2.8 Remarkable features
2.8.7 Japhug morphology and Trans-Himalayan comparative linguisticslinguistics
The rich verbal and nominal morphology of Japhug and other Gyalrongic lan-guages comprises both archaisms and innovative features illustrating interesting grammaticalization pathways.
Among innovations, many voice prefixes (§11.2.2) have been created through reanalysis of denominal derivation (§20.10). The clearest case of an innovating voice marker is the antipassive rɤ-(§18.6.1): irregular forms provide direct evi-dence that it originated from the intransitive denominalrɤ-(§20.4.1) applied to deverbal nouns (§20.10.1.1, Jacques 2014b). Other representative innovations in-clude the reflexiveʑɣɤ-from an incorporated pronoun (§18.3.7, Jacques 2010b), the associated motion prefixes grammaticalized from motion verbs (§15.2.1, Jac-ques 2013b), the orientation preverbs from locational adverbs or nouns (§15.1.1.4) and the comitative adverbs (§5.8.1, Jacques 2017d). While Japhug did innovate many affixes, it also preserves morphological archaisms which go further back than proto-Gyalrongic, some potentially even up to proto-Trans-Himalayan.
The antiquity of person indexation in Gyalrongic (§14.8.1) and the rest of Trans-Himalayan is a notoriously controversial topic (Bauman 1975; DeLancey 1989;
LaPolla 1992; van Driem 1993b), but in any case, a paradigm comprising a second person prefix with suffixes for first person and number of third and second per-son should at least be reconstructed back to the common ancestor of Gyalrongic, Kiranti and probably Jinghpo (Jacques 2012a; DeLancey 2014; Jacques 2016e).
In a few cases, archaic morphology only remains as lexicalized traces in Japhug, in particular the applicative-t suffix, very prominent in Kiranti (Michailovsky 1985; Jacques 2015a) for instance, which is only attested in two verbs (§19.7.2), or the nominalization-z(§16.5.1) suffix, which has cognates in Tibetan and Chinese (Jacques 2003; 2016c).
In other cases, derivational processes that only exist as traces in most of the family are still productive in Japhug and other core Gyalrong languages, in partic-ular the sigmatic denominal and causative prefixes (§20.3, §17.2, Sagart & Baxter 2012; Jacques 2015d), velar (§16.8.1) and sigmatic (§16.8.2) nominalization prefixes (Jacques 2014d; Konnerth 2016; Jacques 2019b), and the dental indefinite posses-sor prefix of inalienably possessed nouns (§5.1.3, §5.1.2).
Gyalrong data is particularly relevant to the debate regarding the voicing al-ternation in Old Chinese and other Trans-Himalayan languages (Handel 2012).
Old Chinese and many other languages have pairs of verbs with a voicing con-trast correlated with transitivity, in which the unvoiced verb is transitive and the
voiced one intransitive. It is not obvious which one is the derived form, and the direction of derivation is still being debated (Sagart & Baxter 2012; Mei 2012).
Japhug and other Northern Gyalrong languages (Jacques 2004: 411–412, Gong 2018: 271) however provide a crucial piece of evidence showing that the direction-ality was from the transitive verb to the intransitive one (§18.5.1.2), confirming evidence from unrelated sources (Sagart 2003): the Tibetan borrowingχtɤr ‘scat-ter’ (fromགཏོར་gtor‘scatter’) has an intransitive counterpartʁndɤr‘be scattered’
(§18.5.1) with prenasalized onset without equivalent in Tibetan. This intransi-tivizing derivation can be described as anticausative (§18.5.2). There is further evidence that the prenasalization alternation comes from a nasal prefix, very probably a lexicalization of the autivenɯ- prefix (§19.1.7), whose spontaneous function (§19.1.4) is very close to that of anticausative verbs. Evidence for autive derivation only exists in Gyalrongic (Lai 2017: 357–368, Gong 2018). However, the presence of traces of the anticausative derivation as voicing alternations in various branches of Trans-Himalayan, for instance in Kiranti (Jacques 2015a), Old Chinese (Sagart & Baxter 2012) or Tibetan (Jacques 2012b), implies that the autive derivation by extension must also be of proto-Trans-Himalayan age, and thus represents a unique archaism of Gyalrongic.
The richness and high productivity of morphology in Japhug and other Gyal-rong languages, comparable with that of Sanskrit in Indo-European or Meskwaki in Algonquian, offer a framework to explore the fossil morphology of other Trans-Himalayan languages, in particular those belonging to the Burmo-Gyalron-gic and Tibeto-GyalronBurmo-Gyalron-gic branches (Jacques & Michaud 2011; Sagart et al. 2019), but also potentially for the family as a whole.
Commenting on the irregularity of correspondences between Tibetan, Old Chi-nese and Burmese, Hill (2019: 212) concludes that “the phonetic influence of de-funct morphology will one day explain these complicated correspondences, but this possibility will manifest only when more languages, particularly archaic lan-guages such as those of the Rgyalrong and Kiranti branches, are brought within purview.” One of the aims of this grammar is precisely to provide comparativists with sufficient data on this language to make it systematically usable in Trans-Himalayan etymological research, in the hope that this field can one day reach the degree of sophistication of Indo-European (Fellner & Hill 2019).
3.1 Introduction
Japhug syllables follow the template (C)(C)(C)V(C) with initial clusters contain-ing at most three consonants, and at most one consonant in the coda. Given the complexity of possible onsets, it is not practical to provide an exhaustive list of possible syllables in the language (unlike Naish languages for instance, see Michailovsky & Michaud 2006). However, onsets and rhymes can be listed ex-haustively.
