Tones in Mizo Language

The paper on “ Tones in Mizo Language” deals with the identification of lexical (root) tones in Mizo. In the midst of various assumptions about differing opinions on the number of tones present in the language, the paper establishes that there are only four lexical tones in Mizo viz High tone,Low tone,Rising tone and Falling tone. It also highlights the fact that since Mizo, belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family of tone languages the phonology of tones in Mizo is closer to the Asian typology

A Phonetic, Phonological, and Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Mara Language

This thesis presents a linguistic analysis of the Mara language, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in northwest Myanmar and in neighboring districts of India. Data has been gathered through interviews with a native speaker. The analysis includes a full phonetic segment inventory of the dialect and a phonological analysis of contrastive sounds and contextual variants. Sound files embedded in the document illustrate the phonetic system. Mara\u27s distinctive phonetic features include the loss of word-final consonants, a set of voiceless sonorants, pre- and post- aspirated nasals, and lowered and unlowered vowel pairs. The morphosyntax of Mara pronominal words demonstrates a split-ergative case marking pattern. A deictic hierarchy of pronominal words accounts for variations in pronominal word presence and order

A reconstruction of Proto Northern Chin in Old Burmese and Old Chinese perspective.

The phonology, morphology and semantics of six Northern Chin languages are investigated in terms of their relationships with Old Burmese and Old Chinese. Regular correspondences are achieved through a vertical two vowel system and a segmentally derived three tone system. A word list with reconstructed Northern Chin forms, of which several are used in the comparisons with Old Burmese and Old Chinese throughout the work, is included as an appendix

Khawhar Zai: Voices of Hope in the Bereavement Singing of Mizo Christians in Northeast India

The Mizo people of, Mizoram, Northeast India have been predominantly Christian since the 1930’s after a series of spiritual revivals that began in 1906. Today, the churches still have a prominent role in society, influencing many aspects of life as well as death. A Mizo death is sonically marked and signalled to the rest of the community by the singing of hymns in the home of the bereaved for at least three days and nights, drawing many members of the community to the home. The repertoire of hymns is called khawhar zai, composed by Mizo Christians between 1919 and 1930. This thesis studies the khawhar zai repertoire and its significance for grieving communities both at the time of its composition and in the modern Mizo context. It attempts to make an original contribution to ethnomusicological scholarship by exploring anthropological approaches to hope and nostalgia in the light of the theological fields of eschatology and evangelicalism. This is intended to develop an understanding of the expression of hope through funeral singing, particularly in the Mizo context but with wider implications for other Christian communities

Lengkhawm Zai: A Singing Tradition of Mizo Christianity in Northeast India

The Mizo people live in the Indian state of Mizoram. Following the arrival of missionaries in 1894 and a series of spiritual revivals, they have claimed to be a Christian people since about 1930. The Mizo hymn repertoire includes translations of western hymns as well as original compositions, and many of these are often sung with a modified tune and singing style that emerged during the revival period between 1906 and 1930. This singing style and the songs that have been composed specifically for it have come to be known as lengkhawm zai, and represent a Christian but indigenous musical tradition, with associated dance, gestural and instrumental conventions. The context in which this singing takes place is lengkhawm. It typically takes place in two contexts: at a church service, and at a dedicated event for community singing called zaikhawm, which mainly happens at Christmas. Can this relatively modern practice be described as traditional singing? In what way has it been shaped by the Christianity of the missionaries and subsequent influences from contact with other musical cultures? In what way does it reflect a continuation of the musical tradition that existed before the missionaries arrived in 1894? This thesis explores the issues that surround the definition of modern traditions in Christian worship music in the context of lengkhawm, particularly addressing the nature of the exchanges that take place at the earlier points of missionary contact

North East Indian linguistics 7 (NEIL 7)

This volume includes papers presented at the seventh and eighth meetings of the North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS), held in Guwahati, India, in 2012 and 2014. As with previous conferences, these meetings were held at the Don Bosco Institute in Guwahati, Assam, and hosted in collaboration with Gauhati University. This volume continues the NEILS tradition of papers by both local and international scholars, with half of them by linguists from universities in the North East, several of whom are native speakers of the languages they are writing about. In addition we have papers written by scholars from France, Japan, Russia, Switzerland and USA. The selection of papers presented in this volume encompass languages from the Sino-Tibetan, Austroasiatic, Indo-European, and Tai-Kadai language families, and describe aspects of the languages� phonology, morphosyntax, and history

North East Indian Linguistics 7 (NEIL 7)

This volume includes papers presented at the seventh and eighth meetings of the North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS), held in Guwahati, India, in 2012 and 2014. As with previous conferences, these meetings were held at the Don Bosco Institute in Guwahati, Assam, and hosted in collaboration with Gauhati University. This volume continues the NEILS tradition of papers by both local and international scholars, with half of them by linguists from universities in the North East, several of whom are native speakers of the languages they are writing about. In addition we have papers written by scholars from France, Japan, Russia, Switzerland and USA. The selection of papers presented in this volume encompass languages from the Sino-Tibetan, Austroasiatic, Indo-European, and Tai-Kadai language families, and describe aspects of the languages’ phonology, morphosyntax, and histor

North East Indian Linguistics 8 (NEIL 8)

This is the eighth volume of North East Indian Linguistics, a series of volumes for publishing current research on the languages of North East India, the first volume of which was published in 2008. The papers in this volume were presented at the 9th conference of the North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS), held at Tezpur University in February 2016. The papers for this anniversary volume continue the NEILS tradition of research by both local and international scholars on a wide range of languages and topics. This eighth volume includes papers on small community languages and large regional languages from across North East India, and present detailed phonological, semantic and morphosyntactic studies of structures that are characteristic of particular languages or language groups alongside sociolinguistic studies that explore language attitudes in contexts of language shift

Neutral Tone in Mandarin: Representation and Interaction with Utterance-level Prosody

In Standard Mandarin, there are syllables that do not carry any of the four citation tones (T1: High-level tone, T2: Mid-rising tone, T3: Low-convex tone and T4: High-falling tone), and they are said to have a neutral tone (NT). These syllables are usually shorter, lighter, prosodically grouped with the preceding CT-bearing syllables. These characteristics of NT have led to a prevailing view that it has no underlying phonological specification. However, research has focused more on how the surface pitch variations of NT are realized rather than the underlying representation of NT. In contrast, morphological, sociolinguistic and diachronic work on NT has suggested that NT may not be a homogeneous entity. In this thesis, I provide acoustic and psycholinguistic evidence that there are two types of NT, Intrinsic NT and Derived NT. Intrinsic NT refers to morphemes that were lexicalized as tone-deleted, unstressed syllables even before the formation of the four CTs of modern Mandarin. Derived NT refers to morphemes derived from the CTs via stress-related tone-deletion. In Part A, the phonological representation of Intrinsic and Derived NT is explored through two production and two processing experiments. The results show that Intrinsic NT is likely to have an underspecified tonal target while Derived NTs are underlyingly CTs. In addition, both subtypes of NT are metrically light, unlike heavy CTs. Part B explores the interaction between NTs and utterance-level prosody in production and perception experiments. NT-bearing syllables have lengthening patterns under focus similar to CT-bearing syllables, in contrast to the realization of unstressed syllables in English. In perception, the identification of intonation (Statement vs. Question) on Intrinsic NT was similar to Derived NT. When compared to CTs, the NTs elicit less bias towards question than T4, and higher accuracy than T2, which may result from their simpler surface representations.CHINA Scholarship COUNCIL (CSC) and Cambridge Trus