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In this chapter, we survey what we term ‘prominence at the word-level’ in the languages of greater South and Southeast Asia that demonstrate polysynthesis, specifically languages belonging to the Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic phyla. We show that despite assumptions to the contrary, ‘polysynthesis’ is commonly observed in languages of South Asia, particularly those belonging to the Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic (Munda) families. Word-level accent and prominence may be a prominent feature of Munda languages, but the phonetic and word-prosodic details are still debated and in need of further research and verification. It is not clear how prosodic words differ from grammatical words in the languages phonologically, whether the data described for the Munda languages to date actually reflects word-level, reference other prosodic domains (various phrasal levels or utterance-level phenomena), or may rather be due to information structure uses of pitch, for example, for focus. In Tibeto-Burman, stress is a less salient indicator of word-level prominence, but tonal and segmental patterns tend to illuminate either initial or final prominence at the word-level, following a roughly west-east geographic split.

Birhor (Birhoɽ) is a Kherwarian Munda language spoken in small enclaves in India, primarily in Hazaribagh, Ranchi, and Singhbhum districts and other small pockets in Jharkhand state. Birhor has to date been poorly documented, and even the basic properties of its core grammatical systems remain largely undescribed. All data used in this study come from field notes collected in several trips dating back to 2015. This paper is a preliminary attempt to identify the basic templatic structures of positive and negative finite conjugations in Birhor of both monovalent and polyvalent predicates. We discuss here two basic intersecting inflectional oppositions in the grammar of Birhor: (i) between perfective and imperfective tense-aspect forms (the imperfective includes imperfective and imperfect forms, and the perfective includes the past, the anterior and the perfect); and (ii) between monovalent predicates and polyvalent ones. Like all Kherwarian languages, Birhor has a nominative-accusative alignment of argument indexing and a complex templatic verb structure. It encodes subjects with monovalent stems. Polyvalent predicates encode two arguments, a first argument/syntactic subject and a second argument/syntactic ‘object’ following a primary object pattern. A complex array of different templates is thus found across positive and negative conjugations that contrast polyvalent vs. monovalent imperfective, perfective, and imperative forms. Many different formal templatic patterns are attested within each of the paradigmatic oppositional sets in Birhor. There are two formal subtypes of monovalent predicates. They contrast in both positive and negative conjugations, for both the imperfective and the perfective series of inflections. Polyvalent predicates also contrast the imperfective and the perfective series. Lastly, there are distinct templates for imperative and prohibitive of monovalent and polyvalent predicates as well.

When examining data from languages belonging to the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic families, two virtually opposite views have been expressed: One attributes some commonalities to inheritances from a protolanguage, the other asserts that all commonalities derive from lateral feature transfer between originally unrelated groups. However, some shared features from the domains of lexicon, phonology, morphology, and syntax showing a network of transfer paths—Turkic > Tungusic, Turkic > Mongolic, Mongolic > Turkic, Mongolic > Tungusic, Tungusic > Mongolic and Tungusic > Turkic—among these, three groups are clearly secondary, and reflect processes of lateral feature transfer postdating the breakup of any possible original Transeurasian protolanguage. Thus, one must periodicize different contact layers in the histories of these language groups to arrive at a nuanced point of argumentation to try to bridge the gap between the increasingly polemical positions expressed by the so-called pro- and anti-Altaicist camps.

This paper is an acoustic phonetic study of vowels in Sora, a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family. Descriptions here illustrate that the Sora vowel system has six vowels and provide evidence that Sora disyllables have prominence on the second syllable. While the acoustic categorization of vowels is based on formant frequencies, the presence of prominence on the second syllable is shown through temporal features of vowels, including duration, intensity, and fundamental frequency. Additionally, this paper demonstrates that acoustic categorization of vowels in Sora is better in the prominent syllable than in the non-prominent syllable, providing evidence that syllable prominence and vowel quality are correlated in Sora. These acoustic properties of Sora vowels are discussed in relation to the existing debates on vowels and patterns of syllable prominence in Munda languages of India. In this regard, it is noteworthy that Munda languages, in general, lack instrumental studies, and therefore this paper presents significant findings that are undocumented in other Munda languages. These acoustic studies are supported by exploratory statistical modeling and statistical classification methods.

Munda languages reveal competing word-level vs. phrase-level domains with respect to prosody, with weak-strong vs. strong-weak patterns, respectively. The prosodically strong syllable at the word-level is a root element that reflects cognacy across the family, while the word-frames they are embedded in frequently do not. Such a pattern of cognate roots and non-cognate word-frames is attested across the Austroasiatic phylum. The types of word-frames that such roots are embedded in reflect traces of a once-active system of semantically transparent prefixation or noun class marking, in addition to now mainly frozen systems of noun-verb stem compounding or noun incorporation. Word-level prosody in Munda is archaic, while phrase-level prosodic features are secondary and reflect local South Asian norms.

