that does not fit the definition of a logophoric pronoun. The use of tha is not obligatory. An inherited form from Mandarin Chinese, the formation of the locutor-referential tha has to do with the contact with Amdo Tibetan and its probable evolving pathway is “third-person pronoun&gt; logophoric pronoun&gt; locutor-referential pronoun”.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8752m8qq Thu, 3 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Zhou, Chenlei https://escholarship.org/uc/item/93m7239c There is a new theory that Burushaski is related to Kartvelian, put forward by Holst (2017). Čašule (2017), published in this journal, made various statements about this new theory. Čašule says that he is not convinced by it and seeks to explain why he is not. Unfortunately, his assessment contains a number of misunderstandings, statements which do not entirely match the facts of Holst (2017), and other features which can be regarded as problematic. In addition, there are many issues on which divided opinions are possible. Given this, the present paper is intended to react to Čašule (2017). While doing this, new issues come into the debate. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/93m7239c Thu, 8 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Holst, Dr. Jan Henrik https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3wf1j9bg Classifications of evidentiality all include at least one ‘reported’, ‘quotative’ or ‘hearsay’ category. This category is found in many language groups that are attested to have evidentiality, including the Tibeto-Burman family. Although attested, reported evidentiality is often under-described in both descriptive grammars of specific languages, and typologies of evidentiality across the family. This survey of reported evidentiality in the Tibeto-Burman family found mention of reported evidentiality in descriptions of 88 of 130 languages. While there are clear patterns with regards to the morphosyntactic features of reported evidentiality across these languages, there is a great deal of variation in the semantic features, including the number of reported evidential distinctions and the specificity of source. This survey demonstrates that reported evidentiality is complex and varied across languages, even within the same family, and outlines ways to improve future documentation... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3wf1j9bg Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Gawne, Lauren https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1x24v6wx <p>Robbins Burling, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, passed away peacefully on January 2, 2021, at the age of 94 after a full, rich life.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1x24v6wx Mon, 15 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Post, Mark W Burling, Steve https://escholarship.org/uc/item/12b7v529 <p>In this paper, we present forty-three interlinearized and annotated Pumi riddles. Riddles are a subgenre of poetry, characterized by their syntactic parallelism and use of metaphor. We look at the structural characteristics of riddles and explore their use of metaphor. Riddles appear in a parallel question-answer pair and may be divided into four different sets based on their structure and content: oppositional riddles, locational riddles, person(ified) riddles and action riddles. Metaphors draw from likeness in shape or movement, and to a minor extent from likeness in colour, texture, sound or function. Riddling is a highly endangered art form and this paper aims to document their beauty for posterity.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/12b7v529 Thu, 7 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Daudey, Henriette Gerong, Pincuo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/59p9w3r6 <p>Recent years have seen an increase in the variety of language names used for the Nuristani languages (Indo-Iranian), which are spoken in Eastern Afghanistan and to some extent across the border in Northern Pakistan. This increase is driven by efforts to recognize local practices, but it has also created confusion and inconsistencies in many areas, making terminological justifications a necessary part of every publication regarding these languages. A unified terminology would not only be convenient for linguists and other researchers - in so far as scientific usage can influence colloquial practices, it would also increase the visibility and recognizability of the languages of this little-known language family on the national and international level, thus also potentially benefiting the native speaking communities. The proposals given in this paper aim to create an internally consistent terminology that is scientifically precise, accurate, and recognizable for speakers, while... