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.

It is well-known that South Central Tibeto-Burman (=Kuki-Chin) languages may exhibit a morphosyntactically-conditioned verbal stem alternation. This paper provides an exhaustive account of the stem alternation in Rengmitca, a highly endangered SC language of Bangladesh, based on a naturalistic text corpus. Compared to systems present in other languages, Rengmitca’s stem alternation is formally quite limited. The distribution of stem alternants involves similar parameters to those seen for other SC languages, but there are some deviations from more commonly attested patterns, as well. The finding that the stem alternation is present in Rengmitca is noteworthy because evidence for it in the Southwestern SC subgroup up to this point has only been minimal. The paper also considers additional issues in the diachrony of the stem alternation in SC.

This paper investigates the phenomenon of elaborate expressions (EEs) as manifested in Bangladesh Khumi, a language belonging to the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman. In strictly formal terms, Khumi EEs are quasi-reduplicative, compound-like structures consisting of an element which imparts meaning to the whole expression, and a second element which ranges from reduplicative template (e.g., mi-maay, elab(oration)-fire ‘fire’) to formally constrained nonce elements (srúng-sraaw, elab-tobacco ‘tobacco’), to otherwise meaningful elements which bear some semantic resemblance to their paired element (uy-klaay, dog-monkey ‘dog’). Consideration of the use of EEs in a large naturalistic text corpus suggest that their occurrence in Khumi encodes relatively expectable meanings associated with reduplicative structures, rather than simply being used for stylistic or aesthetic effect. EEs often appear to be involved in marking the intensified or distributed nature of the event, hardly surprising given the tendency for reduplication to code such categories cross-linguistically. More noteworthy, however, is the incidence of EEs in contexts where they indicate a more abstract nuance, attributed to the emotional intensity of what a speaker or narrator is expressing. EE use in these contexts may nevertheless be accounted for under the general rubric of intensification.

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.

Sierra Nevada snowpack is a critical water source for California’s growing population and agricultural industry. However, because mountain winters and springs are warming, on average, precipitation as snowfall relative to rain is decreasing, and snowmelt is earlier. The changes are stronger at mid-elevations than at higher elevations. The result is that the water supply provided by snowpack is diminishing. In this paper, we describe principal hydrologic responses to climatic and spatial geologic variations as gleaned from a series of observations including snowpack, stream-flow, and bedrock geology. Our analysis focused on peak (maximum) and base (minimum) daily discharge of the annual snowmelt-driven hydrographs from 18 Sierra Nevada watersheds and 24 stream gage locations using standard correlation methods. Insights into the importance of the relative magnitudes of peak flow and soil water storage led us to develop a hydrologic classification of mountain watersheds based on runoff versus base flow as a percentage of peak flow. Our findings suggest that watersheds with a stronger base flow response store more soil water than watersheds with a stronger peak-flow response. Further, the influence of antecedent wet or dry years is greater in watersheds with high base flow, measured as a percentage of peak flow. The strong correlation between 1) the magnitude of peak flow, and 2) snow water equivalent can be used to predict peak flow weeks in advance. A weaker but similar correlation can be used to predict the magnitude of base flow months in advance. Most of the watersheds show a trend that peak flow is occurring earlier in the year.

We lay out the conjugation patterns for declarative affirmatives and negatives in Lamkang [lmk], a language of the South Central subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman (a.k.a.Trans-Himalayan) family. As for many languages of this family, conjugation patterns differ according to tense. This includes different patterning with respect to participant prefixes and agreement suffixes as well as stem shape. Lamkang also employs a person hierarchy; with 2nd>1st, 3rd>1st, and 3rd>2nd, a hierarchical index marker t- is used if the verb is in the nonfuture affirmative.  The verb template includes tense, negative, and copular auxiliaries which are inflected for agent except when agent is otherwise indicated, e.g., with an inclusive prefix in negative conjugations, the expected Patient-Stem Auxiliary-Agent pattern for the paradigm flips to Agent-Stem Auxiliary-Patient.  Within the clusive forms, a great deal of variation for which prefixes are used for inclusive/exclusive exists.  We also see variation in which plural markers occur. All this hints at a highly complex system in a state of flux.