post substratesintb jcuworkshop 09062011

8/12/2019 Post SubstratesinTB JCUWorkshop 09062011

1/16

Post, M. W. (2011). Paper presented at the workshop The Roots of Linguistic Diversity. James Cook University, June 9-10, 2011

1

Isolate substrates, creolization and the internal diversity of Tibeto-Burman

Mark W. Post

James Cook University

1. Sino-Tibetan and/or Tibeto-Burman: The state of the art1.1. Genetic perspectives19

th-century philologists noted that both lexical and morphological similarities among a

large number of Greater Mainland South East Asian1 languages existed (Leyden 1808;

Klaproth 1823; Hodgson 1853; Conrady 1896). The general assumption seems to havealways been that these similarities counted as evidence of genetic relationship:

the subjoined comparison of several Arrakanese [i.e., Burmic] tongues with those of Tibet and

of the Eastern Himlaya will be read with surprise and pleasure by many who, accustomed to

regard the Himlayans as Hindus, and the Indo-Chinese, like the Chinese, as distinct from the

people of Asie Centrale, and from the Tibetans, will be astonished to find one type of language

prevailing from the Kli to the Koladn, and from Ladakh to Malacca, so as to bring the

Himalyans, Indo-Chinese and Tibetans into the same family. (Hodgson 1853: 2-3)

Since early days, there has been discussion and disagreement over the borders of Indo-

Chinese, Tibeto-Burman or Sino-Tibetan, as it has been variously called. Quite a

few scholars have genetically grouped Tai and Hmong-Mien with Chinese, whether

(Shafer 1955) or not (Grierson 2005 [1928]) the resulting construct is subsequentlyaligned with Tibeto-Burman. This view is maintained in China (Dng and Sn 2000).

The consensus among most Western scholars is that Chinese aligns with Tibeto-Burmanlanguages, to the exclusion of Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien (=Miao-Yao), Austroasiatic, and

Austronesian languages. However, the internal structure of Sino-Tibetan has been re-evaluated numerous times (Shafer 1955; Shafer 1966; Benedict 1972; Matisoff 1978;

Thurgood 1985; Bradley 1994; Matisoff 2003); some particularly heated disagreement

has concerned the position of Sinitic, i.e. as to whether it is a primary branch (Figure 1)

or just a sub(-sub)group (Figure 2) (van Driem 1997; Matisoff 2000).

All of these approaches share two things in common:

(1)A belief in the basic genetic coherence of the group so-posited (wherever itsborders and whatever its internal structure)

(2)A bias in the direction of major languages such as Tibetan, Burmese, Chinese,in terms of (a) nomenclature (b) defining cognate sets

1By Greater Mainland South East Asia (GMSEA for short), I mean the area east of Kashmir, south of

Mongolia, north of Malaysia, and west of Japan, excepting any Indo-European or Austronesian languages

that happen to fall therein. This is not intended to be a linguistically or culturally precise construct.


2/16


2

Figure 1 The Berkeley Model of Sino-Tibetan, in which Sinitic (=Chinese) is an early branch

(STEDT Website: )

Figure 2 van Driems (1997) postulation of a lower-level Sino-Bodic subgroup


3/16


3

Van Driem (2001) later began to take an even more agnostic view toward the defining

properties and internal structure of Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman; his falling leaves

model simply maintains that there are a bunch of subgroups that seem to be genetically

related in some way, but we dont know how. Even more recently, he and a small groupof interested scholars have taken to referencing the overall collection of

languages/subgroups as Trans-Himalayan; in principle, Trans-Himalayan may

constitute a coherent language family, or it may include two, three or more. Its internal

structure is entirely up to question (Figure 3).

Figure 3 The falling leaves model (van Driem 2011)

1.2. Contact perspectivesIt has long been obvious that Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman is one of the largest (second

only to Indo-European) and most diverse language families in the world. Some of this

diversity has been attributed to simple time-depth and natural internal changes

(DeLancey 1985), as the proto-language is supposed to have been spoken anywhere from

6,000 (Matisoff 1991b) to 12,000 (van Driem 1998) years ago.

