Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area - Current Issue

The classification and naming of plants and animals is said to follow a number of “universal” constraints cross-linguistically. While these constraints are generally accepted in the literature, few have been rigorously tested with a large language sample. In particular, the languages of mainland southeast Asia appear to have been neglected in such endeavours, even though it is common knowledge that some key constraints are violated in this region. Here, we investigate the construction of “Generic” plant and animal names in 22 languages of mainland southeast Asia, and show that the vast majority of these — especially among plant and fish ethnotaxa — are two-part “secondary names”, in contrast to a major constraint that predicts that such names should be one-part “primary names”. This appears to be a widespread areal feature, and has implications for the validity of other nomenclatural “universals”, which remain to be similarly tested.

We describe the yarn preparation and weaving tradition of the Japhug people of Sichuan Province, China, speakers of a Rgyalrongic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family. We discuss the practical aspects of the loom and its operation, as well as the terms used to describe it. Our analysis shows that the terms are mostly a mixture of autochthonous Rgyalrongic and borrowings from Tibetan. The loom is a version of the frameless body-tensioned loom, an ancient and widespread type in East Asia and Southeast Asia, used by many Sino-Tibetan language speakers. We provide a simple guide for researchers interested in recording weaving traditions in the field, and we briefly discuss the implications of our findings for the study of the languages and ethnography of the Sino-Tibetan peoples generally.

The goal of this article is a description of the verbal system of Dolpo, a Tibetic language of Nepal, and to demonstrate some of its original features concerning verbal morphosyntax. Dolpo no longer reflects Old Tibetan verb inflections: instead, tense-aspect is conveyed by a system of verbal endings that are combinations of nominalizers and equative or existential verbs. Unlike Common Tibetan and other Tibetic languages, Dolpo exhibits original morphophonemic variations of verbal morphosyntax, a description of which comprises the main part of this article. Morphophonemic variations also apply to negation markers and interrogative enclitics. This complex system of morphophonemic variations is demonstrated by examples obtained during our linguistic fieldwork in Dolpo in 2022 and 2023.

This paper showcases the Mùwe Ké ergative -gane / -gadiː, a unit formed from -ga, a particle of specificity, with ablative marker -ne or demonstrative dìː. This is unique in the language family, where ergative -gi is usually found, and it is shown that ‘modern’ -gane has replaced historical -gi in the language, which is still found on pronominals. The functions of -ga and -gane are shown to centre around precise indication, highlighting, and intersubjective focussing of attention. The second half of the paper provides a presentation of the differential use of -gane. Looking at possible differential argument marking triggers, it is shown that only information structure and the notion of focus account for the differential patterns found in the language.

This paper examines the plural marker =ɲê in Cogtse Situ, a Gyalrongic language spoken in Western Sichuan, based on data from Lin (2016). Although the etymology of =ɲê suggests that it was originally a plural marker, its morphosyntax reveals that its hosts range beyond traditional nominals and further cover infinitives, clauses, and adverbs, indicating that =ɲê has a wider array of uses beyond simply expressing plurality in modern Cogtse. In this paper, I discuss the uses and the semantics of the marker =ɲê extend to honorific, associative, approximative, and intensificative. After describing the different functions of =ɲê, I propose an evolutionary pathway for these uses. The proposal of the pathway provides a possible explanation for the relationship between different uses of this =ɲê, and this paper fills the research gap in the study of the plural marker in Gyalrongic languages.