Proto-Tibeto-Burman language explained

Proto-Tibeto-Burman
Also Known As:PTB
Acceptance:may be equivalent to Proto-Sino-Tibetan
Familycolor:Sino-Tibetan
Target:Tibeto-Burman languages
Ancestor:Proto-Sino-Tibetan
Child1:Proto-Loloish
Child2:Proto-Karenic

Proto-Tibeto-Burman (commonly abbreviated PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by James Matisoff. Several other researchers argue that the Tibeto-Burman languages sans Chinese do not constitute a monophyletic group within Sino-Tibetan, and therefore that Proto-Tibeto-Burman was the same language as Proto-Sino-Tibetan.

Issues

Reconstruction is complicated by the immense diversity of the languages, many of which are poorly described, the lack of inflection in most of the languages, and millennia of intense contact with other Sino-Tibetan languages and languages of other families. Only a few subgroups, such as Lolo-Burmese, have been securely reconstructed. Benedict's method, which he dubbed "teleo-reconstruction", was to compare widely separated languages, with a particular emphasis on Classical Tibetan, Jingpho, Written Burmese, Garo, and Mizo. Although the initial consonants of cognates tend to have the same place and manner of articulation, voicing and aspiration are often unpredictable. Matisoff attributes this to the effects of prefixes that have been lost and are often unrecoverable. The reconstruction also features "allofams", variant forms of a root postulated to explain inconsistent reflexes in daughter languages. The reconstruction of such "allofams" has been heavily criticized by other researchers in the field.[1]

Homeland

Contrary to other hypotheses suggesting a Proto-Sino-Tibetan homeland in the Yellow River valley of northern China, Matisoff (1991, 2015) suggests that the Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) homeland was located "somewhere on the Himalayan plateau," and gives Proto-Tibeto-Burman a date of approximately 4000 B.C., which is roughly on a par with the age of Proto-Indo-European. Language diversification occurred as speakers then moved downstream through various river valleys.[2]

Phonology

The phonology of Proto-Tibeto-Burman here is from Matisoff's 2003 reconstruction, much of which is based on Benedict's earlier reconstructions.

Consonants

Proto-Tibetan–Burman has at least 23 consonants (Matisoff 2003:15). Some descendants of Proto-Tibetan–Burman, especially the Qiangic languages, have developed dozens of sibilant fricatives and affricates.

Proto-Tibeto-Burman consonants
LabialAlveolarPalatalized
alveolar		PalatalVelarGlottal
Voiceless stopptk
Voiced stopbdg
Nasalmnŋ
Fricatives, zś, źh
Affricatets, dztś, dź
Laterall
Tap or trillɾ, r
Approximantwj

According to Matisoff, Proto-Tibeto-Burman also has many final nasals, stops, and liquids.

Vowels

In Matisoff's reconstruction, Proto-Tibeto-Burman vowels can be split into primary and secondary sets. Modern-day Tibeto-Burman languages have anywhere from five vowels (Written Tibetan and Jingpho) to dozens of monophthongs and diphthongs (Loloish and Qiangic languages) (Matisoff 2003:157). Matisoff (2003) also notes that languages which have greatly simplified or eliminated final consonants tend to have more vowels. The open front unrounded vowel *a is by far the most common and stable vowel in Tibeto-Burman languages.

Matisoff (2003) reinterprets diphthongs from Paul Benedict's reconstruction as long vowels.

Proto-Tibeto-Burman primary vowels! colspan="2"
HeightFrontCentralBack
Closeī (iy, əy)ū (uw, əw)
Midē (ey)(-ə)ō (ow)
Opena
ayaw
āyāw
Proto-Tibeto-Burman secondary vowels! colspan="2"
HeightFrontBack
Closeīū
Midēō

Preservation of stops

According to Matisoff, Sino-Tibetan languages go through a series of four stages in which final stops and nasals gradually decay (Matisoff 2003:238-239).

  1. The six final stops and nasals, *-p, *-t, *-k, *-m, *-n, *-ŋ, are all intact. Written Tibetan, Lepcha, Kanauri, Garo, and Cantonese are currently on this stage.
  2. One or more final consonants have been reduced or dropped. In Jingpho and Nung, the velars (*-k) are replaced by glottal stops (-ʔ), while in other languages they are completely dropped. In Mandarin Chinese, all final stops are dropped, and *-m has merged with *-n.
  3. All finals stops become glottal stops or constrictions (such as creaky voices), and final nasals may be replaced by nasality in the preceding consonant. Languages currently in this stage include modern Burmese and Lahu.
  4. There are no glottal or nasal traces of the former final consonants left in the syllables.

Syntax

Proto-Tibeto-Burman was a verb-final (subject–object–verb or SOV) language.

