Tibeto-Burman Family Research Articles

Aspect Markers in Hmar

This paper attempts to highlight the aspect markers in Hmar. Hmar is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Hmar people. They are mainly concentrated in Churachandpur district, the southern part of Manipur. And other villages outside Manipur are also scattered over a vast area comprising of northern Mizoram, Cachar district of Assam and Chittangong hill tracts of Bangladesh. Hmar is one of the recognized tribes of Manipur. It is regarded one of the nuclei of the Central Chin sub-group of Kuki-Chin group of Tibeto-Burman family (Grierson, LSI Vol. III, part III, 1904). There are four aspect markers in Hmar. They are simple aspect, progressive aspect, perfective aspect and unrealized or non realization aspect. Simple aspect is marked by ‘zero markers’, progressive aspect is denoted by /jiŋ/ or /mek/ and /lai/. The progressive aspect markers /jiŋ/ or /mek/ can be used separately. Again, the progressive aspect marker /lai/ can be used with a progressive aspect marker either /jiŋ/ or /mek/ in progressive sentences, perfective aspect is expressed by /tak h a/ and unrealized or non realization aspect marker is denoted by /tih/ or /diŋ/.

Lexical Anaphors and Pronouns in Liangmai

Abstract This paper discusses some aspects of the behavior of anaphors and pronouns in Liangmai, belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family. W e show that Liangmai offers a unique combination of “reflexivization strategies”. Like other languages it exhibits the strategy of reflexivizing the predicate by reduplication of an anaphoric element, but it simultaneously marks the predicate with a self-element. Two more properties of anaphoric properties of Liangmai are interesting from a cross-linguistic perspective. It shows cases of “swapping” - reordering of differently case-marked elements within the complex anaphor - and long-distance binding - allowing an anaphoric element to refer to an element that is not a co-argument.

An Inventory of Tibetan Sound Laws

Scholars of Indo-European historical linguistics have long found it convenient to refer to well known sound changes by the name of the researcher who first noticed the correspondences the sound change accounts for. Because of the proven utility of such named sound laws in Indo-European linguistics, the explicit listing and naming of sound laws in the Tibeto-Burman family could be expected to bring similar benefits.

Causative Constructions in Kok-Borok

Kok-Borok is the native language of the Borok people in the Indian state of Tripura and its neighbouring areas of Bangladesh. The aim of the present study is to capture the typological analysis of causative constructions of Kok-Borok, a language which belongs to the Bodo sub-group of the Tibeto-Burman language family. Our study shows that the most remarkable aspect of the causative constructions in Kok-borok is that in double causatives, the causative rI 'give' has been reduplicated in order to express 'to make somebody to do by employing a third party', which shows the language Kok-Borok's unique features if we compare this language with the other South-Asian Tibeto-Burman languages. The findings of mixed causatives show that both periphrastic and morphological devices have been employed in Kok-Borok to convey the meaning of causative constructions. Key Words: Causatives; Lexical; Morphological or Periphrastic Causatives; Kok-Borok.DOI: 10.3329/dujl.v2i4.6902Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics Vol.2(4) August 2009 pp.115-137

KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY IN LEPCHA

Lepcha being a language of the Tibeto Burman language family exhibit structural traits of the of the kinship terminological system realised in the Indian subcontinent. Kinship terminology has been analysed by different scholars from different points of view like, generation, sex, affinity, collaterality, relative age, polarity, affinity, etc. The present paper examines the Lepcha kinship terminology keeping the existing structural criteria in view along with culture and language specific aspects into consideration.

Kurtöp Tone: A tonogenetic case study

Languages of Asia are well-known for undergoing tonogenesis in recent history. The model established by Haudricourt (1954), Matisoff (1970), Thurgood (2002) and others is well-attested within the Tibeto-Burman language family, amongst others. While the phenomenon is well-documented in history, we rarely have the occasion to document tonogenesis in detail as it occurs. Though we know that loss of codas generally brings tonal contrasts into a language and from there voiceless consonantal onsets condition a high tonal split while voiced onsets condition a low tonal split, the details of such processes remain unknown. Kurtöp, a Tibeto-Burman language of Bhutan, is currently undergoing tonogenesis, providing the unique opportunity to analyze the phenomenon in detail. In this article we explore Kurtöp tonogenetic properties via comparative data and an acoustic study. We find that tone first entered Kurtöp following sonorant consonant onsets, spread to the palatal fricative and appears to be spreading following the remainder of the obstruents.

The Diversity of the Tibeto-Burman Language Family and the Linguistic Ancestry of Chinese

The Diversity of the Tibeto-Burman Language Family and the Linguistic Ancestry of Chinese

The “Indian English” of Tibeto-Burman language speakers

English as spoken as a second language in India (IE) has developed different sound patterns from other varieties of English. While most descriptions of IE have focused on the English of speakers whose first languages belong to the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian families, in this study, I examine the phonetic and phonological characteristics of the English produced by speakers of three Indian L1s from the Tibeto-Burman language family (Angami, Ao, and Mizo). In addition to describing aspects of Tibeto-Burman Indian English, a previously unreported Indian English variety, I also examine how and why this variety of English differs from General Indian English. The English of Tibeto-Burman L1 speakers seems to form a variety distinct from Indian English, most noticeably in terms of the lack of retroflexion of coronal consonants, the devoicing of word-final obstruents, the simplification of consonant clusters, the presence of post-vocalic [p], and the reduced set of vowel contrasts. Most of these can be traced to transfer from the L1 phonology, with the coda devoicing and cluster reductions reflecting simplification in terms of markedness, following developmental sequences found in second language acquisition.

