Abstract

Abstract Sino-Tibetan (Trans-Himalayan) is one of the typologically most diverse language families in the world, one of the few comprising all gradients of morphological complexity, from isolating to polysynthetic. No consensus exists as yet on whether the rich morphology found in some languages, in particular person indexation, should be reconstructed in the common Sino-Tibetan ancestor or whether it is a later innovation confined to and defining a particular “Rung” subgroup. In this article, we argue that this question is fundamentally a problem of phylogeny, and that the results of recent works on the phylogeny of Sino-Tibetan, supplemented by a more refined investigation of shared lexical innovations, provide support for the idea that person indexation morphology is not a recent innovation and that the languages lacking such a feature are thus innovative.

Highlights

  • One of the most vexing issues in Sino-Tibetan (ST) historical linguistics is the question of the reconstructibility of verbal morphology

  • The debate about whether person indexation should be reconstructed in pST has reached an impasse: the Polysynthetic Proto-SinoTibetan Hypothesis (PPSTH) argues that cognate systems attested in many branches of the ST family, while the Rung hypothesis objects that languages with cognate indexation systems form a subgroup and appeals to the implausibility of such a system being repeatedly lost in many branches

  • While the PPSTH is not committed to any particular classification scheme, but assumes that Rgyalrong and Kiranti belong to distant branches of the family, the Rung hypothesis makes the following precise prediction, which we propose to test: 8. An anonymous reviewer objected that lexicon and morphology are not independent, in particular since morphology can be grammaticalized from the lexicon

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Summary

Introduction

One of the most vexing issues in Sino-Tibetan (ST) historical linguistics is the question of the reconstructibility of verbal morphology. The debate about whether person indexation should be reconstructed in pST has reached an impasse: the PPSTH argues that cognate systems attested in many branches of the ST family, while the Rung hypothesis objects that languages with cognate indexation systems form a subgroup and appeals to the implausibility of such a system being repeatedly lost in many branches. Reexamination of the issue of person indexation in ST is timely since two recent independent studies of ST phylogeny using Bayesian methods on lexical data have recently been published (Zhang et al 2019; Sagart et al 2019). Their results are broadly similar, and neither supports the Rung hypothesis.. Their results are broadly similar, and neither supports the Rung hypothesis. This article proposes to examine the issue in more detail and with more data by empirically testing the prediction of the Rung hypothesis that shared lexical innovations should be found between the languages that share a person indexation system

Rgyalrong and Kiranti person indexation
The Rung vs Polysynthetic Sino-Tibetan hypotheses
Geographical distribution
Lexical innovations and the Rung hypothesis
Recent phylogenetic studies and the Rung hypothesis
Prediction of the Rung hypothesis
Testing the prediction of the Rung hypothesis
Alternatives to the Rung hypothesis
Burmo-Rgyalrongic
Tibeto-Rgyalrongic
Conclusion
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