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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives a descriptive account of negation in Jungli (Ao), a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Aos in Nagaland, Northeast India. Jungli has two negative markers, the negative prefix 'mə̄-' and the prohibitive marker 'tə̀-'. I examine the occurrence and restriction of these two prefixes in sentence constructions involving tense and aspect markers, modal markers, copulas, interrogatives and converb constructions. A short description of negative words in Jungli is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study exploring on mood used in Tiwa Language. It mentions that Tiwa as the name of language as well as of a community, belonged to Tibeto-Burman sub-group of Sino-Tibetan language family. It discusses that mood as an important category of grammar, used in the theoretical and descriptive study of the sentence/clause and especially of the verbs they contain.

This paper re-examines previous hypotheses claiming the primacy of a perfect(ive) value in certain qusheng (*-s) derivations (in particular nominalization) in Old Chinese. First, it revisits examples previously cited as having been derived from the perfect(ive), and proposes to re-classify them as resulting from three different derivational processes, nominalization, verb argument demotion, and adverbialization. Second, it focuses on Sino-Tibetan comparative data, in particular from Situ Rgyalrong, a language with severe isomorphism across four -s suffixes. Then, on the basis of morphological (especially stem changes) and syntactic criteria, it sorts out the relationship between the different -s suffixes in Situ, while suggesting multiple sources to account for the diverse functions of qusheng (*-s) in Old Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle voice constructions are generally understood as syntactically detransitivizing and as semantically characterized by a “low degree of event elaboration” (in Kemmer’s terms) involving a relatively affected subject. Middle voice constructions thus characterized have been identified in several Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages, in particular by LaPolla. In Macro-Tani languages, we find a seemingly cognate construction with a similar distribution; however, Macro-Tani middle-like constructions are not detransitivizing, and do not mark subject affectedness. Instead, their primary meaning appears to be one of highlighting subject autonomy: a heightened degree of autonomy, volition and/or responsibility over an action on the part of the clause subject. In this article, following an analysis of Macro-Tani subject autonomy marking, we will argue that its similarities to and differences from middle voice marking in other Trans-Himalayan languages is consistent with Zúñiga and Kittilä’s view of middle voice as a “network of meanings,” whose properties derive not from their reflection of a unified underlying cognitive category, but rather from a heterogeneous set of developments from similar diachronic source forms.

Classifiers in Tani languages are similar in scale and semantic contents to the systems of better-known classifier languages such as Thai and Mandarin. Yet they are unusual in co-existing with an ancient and well-grammaticalised referential management system including both definite and indefinite articles, in lacking a generic classifier, in tending not to use a classifier with human referents, and in occurring exclusively to the right of head nouns, in the order [N CLF NUM]. They are also relatively more lexeme-like, occurring less frequently and with more semantic control than do the classifiers of many other East/Southeast Asian languages. This article will present a basic description of Tani classifier systems, and argue for their relatively recent development through the mechanism of a repeater construction functioning within a pre-existing [A-B B-C] template for taxonomic compound formation. Although this development is similar to pathways attested for other Asian languages, Tani classifiers do not share the same set of functional and distributional outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well-known that Tai-Kadai languages have affected the typological profiles of Southern Sinitic varieties. For example, compared with their northern sisters, Southern Sinitic varieties display a stronger tendency towards head-initial structures, as in the N–N compounds for expressing the sex of animals and in post-verbal temporal adverbs. Given that the Tai-Kadai languages in China have been in contact with Sinitic for over two millennia, it is quite natural to find signs of Sinitic influence therein. Most remarkably, pre-verbal adjunct phrases and pre-nominal relative clauses, which are extremely atypical of VO languages but distinctive of Sinitic, are attested in some Tai-Kadai languages in Southern China. The prevalence of such typologically unusual traits among different linguistic groups in the Lingnan region of Southern China provides strong support for its status as a linguistic area. Devising and adopting a 'mutualist' approach, we analyse the typological data of over 280 language varieties, which we believe illustrates and strongly supports the idea that Western Lingnan qualifies as a linguistic area in its own right according to criteria widely recognized by areal linguists. The approach proposed in this study can be applied to other putative linguistic areas around the world to study the mechanisms and outcomes of contact-induced change under a specific set of ecological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ladakhi is a Sino-Tibetan Language spoken mainly in the Ladakh region in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In this paper, I primarily discuss the causatives in the Sham variety of Ladakhi, spoken in the lower part of Ladakh. I explore causatives as a valence increasing device which is expressed both lexically and morphologically in Sham-Ladakhi. I also explore how the role of the arguments changes in monovalent, bivalent and trivalent predicates when a causative situation is expressed in the verb stem. Furthermore, I explore the relationship between the direct-indirect causation and lexical-morphological causatives in this variety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to describe some aspects of passivization systems of the Bodo language. Bodo belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The paper will focus on the morpho-syntactic process of the passivization. Morphologically, Bodo has a derivational passive suffix i.e. -za which affixes to the transitive verb stem to form a passive verb. In this paper, it will be described on passivization of transitive and ditransitive verbs, passivization of negative and interrogative sentences. It will be noticed in this paper the direct object and indirect object position of the passivization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes systems of direction and associated motion in 23 languages of the Tibeto-Burman family. Both direction and associated motion can be encoded by a range of grammatical strategies, including affixes, clitics, particles, serial-verb constructions, and auxiliary verbs. While some languages have only associated motion or direction, others have both, either via distinct subsystems, syntactic ambiguity, or context-dependent interpretation. While directional encodings can be interpreted as associated motion in some contexts, the reverse can also be true. Verbal semantics is key to the pragmatic interpretation of examples in context; some types of motion verbs are more compatible with directional interpretations and others with associated motion. In addition, certain types of motion verbs were found to be compatible with different temporal relationships that hold between the activity of the primary verb and the motional component. Finally, the grammatical role of the figure in such constructions depends on both the temporal relationship and the semantics of the verb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper reports the intensive controversy on Chinese historical phonology that broke out in 2002. After sorting through over 150 Chinese papers on the intensive controversy by the Sino-linguists' side and the descriptivists' side, the present study suggests that we should investigate a history of the new hypotheses, and discuss them in a logical order. The hypothesis of the liquid medial for division-2 in OC of the descriptivists' side is refuted with philological arguments and a negative control of comparative evidence. The hypothesis of the vocalic medial for division-2 in OC of the Sino-linguists' side is supported with Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Uralic comparative evidence. Using etymological methods, the present study has identified nine (9) Sinitic and Uralic shared etymologies. Four (4) Shennong (Sino-Uralic) etymologies belong to a rhyme correspondence. Five (5) Shennong (Sino-Uralic) etymologies belong to another rhyme correspondence. These two (2) regular sound correspondences validate the etymological connections between Sinitic and Uralic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that Tangut should be classified as a West Gyalrongic language in the Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan family. We examine lexical commonalities, case marking, partial reduplication, and verbal morphology in Tangut and in modern West Gyalrongic languages, and point out nontrivial shared innovations between Tangut and modern West Gyalrongic languages. The analysis suggests a closer genetic relationship between Tangut and Modern West Gyalrongic than between Tangut and Modern East Gyalrongic. This paper is the first study that tackles the exact linguistic affiliation of the Tangut language based on the comparative method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topographical deixis refers to a variety of spatial-environmental deixis, in which typically distal reference to entities is made in terms of a set of topographically-anchored referential planes: most often, upward, downward, or on the same level. This article reviews the genealogical and geographic distribution of topographical deixis in Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages, reviews the conditions in which topographical deixis in Trans-Himalayan languages may be gained or lost, and concludes that (a) topographical deixis is overwhelmingly found in languages spoken in montane environments, and (b) topographical deixis most likely reconstructs to a deep level within Trans-Himalayan. The language spoken at that level – whose precise phylogenetic status cannot yet be specified – was overwhelmingly likely to have been spoken in a montane environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses the hypothesis according to which a devoicing sound shift *sb- > sp-, *sd- > st-, *sg- > sk- took place in pre-Tibetan. I show that all examples supporting this putative sound shift have better explanations, and that this hypothesis creates more problems than it solves. In addition, I discuss data from modern Tibetic varieties, showing that no typological parallel for such a sound shift is attested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sino-Tibetan language family is one of the world's largest and most prominent families, spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people. Despite the importance of the Sino-Tibetan languages, their prehistory remains controversial, with ongoing debate about when and where they originated. To shed light on this debate we develop a database of comparative linguistic data, and apply the linguistic comparative method to identify sound correspondences and establish cognates. We then use phylogenetic methods to infer the relationships among these languages and estimate the age of their origin and homeland. Our findings point to Sino- Tibetan originating with north Chinese millet farmers around 7200 B.P. and suggest a link to the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the new passive bèi-construction in Chinese, dating approximately from 2009. By 2012, this new usage had entered the most authoritative Chinese dictionary. While previous studies have mostly focused on the pragmatic effect of this structure, my aim is to trace the motivational forces behind this language innovation by examining the linguistic, cultural and social factors contributing to its emergence. In particular, I examine the specific features of the bèi-construction, using Natural Semantic Metalanguage to spell out its meaning and identify the semantic links between its variant forms, especially with respect to degrees of transitivity. I demonstrate that it is not accidental that the conventional bèi-construction has been ingeniously and humorously recruited and modified to express agency and disagreement with a higher authority, or even dissent in an authoritarian society, and that a deeper understanding of the bèi phenomenon not only affords insight into the cultural ethos developing in today's China, but also offers an excellent example of (a) non-autonomous syntax and (b) mechanisms of language change in the age of internet and social media, when language innovation often takes place consciously among internet users, transcends geographical barriers and is easier to trace than before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short note discusses the origin and development of the use of the term "pronomenalisation" (pronominalization) in Sino-Tibetan linguistics, pointing out that the concept was originally a typological one, and that the phenomenon was seen as the result of grammaticalization, i.e. the free pronouns being copied onto the verb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the new passive bèi-construction in Chinese, dating approximately from 2009. By 2012, this new usage had entered the most authoritative Chinese dictionary. While previous studies have mostly focused on the pragmatic effect of this structure, my aim is to trace the motivational forces behind this language innovation by examining the linguistic, cultural and social factors contributing to its emergence. In particular, I examine the specific features of the bèi-construction, using Natural Semantic Metalanguage to spell out its meaning and identify the semantic links between its variant forms, especially with respect to degrees of transitivity. I demonstrate that it is not accidental that the conventional bèi-construction has been ingeniously and humorously recruited and modified to express agency and disagreement with a higher authority, or even dissent in an authoritarian society, and that a deeper understanding of the bèi phenomenon not only affords insight into the cultural ethos developing in today's China, but also offers an excellent example of (a) non-autonomous syntax and (b) mechanisms of language change in the age of internet and social media, when language innovation often takes place consciously among internet users, transcends geographical barriers and is easier to trace than before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in the literature have focused on sketching phonosemantic mappings of imitative or iconic utterances by relying on vowels and consonants, leaving the suprasegmental information unexplored. To begin bridging this gap, this study looks at the interaction of lexical tone and iconicity by comparing sound symbolic (i.e., mimetic, expressive, ideophonic) strata and general (i.e., arbitrary, prosaic, non-iconic) strata from three Chinese languages (Mandarin, Taiwanese Southern Min, Hong Kong Cantonese) using corpus-based means. For all three languages the distribution of tones in the sound symbolic strata are skewed so that the majority of syllables are largely confined to two tonal categories per language, one of which is high level, while the general strata exhibit no such tonal bias. These results indicate that phonological systematicity at the prosodic level might play an important role in demarcating an iconic class of words. This cross-linguistic tendency towards high tone mappings may be derived from phonotactic strategies to facilitate prosodic foregrounding of iconic utterances as well as an embodiment of expressive voice and marked pitch use like that of Infant Directed Speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to identify difficulties in reproducing Russian sounds among speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages, using methods of modern speech therapy. The statistical data of research were collected through a questionnaire and auditory and speech tests. Research findings indicated that due to the state of mobility of articulatory organs, pronunciation and articulation have become difficult and caused production of systematic errors in regard to insufficient distinction of the opposition in hardness-softness, mixing of bilabial and labiodental sounds among Sino-Tibetan speakers while speaking Russian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Manipuri language is spoken by the Manipuri - the inhabitants of Manipur in the northeastern part of India and is one of the oldest languages in Southeast Asia and the only Sino- Tibetan (Tibeto-Burma) language in India with its script and literature. The introduction of Hinduism in the year 1732 A.D. marked the end of the Manipuri script meaning the script was replaced by Bengali script. As of 2005, with new government regulations, the lost script is experiencing revival. Additionally, the print industry is changing and major publishers have begun printing in Manipuri script at minimal scale catering to the new generation of readers, but at present majority of the print media are printed in Bengali script thus creating a divide between the Bengali- educated readers and Manipuri-scripteducated readers The objective of this study was to study the extent of digraphia (usage of two or multiple writing systems in one language) in three of the most popular newspapers in the state and the effects that it has on millennial readers. The methods used was both quantitative and qualitative. The study was conducted on senior school students in the city of Imphal, includes interviews and analysis of news articles. The findings revealed that Manipuri script will replace the Bengali script in the near future which sounds good for the millennials but it has the potential to create adult-illiterates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the range and diversity of the typological features of Mandarin, the largest dialect group within the Sinitic branch of the Sino- Tibetan family. Feeding the typological data of 42 Sinitic varieties into the phylogenetic program NeighborNet, we obtained network diagrams suggesting a north-south divide in the Mandarin dialect group, where dialects within the Amdo Sprachbund cluster at one end and those in the Far Southern area cluster at the other end, highlighting the impact of language contact on the typological profiles of various Mandarin dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent deep learning based approaches have achieved great success on handwriting recognition. Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world. Previous research has mainly focused on recognizing handwritten Chinese characters. However, recognition is only one aspect for understanding a language, another challenging and interesting task is to teach a machine to automatically write (pictographic) Chinese characters. In this paper, we propose a framework by using the recurrent neural network (RNN) as both a discriminative model for recognizing Chinese characters and a generative model for drawing (generating) Chinese characters. To recognize Chinese characters, previous methods usually adopt the convolutional neural network (CNN) models which require transforming the online handwriting trajectory into image-like representations. Instead, our RNN based approach is an end-to-end system which directly deals with the sequential structure and does not require any domain-specific knowledge. With the RNN system (combining an LSTM and GRU), state-of-the-art performance can be achieved on the ICDAR-2013 competition database. Furthermore, under the RNN framework, a conditional generative model with character embedding is proposed for automatically drawing recognizable Chinese characters. The generated characters (in vector format) are human-readable and also can be recognized by the discriminative RNN model with high accuracy. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of using RNNs as both generative and discriminative models for the tasks of drawing and recognizing Chinese characters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This invited response to a piece by LaPolla, published in issue 39/2 of LTBA, addresses both LaPolla’s misrepresentations of the history of linguistics and his flawed understanding of historical linguistics. The history of linguistic thought with regard to the Tibeto-Burman or Trans-Himalayan language family vs. the Indo-Chinese or “Sino-Tibetan” family tree model is elucidated and juxtaposed against the remarkable robustness of certain ahistorical myths and the persistence of unscientific argumentation by vocal proponents of the Sino-Tibetanist paradigm, such as LaPolla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various issues involving the indigenous peoples in Laos, and it mentions the Lao-Tai language-speaking groups, as well as groups which speak the Mon-Khmer, Sino-Tibetan, and Hmong-Ew-Hmien languages in the Southeast Asian nation. Land policy, law, and land use planning in Laos are examined, along with the Land Issues Working Group coalition, dam-building, and hydropower in Laos. A lack of internet access in Laos is assessed.