Finite Verb Morphology in Kinnauri

The Kinnauri language belongs to the West Himalayish language group, the most underdocumented subgroup of the Bodish branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family (DeLancey 1989). This paper presents a descriptive account of Kinnauri finite verb morphology, concentrating on the copula construction and the inflectional morphology of affirmative finite verbs; the paper further analyzes the morphological distribution as well as the semantic interpretation of various finite verb morphemes.

Fertility and haemoglobin genotypes: a population study in Upper Assam (India).

The Kachari in upper Assam, a Bodo tribe whose language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family, have a 0.5 frequency of the haemoglobin E gene (Hb beta E), the highest prevalence of an abnormal haemoglobin gene so far reported. In view of this high prevalence, the reproductive performance of 200 Kachari couples with different Hb beta genotypes and the pre-reproductive mortality of their offspring were examined. The differences of relative fertility observed were very small and there was no differential mortality of children. These findings indicate that at present there is no selection at the haemoglobin beta-chain locus in the Kachari population.

Cak numerals

Cak is a Luish language of the Tibeto-Burman language family and it is spoken mainly in the Naikhyongchari subdistrict of Bandarban district, Chittagong Hill Tracts (henceforth, CHT),Bangladesh. In this paper, I briefly describe the Cak numeral system. Numerals in Cak are basically nouns. Cak has two series of cardinal numerals: one is the native Cak numerals and the other is borrowed from Marma. The difference between these two types of numerals is reflected in the classifiers that they take: Cak numerals take native Cak classifiers whereas the numerals borrowed from Marma take classifiers of Marma origin. The native Cak numeral for ‘one' is unique in two respects. First, it changes form according to its phonological environment. Second, it appears after classifiers, while the other numerals precede classifiers. Finally, I show that all the ordinal numerals are borrowed from Pali through Marma. Key words: Cak, Marma, numerals, numeral classifiers, Tibeto-Burman languagesDOI: 10.3329/dujl.v1i2.3714 The Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics: Vol. 1 No.2 August, 2008 Page: 1-10

Lahu bilingual humor

Abstract In 1965–6 I recorded a large number of texts in Lahu (a Loloish language of the Tibeto-Burman family), mostly in the “standard” Black Lahu dialect spoken in several Christianized villages of Ghiengmai Province, Thailand. These texts show great diversity of style and content, ranging from highly formal sermons and serious conversations to skits, picaresque stories, and rapid-fire repartee of the utmost colloquiality. 1 A representative sample of all genres of Lahu texts will be offered in my Lahu Chrestomathy (in preparation).

Colloquial Chin as a Pronominalized Language

It is over 100 years since Brian Houghton Hodgson was persuaded by what he described as ‘great peculiarities in the use of the pronouns’ in certain of the languages of the southern Himalayan region to ‘divide the Himalayan races primarily into two groups, distinguished by the respective use of simple or non-pronomenalised [sic], and of complex or pronomenalised languages’. This method of classification was taken over by Sten Konow in the third volume of the Linguistic Survey of India and has been widely accepted by linguists since that time. ‘Pronominalization’ has been taken to mean pronominal usage of a certain kind, particularly within the verbal complex, and has on the whole been regarded as a non-typical feature of Tibeto-Burman languages, probably to be accounted for by alien influences, and restricted, within the Tibeto-Burman family, to the languages grouped together by Konow under the name ‘Himalayan’.

Morphology of Some Tibeto-Burman Dialects of the Himalayan Region

Since the time of the appearance of the first grammar and dictionary by Csoma de Koros, Tibetan has become one of the beststudied languages of the East. The Tibeto-Burman family of languages, which forms the subject of the present study 1), comprises a large number of dialects extending from Tibet in the north to Burma in the South, and from Baltistan in the west to Ssechuan and Yiinnan in the East. All the dialects spoken in this vast area are connected with the Siamese-Chinese languages, but how nearly they are related to each other it is too early yet to say with any degree of certainty. The dialects dealt with in the present paper are Classical Tibetan or the written language (Cl. T.), Balti (Bal.), Purik (Pur.), Ladakhi (Lad.), Lahul (La.), Central Tibetan (Cent. T.), Spiti (Sp.), Nyamkat (Ny.), Jad (Ja.) Garhwal (Gar.), Kigate (Ka.), Sharpa (Sha.), the Bhotiai of Sikkim or PD-njon-kii (Bho.), the Bhotiaof Bhutan or Lhoke (Lho.) and Khams (Kha.). Taking

On the Prefixes and Consonantal Finals of Si-Hia as evidenced by their Chinese and Tibetan Transcriptions

In view of the fact that the study of Si-Hia is now attracting fresh interest, and that the problems it presents are fraught with some difficulty, it seems not untimely to review certain aspects of the matter upon which the status of the language and its position within the Tibeto-Burman family ultimately depend, viz. the problems of prefixes and consonantal finals.

XVII. Kanauri Vocabulary in two parts: English-Kanauri and Kanauri-English

KĂNAURĪ is one of the complex pronominalized languages of the Tibeto-Burman family. It is spoken in the Sătlăj Valley in the Pănjāb, from a point about 20 miles up the river from Rāmpūr to near the Tibetan border. Băshăhr State, of which Kănaur is the eastern part, begins 50 miles east of Simla; it has an area of 3800 square miles, and a population of 84,000.