Studying emergent tone-systems in Nepal: Pitch, phonation and word-tone in Tamang

This paper focuses on the particular kinds of difficulties which arise in the study of an emergent tone-system, exemplified by Tamang in Nepal, where pitch, phonation and other laryngeal features combine in the definition of a tone. As a consequence, conducting a well-ordered analysis in stages first of phonetic transcription, then variation in context, then interpretation is not possible. Rather we have to discover the contrasting categories first, and study their phonetic realization next, or do both at the same time. This also leads to questioning the validity of the traditional distinction of features into “distinctive” and “redundant” and proposing instead an analysis of an abstract “tone” as a bundle of cues. We will only sketch the second characteristic of the Tamang tone system, the extension of tone over the phonological word. The contributions of instrumental studies and of a comparative-historical perspective are discussed. *This paper is in the series How to Study a Tone Language, edited by Steven Bird and Larry HymanNational Foreign Language Resource Cente

An historical argument against tone features

Starting from the observation that in segmental phonemes sound changes target classes of features, rather than phonemes, but that tone changes tend to affect each tone as an individual unit rather than series of tones, we argue that tones should not be analysed into combinations of features. Examples are drawn from the litterature on the evolution of Asian tone systems, and from a case study by the author from a group of Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal. We postulate that tonal systems which are amenable to a feature analysis are a special case, corresponding to an intermediate stage in the formation or evolution of tone systems, when tonogenesis linked to a consonantal mutation is still in process

Computerized Tools for Reconstruction in Tibeto-Burman

Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1989), pp. 367-37

Documenting and Researching Endangered Languages: The Pangloss Collection

The Pangloss Collection is a language archive developed since 1994 at the Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale (LACITO) research group of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). It contributes to the documentation and study of the world’s languages by providing free access to documents of connected, spontaneous speech, mostly in endangered or under-resourced languages, recorded in their cultural context and transcribed in consultation with native speakers. The Collection is an Open Archive containing media files (recordings), text annotations, and metadata; it currently contains over 1,400 recordings in 70 languages, including more than 400 transcribed and annotated documents. The annotations consist of transcription, free translation in English, French and/or other languages, and, in many cases, word or morpheme glosses; they are time-aligned with the recordings, usually at the utterance level. A web interface makes these annotations accessible online in an interlinear display format, in synchrony with the sound, using any standard browser. The structure of the XML documents makes them accessible to searching and indexing, always preserving the links to the recordings. Long-term preservation is guaranteed through a partnership with a digital archive. A guiding principle of the Pangloss Collection is that a close association between documentation and research is highly profitable to both. This article presents the collections currently available; it also aims to convey a sense of the range of possibilities they offer to the scientific and speaker communities and to the general public.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Linguistique tibéto-birmane

Mazaudon Martine. Linguistique tibéto-birmane. In: École pratique des hautes études. 4e section, sciences historiques et philologiques. Livret 3. Rapports sur les conférences des années 1983-1984 et 1984-1985. 1987. p. 181

A low glide in Marphali

International audienceWe describe in the Marphali dialect of Thakali (Nepal) an unsusual phoneme which we characterize as a consonantal or semi-vocalic ‟a”. This uvular or pharyngeal approximant, which is to /ɑ/ or /ʌ/ what /j/ is to /i/, /w/ to /u/ or /ɰ/ to /ɯ/ does not have a representation in the IPA. It can appear between an initial consonant and the nuclear vowels /i/ and /e/.Understanding the relationship of a low vowel to the consonantal domain is a challenge for the classical classification of vowels, where ‘close’ is equated with ‘high’. To solve this representation problem, we resort to Catford’s analysis of vowels in terms of place of articulation and stricture type. In that analysis, the place of maximal constriction rather than the point of maximal height of the tongue is taken into consideration, and a natural class [i-ɨ-u-o-ɔ-ɑ] of ‟peripheral ‘narrow approximant’ vowels” (represented by the external arc on a polar co-ordinate diagram) emerges (Catford 1977 :186). This class has the potential to shift, historically, morpho-phonologically etc, between vocalic and consonantal status. We trace a similar ‟a-glide” in a few other languages (Gurung, Gurage, Spanish, Aghem, Middle Chinese, etc) where it occurs in limited syllabic positions, or only as a phantom phonological item, or is revealed mostly by morpho-phonological alternations. Comparative evidence is adduced to show several possible origins of this fully audible, if transient, phoneme in Marphali.Theories of syllable structure based on a sonority hierarchy are discussed in the light of the fact that the non-syllabic status of this ‟a” in the presence of more sonorous vowels like [i] or [e] cannot be computed from generally admitted sonority hierarchies where ‟low vowels” are always considered as the most sonorous sounds. We conclude that we need either to recognize [ɑ] and [ɑ̯] as potentially different phonemes, parallel to [u] and [w], and/or to revise the sonority hierarchy, or we will have to indicate the place of the nucleus in the lexical form of words. We suggest that in all events a symbol should be added to the inventory of the IPA for an ‟[ɑ]-approximant” between the (vowel) [ɑ] and the (fricative) [ʁ]