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/59p9w3r6 Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Halfmann, Jakob https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0sj6k6s7 <p>This paper describes the aspectual markings of Niesu, an understudied Tibeto-Burman language, spoken in Sichuan, Southwest China. Niesu is the dialect of Nuosu, both of which are classified as Nuosu proper. By describing the data of the two subdialects of Niesu, namely Suondi and Adur, this paper categorizes Niesu aspectual markings into two types: simplex and complex. Except for the perfective o⁴⁴ <em>,</em> which is an enclitic, all other aspectual markings are auxiliary. Unlike the simplex markers, the complex aspectual markers are formed through compounding or modification, making them further analyzable regarding the internal structure. Meanwhile, different nuances of meaning or function accompany the complex forms, compared with the basic forms. The grammaticalizations of the aspectual markings in Niesu are cross-linguistically well-attested phenomena, namely the continuous and progressive markings are grammaticalized from the existential verb, ‘be... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0sj6k6s7 Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 DING, HONGDI Ziwo, Lama Qiu-fuyuan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7j34f0s3 Assimilation is a phonological process in which a sound becomes more like its neighboring sound. This process can occur either within a word or in between words and is of two types depending upon its directionality –regressive or progressive. Maring exhibits total contact regressive assimilation within word boundary. This is a prevalent morphophonological phenomenon that affects the formation of perfect aspect <em>-</em> <em>kur</em> and genitive case marker <em>-</em> <em>jəi</em>. For instance, if a verb ends with <em>-ŋ </em>the perfect aspect will become <em>-</em> <em>ŋur</em>, if it ends with -<em>l</em> then the perfect aspect will become <em>-</em> <em>lur </em>and so on. The same process is applicable with the genitive case marker <em>-</em> <em>jəi.</em> If the noun, i.e. the possessor ends with -<em>m </em>or -<em>n </em>or -<em>r</em> then -<em>jəi </em>will become -<em>məi, </em>-<em>nəi </em>and -<em>rəi</em> respectively. These changes... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7j34f0s3 Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Kanshouwa, Susie https://escholarship.org/uc/item/78f6d00v The primary purpose of this paper is to describe the function of the suffix <em>-</em> <em>le</em> in the Maram language. This paper discusses the function of the suffix -<em>le </em>in marking the end of declarative sentences, and the occurrence of -<em>le</em> with predicate nominals, predicate adjectives, and the existential. The paper also explores the tonal changes of&nbsp; <em>-le</em> and its non-determination of tense/aspect. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/78f6d00v Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Sarangthem, Bobita Dutta, Niharika https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6248736t <p>Chakpa is a ritual and heritage language which is usually classed under the Luish group of Tibeto-Burman language family. It was once spoken in the Imphal valley by such clans as Andro, Sengmai, and Phayeng (McCulloch 1859). However, they do not speak Chakpa anymore. They now speak a variety of Meitei and are collectively known as Lois (Devi L. B. 2002). The Luish languages are divided into three major goups: (i) Cak-Sak, (ii) Chakpa, and (iii) Kadu-Gnan (Matisoff 2013). In this paper, based on my field data (Cak, Sak, Kadu, and Ganan) and secondary sources (McCulloch 1859 and Basanta 2008), I will try to classify Chakpa within Luish.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6248736t Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Huziwara, Keisuke https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4710z56x This introductory contribution to the inaugural issue of <em>Languages and Peoples of the Eastern Himalayan Region</em> (LPEHR) outlines the mission and goals of this new publication outlet. LPEHR takes over where the <em>North East Indian Linguistics</em> (NEIL) series left off. As such, this introduction also looks back on NEIL. An index of all articles published in the NEIL volumes is attached as supplemental material to this contribution. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4710z56x Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Konnerth, Linda Morey, Stephen Mulder, Mijke Post, Mark W. van Dam, Kellen Parker https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22c040n4 This paper provides a detailed description of how deictic motion events are encoded in a Tangsa variety called Hakhun, spoken in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in India, and in Sagaing Region in Myanmar. Deictic motion events in Hakhun are encoded by a set of two motion verbs, their serial or versatile verb counterparts, and a set of two ventive particles. Impersonal deictic motion events are encoded by the motion verbs alone, which orient the motion with reference to a center of interest. Motion events with an SAP figure or ground are simultaneously encoded by the motion verbs and ventive particles. These motion events evoke two frames of reference: a home base and the speech-act location. The motion verbs anchor the motion with reference to the home base of the figure, and the ventives (or their absence) anchor the motion with reference to the location of the speaker, the addressee, or the speech-act. When the motion verbs are concatenated with other verbs, they specify motion... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22c040n4 Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Boro, Krishna