Matukar Panau has a multilayered system of directional constructions, with a set of directional morphemes used in simple clauses, as directional suffixes, in clause chains, and in core serial verb constructions. This paper describes these constructions and compares the construction inventory to those found in other languages in the Bel family, showing similarities but also showing innovation in Matukar Panau. This paper also posits the path of development that would lead to the current system of multiple, redundant expressions of direction. Based on the comparative data, it is argued that Matukar Panau, and other related Bel languages, must have had a period of nuclear serial verb constructions to result in the current system of structures.

The Munda language Sora, an Austroasiatic language, has a developed system of noun incorporation. One can always distinguish a structure with incorporation from one that lacks this as the nominal component that is found incorporated into the Sora verbal stem appears in the so-called ‘combining form’ (CF). This CF contrasts with an obligatorily bimoraic syntactically free-standing form of the noun that is lexically associated with the CF, derived through a lexically-determined means of affixation or compounding that includes reduplication, prefixation, infixation, and compounding. Only certain incorporated structures in Sora reduce the valence of the resulting structure, while others do not. Sora is also among the few languages attested that permits verbal constructs with more than one noun incorporated. In Sora a transitive verb may also incorporate its agent argument. Further, these incorporated stems remain transitive in Sora: they allow for the formal indexing of objects as well within in the incorporated complex.

I outline the concept of Language Hotspots, seeking to direct public and professional awareness of the global language extinction crisis. The loss of a single language leaves the science of linguistics impoverished and yet even few linguists realize that the vast majority of language families will likely be lost by the end of this century. Language Hotspots can serve as a focal point around which to develop a comprehensive approach to addressing how to increase, improve and coordinate engagement by all stakeholders in the global language extinction crisis, not only linguists and the communities undergoing language shift themselves, but also applied linguists, the general public and educators at all levels. I briefly outline language endangerment and its causes and detail the science behind the global Language Hotspots list, and then turn to an exemplification of an area of extreme linguistic endangerment, the Eastern Siberia Language Hotspot. Finally, I make a plea for linguistic scientists to increase th...

Auxiliary verb constructions–constructions with two or more elements of verbal origin, one of which expresses functional semantic categories–are widespread among the languages of Africa. In the following discussion, I present a typology of inflection in auxiliary verb constructions [AVCs] in the languages of Africa. While there are several macro-patterns of distribution seen in the various African languages, only a small selection are presented in some detail here, viz. the doubled and split/doubled inflectional patterns, along with the fusing of subject markers and TAM/polarity auxiliaries into so-called tensed pronouns that are relatively more common in AVCs across the languages of the continent than in most other parts of the world.

Le bourouchaski est une langue isolee, parlee dans le nord du Pakistan et est caracterisee par un systeme casuel extremement developpe. L'A. etudie dans cet article la formation de la phrase complexe dans cette langue, caracterisee par le marquage casuel systematique des verbes pour creer des propositions subordonnees. Il examine alors ce systeme par la presentation des formes suivantes: (a) formes infinitives nominalisees et non-finies, (b) formes participiales de l'aoriste finies et non-finies, (c) formes auxiliaires finies ainsi que (d) des formations moins courantes. La suite de la discussion tente de situer les donnees du bourouchaski dans le contexte des langues casuelles de l'Asie du Sud, de l'Himalaya et de l'Eurasie du nord.

Cognate-Head-Dependent Constructions (CHDCs) are employed across numerous genera in Africa to signpost alternations in the aspectual characteristics of a predicate or the information focus of a clause. The co-occurrence of a finite lexical verb (the cognate head) and an etymologically related (deverbal) noun or non-finite verb form (the cognate dependent) in such structures is interpreted with reference to the scalar semantics of events and properties. Within this areal typology, CHDCs are employed to indicate either (i) a high point relative to a norm on a semantic scale, or (ii) a conventionally low-ranked possibility, in order to implicitly contrast possible alternatives.

En fox (langue algonquine), le caractere anime du referent joue un role crucial dans la morphosyntaxe de la langue. Ce caractere est amplifie par l'organisation des propositions. L'A. analyse ces constructions qui utilisent le systeme morphosyntaxique de la langue pour faire ressortir les indices formels qui soulignent les referents animes dans le discours, par rapport au role theta et aux relations grammaticales sous-jacentes

La reduplication du systeme derivationnel et du systeme flexionnel est une des caracteristiques du systeme morphologique salish. La reduplication dans le systeme numeral du proto-salish a ete utilisee pour creer des formes differentes pour compter les humains et les animaux. De plus, certains nombres sont redupliques dans leur forme de base dans differentes proto-langues

The roughly forty native languages of Siberia fall into ten small language families and isolates. Despite the great geographic and genetic diversity exhibited among the various indigenous Siberian languages, they nevertheless show a range of features cross-cutting these boundaries. In particular, the languages show a sufficient quantity of logically (and typologically) independent features clustered together macro-areally, coupled with an extensive degree of local bilingualism and language intermixture on the micro-areal level, such that it has become meaningful to discuss a Siberian linguistic area.

Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting.