Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area - Volume 40, Issue 2, 2017

This paper addresses Prins’ (2016) recent proposal of a m(ə)‑ non-volitional prefix in the Kyomkyo dialect of Situ, showing that alternative analyses are preferable. In addition, it offers an account of some irregular anticausative forms in Situ, and presents evidence for a possible volitional mə‑ prefix in Gyalrong languages. 1

It is widely recognized that Khamti Shan is unique among Tai languages in evidencing a basic (A)OV word order, quite likely due to extensive language contact with Tibeto-Burman languages. Much less recognized in Khamti Shan is that some functional objects take a postposition marker, revealing a striking, but not necessarily unexpected, resemblance to a Tibeto-Burman-like anti-ergative construction. The deictic mai² ‘here’ grammaticalizes an anti-ergative function in which it acts as a marker for certain monotransitive ‘objects’ which are analyzed as pragmatically foregrounded referents in the information structure of the sentence.

The goal of this paper is to use string edit distance to describe the synchronic relationship between the Tibetan speech varieties located on the Northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. String edit distance provides a statistical way to compare a large number of linguistic features, in essence producing a statistical bundle of isoglosses. In this way, it can be used as a tool in dialect mapping and synchronic clustering. In this paper, the aggregate distance matrix produced by string edit distance reveals that the great degree of phonetic continuity on the grasslands of the northeastern edge of the plateau is matched by an equal degree of phonetic discontinuity in the mountains forming the eastern border of the plateau. While the dialects located on the grasslands can be grouped together into one cluster, the dialects in the mountains can be grouped together into six clusters.

In Khaling Rai, a number of lexemes have been found which can be considered ideophones, according to Dingemanse’s ( 2012 : 654) definition of the latter as “marked words depictive of sensory imagery.” This article will describe the different types of ideophones found in Khaling. These ideophones not only manifest a range of different morphological patterns, they cover the entire spectrum of sensory modalities found in Dingemanse’s implicational hierarchy ( 2012 : 663), namely sound, movement, visual patterns, other sensory perceptions (such as texture and taste) and cognitive states. The more than 400 ideophones collected to date in Khaling present a sound symbolic landscape which appears to be considerably richer than that found in other Kiranti languages with which the author is familiar.

Pragmatic agentivity is widespread in the Tibeto-Burman family. Some analyses suggest that its main purpose is to mark the agent in structurally ambiguous clauses, such as those in which agents and patients share the same degree of animacy or where the patient is absent due to zero anaphora. Others question the role of disambiguation, pointing out that it is often superfluous or inconsistent in resolving the agent role and thus likely not the primary purpose. Instead, disambiguation is seen as an outcome of highlighting agency, volition or choice. Exploring the multiple discourse functions of the agent marker in Khatso (Burmese-Ngwi; Yunnan, China), this paper shows that disambiguation is the primary motivation for marking agents, a feature that becomes more important in newer functions. This analysis builds on previous studies and broadens our understanding of the phenomenon in the Tibeto-Burman family.

As is well known, it is not uncommon in TB that nominalized clauses are used in various types of constructions, such as relative clauses, purpose clauses, verb complements, and free-standing independent clauses. Noonan (1997) , for instance, shows the multi-functionality of the nominalized clause with a nominalizer -wa in Chantyal (Tamangic). The current article discusses another nominalizer -la(ŋ) in Tamangic. In many Tamangic languages/dialects the suffix la(ŋ) may be used to form possessive pronominal expressions (e.g. ‘someone’s/something’s one’). It can thus be more specifically described as a pronominalizer. There is evidence that in many Tamangic dialects the suffix has developed into a genitive marker. This paper further suggests a possibility that la(ŋ) is historically related to a number of verb suffixes, such as complementizers and finite verb suffixes used in free-standing independent clauses.