Himalayan Linguistics

Articles

• The interplay of nominality and adverbiality in Phola

  • González Pérez, Manuel David

  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 languages, especially Lahu, the single best described Ngwi language, where adverbial expressions are largely found to be constructionally identical with canonical nouns. The differences between such two closely related languages highlight the need for a stronger focus on language-internal distributional criteria when addressing the thorny task of defining and assigning word classes.

• Acoustics of vowels in Angami

  • Terhiija, Viyazonuo;
  • Sarmah, Priyankoo

  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.  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.

• Review of A Grammar of Malimasa with Annotated Texts and Glossary

  • Michaud, Alexis

  A Grammar of Malimasa with Annotated Texts and Glossary (玛丽玛萨话语法研究及标注文本)

  By Zihe Li (李子鹤)

  Beijing: Peking University Press (北京大学出版社) 2024

  Peking University Chinese Linguistics Research Series (“北大中国语言学研究丛书”)

  ISBN 978-7-301-34862-8

  xvii + 419 pages

   

  
  Reviewed by Alexis Michaud