Work

The stem alternation in Rengmitca

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: It is well-known that South Central Tibeto-Burman (=Kuki-Chin) languages may exhibit a morphosyntactically-conditioned verbal stem alternation. This paper provides an exhaustive account of the stem alternation in Rengmitca, a highly endangered SC language of Bangladesh, based on a naturalistic text corpus. Compared to systems present in other languages, Rengmitca’s stem alternation is formally quite limited. The distribution of stem alternants involves similar parameters to those seen for other SC languages, but there are some deviations from more commonly attested patterns, as well. The finding that the stem alternation is present in Rengmitca is noteworthy because evidence for it in the Southwestern SC subgroup up to this point has only been minimal. The paper also considers additional issues in the diachrony of the stem alternation in SC.

Source: Himalayan Linguistics

DOI: 10.5070/h91150997

Author: David A. Peterson

Institutions: Dartmouth College, University of California, Santa Cruz

Language: English

Topic: Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: National Science Foundation

Awards: CAREER: Chittagong Hill Tracts Linguistic Documentation, Documentation of Rengmitca (Tibeto-Burman)