Another explanation for Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman diversity has been language

contact (Hashimoto 1976), which is often considered together with migration (LaPolla

2001). The idea here is that numerous population migrations have taken place in theAsian continent over the past several millennia; this has consequently brought


4/16


4

populations into contact whose languages were previously unknown to one another, with

the result that bilingualism, borrowing and calquing inevitably took place.

Most often, language contact in the Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman area has been viewed asa matter of major languages/cultures (Sinitic, Indo-Aryan, Tai, Tibetan, Burmese)

influencing minor languages/cultures (Newari, Karen, Bai, Kok-Borok);

Matisoffs popular dichotomy Indosphere/Sinosphere (Matisoff 1990; Matisoff 1991a;

Bradley, LaPolla et al. 2003) neatly encapsulates this sort of perspective (Figure 4).2

Figure 4 Indosphere and Sinosphere: A rough areal view (from Post (under review))

Some more recent work has focused on the dynamics and linguistic outcomes of more

localized contact, both across language phyla (Morey 2006; Satyanath and Laskar 2008;

Phillips 2010) and within them (Coupe 2007; Post in press; Post and Modi under review).

1.3. CreolizationIn a number of recent papers, Burling (2007), Post (2008) and especially DeLancey

(2010; in press-b; in press-a) have argued that certain types of contact scenario in the

Tibeto-Burman region, particularly when this has involved language shift to a regional

lingua franca (perhaps the language of a regional economic and/or military power) canlead to the radical restructuring of the lingua franca as it is imperfectly learned by a

perhaps numerically greater subordinate group. In the process, previously-existing and

difficult-to-learn structures such as fusional TAM/agreement markers, inverse systems,

and other sorts of inflections are lost, and new and relatively easy-to-learn structures such

as serial verb constructions are gained. The result of this process is that while several

2 As Matisoff (2008: xxvii) puts it, This diversity [of Tibeto-Burman] is due largely to millennia of

language contact, especially with the prestigious cultures of India and China, but also with the other greatlanguage families of Southeast Asia (Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien), as well as with other TB

groups.


5/16


5

geographically-dispersed Tibeto-Burman languages or subgroups (Kiranti, Qiangic,

Jingpho) have highly complex and (arguably) cognate grammatical paradigms, others(Bodo-Garo, Tani, Lolo-Burmese, Sinitic) look more like they either are or once could

have been creoles.

2. Proto-diversity and miscellaneous vocabulary: The twin elephants in the Tibeto-Burman room

Several decades of scholarship have been devoted to the comparison of GMSEA

languages, to the collection of candidate cognate sets, to the working-out of regular sound

correspondences, and (more recently) to the reconstruction of hypothetical *Proto-forms.3

But in contrast with the substantial progress made in some other parts of the world, thefield of comparative Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman remains somehow wracked by

uncertainty (Handel 2008).

On the one hand, we have some very, very good cognate sets that span the majority of

languages (or at least subgroups) which are traditionally identified as ST/TB, and regularcorrespondences among most if not all putatively ST/TB languages and at least one other

putatively ST/TB language can generally be worked out.

(see supplement 1)

Better still, some good studies of individual subgroups have been conducted, with regular

correspondences worked out among most if not all members, and several meso-

languages have subsequently been successfully reconstructed to an impressive extent

(Sun 1993; van Bik 2007).

But a couple of hairy questions remain, which have rarely even been asked, never mind

answered:

(1)Why are there so many Proto-forms with the same or similar meanings? Were allof these really features of the same (or similar set of closely-related) Proto-language(s)?

(2)When we are done locating Tibeto-Burman cognates in a given putativelyST/TB language, what do we do with the residue? What happens when that

residue constitutes a majority of the attested vocabulary?

