NORTHERN NAGA: A TIBETO-BURMAN MESOLANGUAGE. (VOLUMES ONE AND TWO).
Item
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Title
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NORTHERN NAGA: A TIBETO-BURMAN MESOLANGUAGE. (VOLUMES ONE AND TWO).
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Identifier
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AAI8319765
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identifier
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8319765
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Creator
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FRENCH, WALTER THOMAS.
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Contributor
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Edward K. Bendix | Jane Schneider
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Date
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1983
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics
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Abstract
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This study in comparative historical linguistics deals with the languages of the Northernmost of the Nagas of the Assam-Burma frontier: those which have been called "Nagish" (Shafer) or "Konyak" (Benedict). Using data from seven dialects--Yogli, Moshang, Nocte, Wancho, Wakching Konyak, Phom, and Chang--it reconstructs the phonological system and basic lexicon of the Tibeto-Burman mesolanguage from which these dialects are descended, which I call Northern Naga (NN). Lexical comparison is employed to construct models of the diversification of this mesolanguage into its daughter languages and of its relation to other Tibeto-Burman nuclei.;NN is noteworthy for preserving distinctions which must be reconstructed for Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB), but which have been lost in many Tibeto-Burman languages: it distinguishes consonantal prefixes, manner-series of initial stops, initial consonant clusters, four position-classes of initial nasals, and vowel length in both open and closed syllables. It is thus an important step toward refining the accuracy of the PTB lexicon. Most PTB initials and rhymes are represented by distinctive correspondences in Northern Naga; in some cases, further distinctions, suggesting an expansion of the PTB inventory, are required.;The results of the lexical comparison demand clinal models of the relations among the languages compared. These models are interpreted as reflecting retardation in the replacement of cognate forms within communicatory fields embracing related but already separated languages.;When this factor is discounted, the comparison shows that the Northern Naga languages fall into two subgroups, with Wancho affiliated with the languages spoken to the south of it rather than with those to its north as previously suggested. Following this split, the language ancestral to the northern subgroup (Yogli, Moshang, Nocte) re-entered a communicatory field with Jinghpaw.;Externally, the comparison demonstrates that, as Shafer and Benedict had suggested, NN is more closely related to Bodo-Garo than to any other Tibeto-Burman nucleus, but that it is almost as closely related to Jinghpaw. It emphatically supports Benedict's hypothesis of a Bodo-Garo-Konyak-Kachin "supergroup", implying that these languages comprise a discrete division of Tibeto-Burman.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Anthropology
