Alexander R. Coupe, Randy J. LaPolla, Hideo Sawada
{"title":"Ethnolinguistic contact across the Indo-Myanmar-Southwestern China mountains","authors":"Alexander R. Coupe, Randy J. LaPolla, Hideo Sawada","doi":"10.1075/alal.00008.cou","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00008.cou","url":null,"abstract":"<div></div>","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140805790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Comparisons of plant names in Karenic languages reveal that names that can be traced back to Proto-Karen belong to plants that grow in temperate zones, such as bamboo, banyan, and mango. The names for coconut and palmyra palm, which are typical tropical plants, cannot be traced back to Proto-Karen and are borrowings. This suggests that Proto-Karen was spoken in a temperate zone. Meanwhile, the highest diversity of Karenic languages is observed in the area from southern Shan State to Kayah State and northern Karen State in Myanmar. Thus, as per linguistic migration theory, this area may have been the homeland of Karenic languages. Furthermore, the area largely has temperate zones. Hence, we can assume that the homeland of Karenic languages was in this area.
{"title":"Homeland of Karenic languages","authors":"Atsuhiko Kato","doi":"10.1075/alal.00012.kat","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00012.kat","url":null,"abstract":"Comparisons of plant names in Karenic languages reveal that names that can be traced back to Proto-Karen belong to plants that grow in temperate zones, such as bamboo, banyan, and mango. The names for coconut and palmyra palm, which are typical tropical plants, cannot be traced back to Proto-Karen and are borrowings. This suggests that Proto-Karen was spoken in a temperate zone. Meanwhile, the highest diversity of Karenic languages is observed in the area from southern Shan State to Kayah State and northern Karen State in Myanmar. Thus, as per linguistic migration theory, this area may have been the homeland of Karenic languages. Furthermore, the area largely has temperate zones. Hence, we can assume that the homeland of Karenic languages was in this area.","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140805793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article reports on some outcomes of language contact and linguistic convergence involving Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages in the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland. The primary focus falls on Nagamese, a lingua franca of the region that is undergoing a change in its morphosyntactic alignment typology. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that cognitive schemas are most likely responsible for the spread of replicated case marking patterns from local Tibeto-Burman languages to Nagamese, and that this has triggered a change in the alignment pattern of Nagamese over the past fifty years. The data presented in the paper are significant for demonstrating how language contact and the replication of cognitive schemas can be plausible drivers of grammatical change, even for something as fundamental to the syntax of a language as its morphosyntactic alignment.
{"title":"The role of cognitive schemas in linguistic convergence","authors":"Alexander R. Coupe","doi":"10.1075/alal.00014.cou","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00014.cou","url":null,"abstract":"This article reports on some outcomes of language contact and linguistic convergence involving Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages in the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland. The primary focus falls on Nagamese, a lingua franca of the region that is undergoing a change in its morphosyntactic alignment typology. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that cognitive schemas are most likely responsible for the spread of replicated case marking patterns from local Tibeto-Burman languages to Nagamese, and that this has triggered a change in the alignment pattern of Nagamese over the past fifty years. The data presented in the paper are significant for demonstrating how language contact and the replication of cognitive schemas can be plausible drivers of grammatical change, even for something as fundamental to the syntax of a language as its morphosyntactic alignment.","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140805691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the migration history of Tibetic language-speaking people in the south-eastern corner of the Tibetosphere, particularly the origin of Sangdam Tibetan, spoken in Kachin State, Myanmar, by adopting a geolinguistic approach with linguistic maps. It first presents the current research progress of geolinguistics in the region and then discusses phonological and lexical features to elucidate the dialect position of Sangdam Tibetan based on the data available in its adjacent areas, such as Eastern Tibet and Yunnan in China. In addition, this study highlights the geolinguistic method’s potential and difficulties in addressing migration history.