3See especially the following: (Shafer 1966; Shafer 1967; Benedict 1972; Matisoff 1978; DeLancey 1984;

Beckwith 1996; Matisoff 2003; Grierson 2005 [1903]; Grierson 2005 [1904]; Grierson 2005 [1909])


6/16


6

2.1. Multiple proto-formsThe Tibeto-Burman Reproductive System (Matisoff 2008):

EGG Form Gloss Found in

1 *pu egg/ball/round object Tani, SunwareggMeitei, Qiangic, Karen testicle

Tujia hatch, Loloish hatch

*wu egg/bird Lolo-Burmese,Bai

2 *d(w)y egg/testicle Digaru, Kuki-Chinegg, Karbi,Sal, Karenic

*dil ~ dul egg/testicle Kuki-Chintesticle, Kiranti,

scattered Bodic

3 *n/s-tow egg Qiangicegg and adjacent Loloish

4 *dz(y)u egg Idu, Naga, Kham

5 *rum/lum egg Nungic, some Qiangic, some Bodic

6 *sir/sit egg Miju, Tsangla, Hayu (final non-corr.)

7 *s/r-go- egg/testicle Bodic, Tamangic, Newar, Kiranti,Qiangic, rGyalrgongic, Naxi

8 *s-a egg/hatch Bodic, some Qiangic9 *t-lam egg/testicle Tsanglaegg, Tani testicle, Lepcha

testicle, rGyalrongic scrotum

10 *krak/kwak egg/testicle Konyak, Deuri, Chepang, Thulung

(compounds only)

11 *gop/kop hatch/incubate/cover Tani, Northern Na, Karbi,Tamangic, Kiranti, Karenic,scattered others

*up cover/incubate/hatch Tamangic, Burmish, Loloish, Karen12 *pum egg/incubate/hatch/testicle Tamangicegg, Kham-Magar-

Chepang-Sunwar, scattered others

13 *pay hatch (mostly means break)

14 *s-mu hatch/brood Loloishonly

15 *glim/glip brood/incubate Kiranti, poss. Jinuo

16 *puk/buk hatch/egg Tsangla, Gurung, Chepang, Sunwar

17 *du brood/incubate Tamangiconly

18 *a hatch/lay egg Mishmionly19 *na brood/incubate Tamangiconly20 *s-row egg/nit scattered: Mizo, Tangkhul, Central

and Western Tibetan, Sahu Tamang,Magar, Shixing, rGyalrong, Jingpho,

Yi (if cognate)Table 1 PTB forms for egg and related concepts, distillation of Matisoff (2008: 1-35)


7/16


7

NAVEL Form Gloss Found in

1 *m/s-la(a)y navel/centre/self Kuki-Chin, Naga, Bodo-Garo,scattered Nepal-area, Loloish

trigger (?)

*s-tay navel/abdomen/centre/self Naga, Bodic, Tamangic,

Newar, Kham-Magar-

Chepang-Sunwar, Jingpho,

Loloish, Karenic

2 *kyak navel/umbilical cord/rope Tani, Qiangic, rGyalrongic,

Burmish, Lolo-Burmese

3 *du navel/umbilical cord Loloish, scattered Burma-area

4 *ni(n) navel Tani, Meitei,Nungic

5 *t/du navel Loloish navel elsewheremiddle

*ts(y)uu navel/centre scattered middle6 *(t)sum navel Kiranti, Konyak

7 *bryam/brim navel/umbilical cord Kiranti, Thakali, Lepcha, Bunan

8 *br(w)ak navel Limbu, rGyalrong (E), Bwe (if

cognate)

9 *koy navel Puiron, Meitei

10 *zo navel/umbilical cord Meluri, Tangkhul, LepchaTable 2 PTB forms for navel and related concepts, distillation of Matisoff (2008: 57-77)

2.2. Residue vocabularyGloss PTB (Matisoff 2003) PT Galo

(W)

Adi (E)

one *dan/day, *dik,

*t(y)ak/t(y)ik,

*tan/tay, *it

*ko-n4 a-kn a-kon, a-

pir, a-tl-

two *ni *i a- a- +three *sum *um a-m a-um +four *ly *pri a-ppi a-ppi -five *a *o a- a-o +six *(k)ruk *kre() a-kk a-kke ?

seven *ni *kV-nt ka-n k-nt +eight *gyat/ryat *pri-ni pi-n pii- -nine *gw/kw/kwa *kV-na ke-a ko-na ?ten *g(y)ip/gip/ts(y)i/a(y) *j, *cam -j ,

a-cm-j -

hundred *gya *l a-l a-l -Alignment 36% ~

54%

Table 3 An example of Tani residue: numerals

4May have original sense that/other one


8/16


9/16


9

2.3. Where can all this diversity be coming from?(1)Language-internal change?

- no doubt in part, but then why do we get so many goodcorrespondences?