Most modern-day Tibeto-Burman branches also display SOV word order. However, due to syntactic convergence within the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, three Tibeto-Burman branches, Karenic, Mruic, and Bai, display SVO (verb-medial) word order. This syntactic realignment has also occurred in Sinitic, which Scott DeLancey (2011) argues to be a result of creolization through intensive language contact and multilingualism during the Zhou Dynasty.[3]

Morphology

Syllable structure

According to James Matisoff, Proto-Tibeto-Burman syllables typically consist of the following structure (Matisoff 2003:11-13).

The following types of changes in syllable structure have been attested in Tibeto-Burman languages (Matisoff 2003:155). (Note: Sesquisyllable, otherwise known as a minor syllable, is a word coined by James Matisoff meaning "one-and-a-half syllables.")

Below are the sources of the syllable changes (i.e., reversal of the list above).

However, Roger Blench (2019) argues that Proto-Sino-Tibetan did not have sesquisyllabic structure; instead, sesquisyllabicity in present-day Sino-Tibetan branches had been borrowed from Austroasiatic languages due to typological convergence.[4]

Verbs

According to many authors such as James Bauman, George van Driem and Scott DeLancey, a system of verbal agreement should be reconstructed for proto-Tibeto-Burman. Verbal agreement has disappeared in Chinese, Tibetan, Lolo-Burmese and most other branches, but was preserved in Kiranti languages in particular. This is a topic of scholarly debate, however, and the existence of a PTB verbal agreement system is disputed by such authors as Randy LaPolla.[5]

Prefixes

Matisoff postulates the following derivational prefixes.

Other constructed prefixes include *l- and *d-.

Circumfixes

Circumfixes have also been reconstructed for Proto-Tibeto-Burman.

In Written Tibetan, s- -n and s- -d are collective circumfixes used in kinship terms (Matisoff 2003:453).

Suffixes

According to Matisoff, three Proto-Tibeto-Burman dental suffixes, *-n, *-t, and *-s, are highly widespread, but their semantics are difficult to reconstruct (Matisoff 2003:439). The suffixes *-s, *-h, and *-ʔ are often developed into tones in many Tibeto-Burman languages, and are thus highly "tonogenetically potent" (Matisoff 2003:474).

Vocabulary

Among other researchers, Paul K. Benedict and James Matisoff have proposed reconstructed vocabulary items for Proto-Tibeto-Burman. Matisoff's Proto-Tibeto-Burman reconstruction is by far the most cited, and with his last version published in the final release of the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (2015).[6] [7] Allofams (a term coined by Matisoff to mean alternate proto-forms) are marked using ⪤.

Stable roots

Matisoff (2009)[8] lists 47 stable Tibeto-Burman roots (i.e., etyma that have cognates widely distributed in branches throughout the family) and their Proto-Tibeto-Burman reconstructions.

Body parts
Animals
Numerals
Natural objects and units of time
People and habitation
Plants and ingestibles
Pronouns
Verbs
Abstract

Reconstructed branches

Proto-language reconstructions for Tibeto-Burman branches include:

See also

References

Book reviews

Further reading

Data sets

External links

Notes and References

  1. Fellner, Hannes and Hill, Nathan W. (2019) 'Word families, allofams, and the comparative method'. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, (48) 2, pp 91-124.
  2. Matisoff, James A. 2015. The Sino-Tibetan Language Family: Description of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family. The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus.
  3. DeLancey, Scott. 2011. "On the Origins of Sinitic." Proceedings of the 23rd North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-23), 2011. Volume 1, edited by Zhuo Jing-Schmidt, University of Oregon, Eugene. Pages 51-64.
  4. Blench, Roger. 2019. If sesquisyllabic structures in Sino-Tibetan (Trans-Himalayan) are a result of contact then existing reconstructions are compromised.
  5. Randy J. . LaPolla . Randy LaPolla . On the Dating and Nature of Verb Agreement in Tibeto-Burman . Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies . 55 . 2 . 1992 . 298–315 . 619625 . 10.1017/s0041977x00004638 . 10356/100281 . 144632981 . 2017-04-18 . 2017-06-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170610202053/http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/randylapolla/papers/LaPolla_1992_On_the_Dating_and_Nature_of_Verb_Agreement_in_Tibeto_Burman.pdf . dead .
  6. Matisoff, James A. 2015. The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. Berkeley: University of California. (PDF)
  7. Bruhn, Daniel; Lowe, John; Mortensen, David; Yu, Dominic (2015). Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Database Software. Software, UC Berkeley Dash.
  8. Matisoff . James A . 2009 . Stable Roots in Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman . Senri Ethnological Studies . 75 . 291–318 . 10.15021/00002570 .
  9. Mazaudon, Martine. 1994. Problèmes de comparatisme et de reconstruction dans quelques langues de la famille tibéto-birmane. Thèse d'Etat, Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle.
  10. Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  11. Backstrom, Peter C. 1994. A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Western Tibetan. M.A. dissertation. Arlington, TX: University of Texas, Arlington.
  12. Michailovsky, Boyd. 1991. Big black notebook of Kiranti, proto-Kiranti forms. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).
  13. Opgenort . Jean Robert . 2011 . A note on Tilung and its position within Kiranti . Himalayan Linguistics . 10 . 1. 253–271 .
  14. Jacques . Guillaume . 2017 . A reconstruction of Proto-Kiranti verb roots . Folia Linguistica Historica . 38 . s38–s1 . 177–215 . 10.1515/flih-2017-0007 . 149278651 .
  15. Widmer, Manuel. 2014. "A tentative classification of West Himalayish." In A descriptive grammar of Bunan, 33-56. Bern: University of Bern.
  16. Widmer, Manuel. 2017. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas: endangered minority languages as a window to the past. Presented at Panel on Endangered Languages and Historical Linguistics, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23), San Antonio, Texas.
  17. Schorer, Nicolas. 2016. The Dura Language: Grammar and Phylogeny. Leiden: Brill.
  18. Watters, David E. 2002. A grammar of Kham, Cambridge grammatical descriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  19. Post, Mark W. and Roger Blench (2011). "Siangic: A new language phylum in North East India", 6th International Conference of the North East India Linguistics Society, Tezpur University, Assam, India, Jan 31 – Feb 2.
  20. Lieberherr, Ismael. 2015. A progress report on the historical phonology and affiliation of Puroik. North East Indian Linguistics (NEIL), 7. Canberra, Australian National University: Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access.
  21. Bodt . Timotheus Adrianus . Lieberherr . Ismael . 2015 . First notes on the phonology and classification of the Bangru language of India . Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area . 38 . 1 . 66–123 . 10.1075/ltba.38.1.03bod . free .
  22. Sun, Tianshin Jackson. 1993. A Historical–Comparative Study of the Tani (Mirish) Branch in Tibeto-Burman. Berkeley, University of California Ph.D. dissertation.
  23. Hyslop, Gwendolyn. 2014. "A preliminary reconstruction of East Bodish." In Nathan Hill and Thomas Owen-Smith (eds.), Trans-Himalayan Linguistics, 155-179. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  24. Bruhn, Daniel Wayne. 2014. A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Central Naga. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley.
  25. Mortensen, David R. 2012. Database of Tangkhulic Languages. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).
  26. VanBik, Kenneth. 2009. Proto-Kuki-Chin: A Reconstructed Ancestor of the Kuki-Chin Languages. STEDT Monograph 8. .
  27. Joseph, U.V.; and Burling, Robbins. 2006. Comparative phonology of the Boro Garo languages. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages Publication.
  28. Wood, Daniel Cody. 2008. An Initial Reconstruction of Proto-Boro-Garo. M.A. Thesis, University of Oregon.
  29. French, Walter T. 1983. Northern Naga: A Tibeto-Burman mesolanguage. Ph.D. Dissertation, The City University of New York.
  30. Huziwara . Keisuke . 2012 . Toward a reconstruction of Proto-Luish . Kyoto University Linguistic Research . 31 . 25–131 . 10.14989/182194 . 2433/182194 .
  31. Matisoff . James A . 2013 . Re-examining the genetic position of Jingpho: putting flesh on the bones of the Jingpho/Luish relationship . Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area . 36 . 2. 1–106 .
  32. Jones, Robert B., Jr. 1961. Karen linguistic studies: Description, comparison, and texts. (University of California Publications in Linguistics #25.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
  33. Luangthongkum, Theraphan. 2013. A view on Proto-Karen phonology and lexicon. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).
  34. Luangthongkum, Theraphan. 2014. Karenic As A Branch of Tibeto-Burman: More Evidence From Proto-Karen. Paper presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS 24), Yangon, Burma.
  35. Sims, Nathaniel. 2017. The suprasegmental phonology of proto-Rma (Qiang) in comparative perspective. Presented at the 50th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Beijing, China.
  36. Yu, Dominic. 2012. Proto-Ersuic. Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Linguistics.
  37. Jacques . Guillaume . Michaud . Alexis . 2011 . Approaching the historical phonology of three highly eroded Sino-Tibetan languages: Naxi, Na and Laze . Diachronica . 28 . 468–498 . 10.1075/dia.28.4.02jac . 54013956 .
  38. Bradley, David. 1979. Proto-Loloish. London: Curzon Press. .
  39. Book: Wang . Feng . Comparison of languages in contact: the distillation method and the case of Bai . Language and Linguistics Monograph Series B: Frontiers in Linguistics III . Taipei . Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica . 2006 . 986-00-5228-X . 2018-06-03 . 2021-07-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210730132726/http://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/LL/en/monographs.Contect/Comparison_of_Languages_in_Contact__The_Distillation_Method_and_the_Case_of_Bai . dead .
  40. Zhou, Yulou. 2020. Proto-Bizic: A Study of Tujia Historical Phonology. B.A. honors thesis, Stanford University.

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