{"title":"Geolinguistic approach to migration history in the south-eastern edge of the Tibetosphere","authors":"Hiroyuki Suzuki","doi":"10.1075/alal.00013.suz","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00013.suz","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the migration history of Tibetic language-speaking people in the south-eastern corner of the Tibetosphere, particularly the origin of Sangdam Tibetan, spoken in Kachin State, Myanmar, by adopting a geolinguistic approach with linguistic maps. It first presents the current research progress of geolinguistics in the region and then discusses phonological and lexical features to elucidate the dialect position of Sangdam Tibetan based on the data available in its adjacent areas, such as Eastern Tibet and Yunnan in China. In addition, this study highlights the geolinguistic method’s potential and difficulties in addressing migration history.","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"279 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140805739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rawang and Jinghpaw, while both considered part of the larger Kachin ethnic group, are not seen to be closely related, though both retain proto-Tibeto-Burman forms relatively well. But as essentially all Rawang speakers speak Jinghpaw, there are a lot of loan words from Jinghpaw in Rawang, and there is also some commonality in the structures. This paper looks at the domains in which we find many loanwords and their paths into Rawang, and certain grammatical structures that seem to be either direct loans from Jinghpaw into Rawang, or could be calques on Jinghpaw structures. One such pattern is an adverbial phrase with a reduplicated adverb plus a light verb. There are also two nominalisation constructions that are relatively transparent loans from Jinghpaw.
{"title":"Manifestations of Jinghpaw influence among Rawang speakers","authors":"Randy J. LaPolla, Keita Kurabe","doi":"10.1075/alal.00015.lap","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00015.lap","url":null,"abstract":"Rawang and Jinghpaw, while both considered part of the larger Kachin ethnic group, are not seen to be closely related, though both retain proto-Tibeto-Burman forms relatively well. But as essentially all Rawang speakers speak Jinghpaw, there are a lot of loan words from Jinghpaw in Rawang, and there is also some commonality in the structures. This paper looks at the domains in which we find many loanwords and their paths into Rawang, and certain grammatical structures that seem to be either direct loans from Jinghpaw into Rawang, or could be calques on Jinghpaw structures. One such pattern is an adverbial phrase with a reduplicated adverb plus a light verb. There are also two nominalisation constructions that are relatively transparent loans from Jinghpaw.","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140806824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The research question posed in this article is whether the Altaic theory is possible, if it is discussed on the basis of chosen negative forms in Mongolian, Turkish, Manchu and its Sibe dialect. The supporters of the Altaic theory assume that these languages (and some include Japanese, Korean and Ainu to this list (Miller, 1967)) emerged from the same root. The opponents of this theory think that the similarities in these languages have resulted from historical contacts between their speakers (Doerfer, 1966, p.122). This article consists of the analysis of negative forms in various stages of Mongolian, Manchu and Turkish languages carried out on the basis of literary monuments and contemporary resources. The conclusions concerning the possibility of the Altaic theory based on the described negative forms have been presented at the end, accompanied by the Index of negative particles and suffixes.
{"title":"Is it possible to prove the Altaic theory on the basis of negative forms in Mongolian, Manchu and Turkish?","authors":"Joanna Dolińska","doi":"10.1075/alal.21022.dol","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.21022.dol","url":null,"abstract":"The research question posed in this article is whether the Altaic theory is possible, if it is discussed on the basis of chosen negative forms in Mongolian, Turkish, Manchu and its Sibe dialect. The supporters of the Altaic theory assume that these languages (and some include Japanese, Korean and Ainu to this list (Miller, 1967)) emerged from the same root. The opponents of this theory think that the similarities in these languages have resulted from historical contacts between their speakers (Doerfer, 1966, p.122). This article consists of the analysis of negative forms in various stages of Mongolian, Manchu and Turkish languages carried out on the basis of literary monuments and contemporary resources. The conclusions concerning the possibility of the Altaic theory based on the described negative forms have been presented at the end, accompanied by the Index of negative particles and suffixes.","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"137 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138523250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article first studies the contrastive properties of Q-adjectives many and few, as well as henduo ‘many’ and henshao ‘few’ in Mandarin from the perspective of their strengths as determiners (Milsark, 1974 & 1977). Although all falling into the weak-determiner category for being existential and indefinite, many/henduo show more properties as leaning towards strong definiteness and universal quantification than few/henshao. Secondly, because of the kind-demoting mass NP nature of Chinese nouns and the fact that Mandarin is a topic-comment pro-drop language, henduo ‘many’ and henshao ‘few’ can appear both in the pre-nominal attributive and the predicative positions, unlike their English counterparts many and few that cannot be used as predicates due to the token-denoting nature of English nouns and that English is not a pro-drop language. I also argue that the determiner strengths demonstrated by Q-adjectives are not related to indefinite specificity.