(2)Language contact?- very likelybut with whom? If these are loans from Indic,

Austroasiatic, or Tai-Kadai, then we should be able to demonstrate

this, since these language families are relatively well-understood

(3)Substrates?- again, very likelybut of what? If from a previously-recognized

language grouping, then we should be able to demonstrate this. If we

cant demonstrate this, then perhaps were dealing with previouslyunrecognizedlanguage groupings.

So, we need to look forpatterns

3. A case study: unexpected correspondences in Koro and Milang

Koro is spoken in upper West Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh. It is in contact with

Aka (Hruso) and Miji speakers, and has been tribally aligned with Aka. That Koro is in

fact linguistically distinct from Aka has been known for some time, and can be seen in

data from Abraham, Sako et al (2005) (which seems to underlie the classification in

Lewis, Ed. (2009)), as well as in Nimachow (2009). However, Koro data of a scale and

reliability which is minimally sufficient for comparative purposes has only recently

become available (Anderson 2010) (cf. Appendix Table 1).


10/16


10

Milangis spoken in the eastern corner of Upper Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh. It is incontact with speakers of the Tani languages Padam (Adi) and Shimong (Adi), as well as

(in earlier times) Idu. On the basis of data published in Tayeng (1976), Sun (1993)tentatively classified Milang as an Eastern Tani sister, with the caveat that fully regular

correspondences with other Tani languages could not yet be worked out for unknown

reasons. On the basis of first-hand data, Post and Modi (under review) concluded that

Milang could not possibly share a common ancestor with other Tani languages, and

provisionally posited a link to an earlier ancestral stage within the same overall line of

descent in Tibeto-Burman.

Gloss PS Koro Milang PT Other TB

Negator *-a -a - *ma PTB *ma

give *ram r ram *bi PTB *by

ant *pa pa-su pa-kr *ruk PTB *rwak (*grip)know *fu fu hu *ken PTB *kyn

chicken *co co-le a-cu *rok PTB *rak (*haar)

stone *bu u-bu da-bu *l PTB *lu(*rak)

ear *ra(u?) r ra-u *a(-ru) PTB *na

seven *ro(al) r raal *kV-nV(t) PTB *ni

mouth *ca sa-pu ca-ci *gam (*nap) PTB *gam ~ *kaam

day *n me-ne a-n *lo(*do-i ? ) PTB *n(y)

sun *m me-ne m-ru7 *do-i PLB *mw (Lahu m)

eight *ra-lja r-la raj *pri-i PTB *gyat/ryat/rit

pus *a-n i-ni a-n -- PTB *naay

axe *rak-pu rak-pa ra-pu *a-g PTB *pwa, *ta

grandfather *abo-OLDMAN abo-murzi

a-b(bu-

ku ~ma-za)

*a-to PTB *bw (*ka)

grandmother *adze-OLD

WOMANaje-msi

a-dzi

(dzi-ku)*a-jo PTB *(j)aj, *bwa

desiderative8 *-mi -mi -mi *-l (PTB*ga)

sand *bu-pi bu-pi bu-pi -- (PTB *sa ~ zla)

ten *fa f-l ha-tak *cam, *j (PTB *g(y)ip, *tsay)

buttocks *k-ru k ki-ru *a-ko PTB *til ~ *tul

yesterday *ba-n ba-n(e) ba-n *m-lo ???

have (be

there)*kjo ko cu *ka PTB *dzya, Ersu dzo

bamboo *fu fu a-hu *() PTB *(p)wa

egg *cu-ci cu-ci ci-ci *p

PTB *u, *t(w)i(y) (

post substratesintb jcuworkshop 09062011

Documents