This study explored the role of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in reading comprehension ability of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) learners. One hundred ninety five CHL students participated in this study and completed a series of measures including two sets of vocabulary knowledge (one consisting of items pertaining to early exposure to spoken Chinese and the other comprised of items selected from a pool of words in Chinese as a foreign language classrooms), morphological awareness (structural awareness and functional awareness), and reading comprehension ability (lexical inference and passage comprehension). Drawing upon structural equation modeling with a bootstrap estimation method, the study found that vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness both contributed to reading comprehension among CHL learners. More critically, the results indicated that morphological awareness mediated the relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in CHL learners. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses probed the relative contributions of vocabulary knowledge measures to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, and found that vocabulary knowledge acquired in formal Chinese instruction contributed to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, to a greater extent, than that gained through early exposure to spoken Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the contribution of cross-language phonological and morphological awareness to reading acquisition in bilingual children. Participants were 140 children ( M = 8.26 years) between Grades 1-4 who learned Chinese as their first language and English as their second language. Awareness of phoneme, onset-rime, compound structures and polysemy (i.e. words with multiple meanings) were measured using conceptually comparable tasks in both languages. Oral vocabulary, single word reading, and reading comprehension were also assessed. Path analysis revealed significant direct effects from Chinese rime awareness to both English word reading and reading comprehension. English phoneme awareness also had a significant direct effect on Chinese word reading. There was a significant direct effect from Chinese polyseme identification to English reading comprehension. Awareness of compound structure in one language also had indirect effects on reading outcomes in the other language via within-language compound structure awareness. These finding provided evidence for bi-directional cross-language phonological and morphological transfer in Chinese-English bilingual reading acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-sectional study examined the associations of visuomotor integration and executive functioning with Chinese word reading and writing in kindergarten children. A total of 369 Chinese children (mean age = 57.99 months; 55% of them were girls) from Hong Kong, China, completed tasks on visuomotor integration, executive functioning, and Chinese word reading and writing. Children also completed tasks on rapid automatized naming, and their mothers provided child and family background information. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that, controlling for child age, gender, and rapid automatized naming and maternal education, both visuomotor integration and executive functioning were uniquely linked to Chinese word reading and writing. Findings highlighted the importance of visuomotor integration and executive functioning in understanding the development of Chinese word reading and writing in early years, and the utility of targeting visuomotor integration and executive functioning to help kindergarten children to learn to read and write in Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the systematic differences between the variety of Baba Malay spoken in Malacca and that spoken in Singapore. In the literature, the creole is usually discussed as if it is a single homogeneous variety. Language documentation work conducted in both Malacca and Singapore shows that there are crucial differences between how Baba Malay is spoken in both places. These differences are systematic, and they pervade areas of morphology and syntax. All differences lead to the same conclusions. Evidence shows that the variety of Baba Malay in Malacca is much more heavily influenced by its lexifier, Malay, than the variety that is spoken in Singapore. Singapore Baba Malay is also more influenced by its substrate, Hokkien, than Malacca Baba Malay. This divergence between the two varieties is attributed to their specific ecologies. Crucially, the impetus for establishing two varieties of Baba Malay becomes even more vital than ever, given the fact that both varieties are highly endangered, and that researchers engaged in research on Baba Malay should be aware of both varieties and their social environments in order to fully represent the creole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current models of oral reading assume that different routes (sublexical, lexical, and semantic) mediate oral reading performance and reliance on different routes during oral reading depends on the characteristics of print to sound mappings. Studies of single cases of acquired dyslexia in aphasia have contributed to the development of such models by revealing patterns of double dissociation in object naming and oral reading skill that follow brain damage in Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages. Print to sound mapping in Persian varies in transparency because orthography to phonology translation depends uniquely on the presence or absence of vowel letters in print. Here a hypothesis is tested that oral reading in Persian requires a semantic reading pathway that is independent of a direct non-semantic reading pathway, by investigating whether Persian speakers with aphasia show selective impairments to object naming and reading aloud. A sample of 21 Persian speakers with aphasia ranging in age from 18 to 77 (mean = 53, SD = 16.9) was asked to name a same set of 200 objects and to read aloud the printed names of these objects in different sessions. As an additional measure of sublexical reading, patients were asked to read aloud 30 non-word stimuli. Results showed that oral reading is significantly more preserved than object naming in Persian speakers with aphasia. However, more preserved object naming than oral reading was also observed in some cases. There was a moderate positive correlation between picture naming and oral reading success ( p < .05). Mixed-effects logistic regression revealed that word frequency, age of acquisition and imageability predict success across both tasks and there is an interaction between these variables and orthographic transparency in oral reading. Furthermore, opaque words were read less accurately than transparent words. The results reveal different patterns of acquired dyslexia in some cases that closely resemble phonological, deep, and surface dyslexia in other scripts - reported here in Persian for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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