{"title":"What is the opposite of Henduo ‘many’ in Mandarin?","authors":"Haiyong Liu","doi":"10.1075/alal.21019.liu","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.21019.liu","url":null,"abstract":"This article first studies the contrastive properties of Q-adjectives many and few, as well as henduo ‘many’ and henshao ‘few’ in Mandarin from the perspective of their strengths as determiners (Milsark, 1974 & 1977). Although all falling into the weak-determiner category for being existential and indefinite, many/henduo show more properties as leaning towards strong definiteness and universal quantification than few/henshao. Secondly, because of the kind-demoting mass NP nature of Chinese nouns and the fact that Mandarin is a topic-comment pro-drop language, henduo ‘many’ and henshao ‘few’ can appear both in the pre-nominal attributive and the predicative positions, unlike their English counterparts many and few that cannot be used as predicates due to the token-denoting nature of English nouns and that English is not a pro-drop language. I also argue that the determiner strengths demonstrated by Q-adjectives are not related to indefinite specificity.","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"136 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138523251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we discuss two types of dimensional adjectives in Nuosu Yi (Tibeto-Burman), which we refer to as Positive adjectives (PAs) and Equative Adjectives (EAs). We show that PAs and EAs are subject to different distributions in gradation structures: EAs are only admissible in gradation structures that can be associated with measure phrases, which include differential comparatives (e.g., Ayi is 2 cm taller than Aguo.) and degree questions (e.g., How tall is Ayi?). PAs are licensed elsewhere, including comparatives that do not introduce a differential (e.g., Ayi is taller than Aguo.), the intensification construction (e.g., Ayi is very tall), the superlative construction (e.g., Ayi is the tallest), etc. Assuming that measure phrases are degree-denoting expressions, we propose that the complementary distribution of PAs and EAs in Nuosu Yi is due to their different semantics: PAs are context sensitive predicates that do not introduce a degree argument (of type <e, t>), while EAs are degree predicates (of type <d, <e, t>>).
{"title":"Dimensional adjectives in Nuosu Yi","authors":"Xiao Li, Hongyong Liu","doi":"10.1075/alal.21017.liu","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.21017.liu","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we discuss two types of dimensional adjectives in Nuosu Yi (Tibeto-Burman), which we refer to as Positive adjectives (PAs) and Equative Adjectives (EAs). We show that PAs and EAs are subject to different distributions in gradation structures: EAs are only admissible in gradation structures that can be associated with measure phrases, which include differential comparatives (e.g., Ayi is 2 cm taller than Aguo.) and degree questions (e.g., How tall is Ayi?). PAs are licensed elsewhere, including comparatives that do not introduce a differential (e.g., Ayi is taller than Aguo.), the intensification construction (e.g., Ayi is very tall), the superlative construction (e.g., Ayi is the tallest), etc. Assuming that measure phrases are degree-denoting expressions, we propose that the complementary distribution of PAs and EAs in Nuosu Yi is due to their different semantics: PAs are context sensitive predicates that do not introduce a degree argument (of type <e, t>), while EAs are degree predicates (of type <d, <e, t>>).","PeriodicalId":501292,"journal":{"name":"Asian Languages and Linguistics","volume":"126 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138542770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}