This chapter, partly based on previous publications (in particular Jacques 2004 and Jacques 2019c), presents the inventory of consonants and vowels, offers a fo-cused discussion on syllabic structure and quasi-neutralization, and describes suprasegmental phenomena and speech errors. The complete inventory of con-sonant clusters is listed and analyzed in §4.2 in the following chapter.
This chapter does not treat the phonology of loanwords from Chinese (except highly nativized ones). Non-nativized Chinese loanwords are represented in this grammar in pinyin (even though this system is an imperfect way of rendering Sichuanese Mandarin) between angled brackets.
3.2 Consonants
3.2.1 Onsets
There are fifty consonantal phonemes in Japhug (Table 3.1). All can occur as simple onsets. Stops and affricates have a four-way contrast between voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiced and prenasalized series.
The voiced fricatives/ɣ/and/ʁ/should be classified as non-nasal sonorants (§4.2.2), alongside the glides/j/and/w/, the lateral/l/and the rhotic/r/.
Table 3.2 provides examples of each of these phonemes, followed whenever possible by the vowel/ɯ/. Among these consonants, four are only attested in borrowings from Tibetan and/or ideophones:/ʂ/,/dʐ/,/dʑ/and/g/.
The phoneme/w/is realized as a fricative[f]or[ɸ]before voiceless obstruents and as[v]or[β]before voiced ones, and can also be fricativized when it occurs as
Table 3.1: Consonantal phonemes
Bilabial Dental/ Retroflex Alveolo- Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Alveolar palatal
Plosive unv. /p/ /t/ /c/ /k/ /q/
asp. /pʰ/ /tʰ/ /cʰ/ /kʰ/ /qʰ/
voi. /b/ /d/ /ɟ/ /g/
pren. /mb/ /nd/ /ɲɟ/ /ŋg/ /ɴɢ/
Affricate unv. /ts/ /tʂ/ /tɕ/
asp. /tsʰ/ /tʂʰ/ /tɕʰ/
voi. /dz/ /dʐ/ /dʑ/
pren. /ndz/ /ndʐ/ /ndʑ/
Nasal /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ /ŋ/
Fricative unv. /s/ /ʂ/ /ɕ/ /x/ /χ/ /h/
voi. /z/ /ʑ/ /ɣ/ /ʁ/
Approximant /w/ /j/
Rhotic /r/
Lateral voi. /l/
unv. /ɬ/
coda. In the orthography used in this work, it is transcribed as <f> when followed by an voiceless stop, affricate or fricative, and as <β> when followed by a voiced one (§4.2.1.1), or in coda position (§3.2.2).
As in many languages of the Tibetan area, the/r/is a trilled retroflex voiced fricative[ɽ͡ʐ]in onset position, sometimes realized as a simple voiced fricative[ʐ]. It is devoiced to[ʂ](with neutralization of the contrast with/ʂ/) when followed by a voiceless consonant in clusters (§4.2.1.4).
The prenasalized voiced stops and affricates/mb/,/nd/,/ndz/,/ndʑ/,/ndʐ/, /ɲɟ/,/ŋg/and/ɴɢ/all have voiceless and voiceless aspirated counterparts such as /mp(ʰ)/,/nt(ʰ)/,/nts(ʰ)/,/ntɕ(ʰ)/,/ntʂ(ʰ)/,/ɲc(ʰ)/,/ŋk(ʰ)/and/ɴq(ʰ)/(§4.2.1.9).
Yet, there are several pieces of evidence showing that the prenasalized voiced stops and affricates are of a different nature from the prenasalized voiceless ones.
First, the former can appear in clusters preceded by fricatives or non-nasal sonorants, as in/ʑmbr/,/jndʐ/or/rɴɢl/, while the latter cannot. Clusters such as */ʑmp(ʰ)r/, */jntʂ(ʰ)/ or */rɴq(ʰ)l/ are not permitted in Japhug. Clusters of this type may have existed, but have been removed by voicing the stop/affricate (§18.5.7).
Second, the uvular voiced prenasalized/ɴɢ/has no simple voiced counterpart
*/ɢ/, a fact which therefore precludes analyzing/ɴɢ/as a cluster/n+ɢ/. There is a three-way contrast between/tɕ/,/c/and/k/before the front vowel /i/, as shown by the triplet comprising the correlative additive focus markertɕi
Table 3.2: Examples of the consonant phonemes
/p/ /ɯ-pɯ/ ‘its young’ /tɕ/ /ɯ-tɕɯ/ ‘his boy’
/pʰ/ /ɯ-pʰɯ/ ‘its price’ /tɕʰ/ /totɕʰɯ/ ‘it gore him/her’
/b/ /babɯ/ ‘blackcurrant’ /dʑ/ /dʑɯ/ ‘it is oily’
/mb/ /mbɯt/ ‘collapse’ /ndʑ/ /kondʑɯ/ ‘s/he accused him/her’
/m/ /tɯmɯ/ ‘sky’ /ɕ/ /ɕɯ/ ‘who’
/w/ /wɯwɯ/ ‘Boletus sp.’ /ʑ/ /mɤʑɯ/ ‘not only’
/t/ /tɯboʁ/ ‘one group’ /c/ /cɯ/ ‘stone’
/tʰ/ /tʰɯ/ ‘be serious ’ /cʰ/ /tɤcʰɯ/ ‘wedge’
(of a disease)
/d/ /dɯdɯt/ ‘turtledove’ /ɟ/ /waɟɯ/ ‘earthquake’
/nd/ /ndɯ/ ‘appear (rainbow)’ /ɲɟ/ /ɲɟɯ/ ‘open (it)’
/ts/ /konɤtsɯ/ ‘s/he hid it’ /ɲ/ /ɲɯɣɲɯɣ/ ‘soft and powdery’
/tsʰ/ /tsʰɯtʰo/ ‘kid’ /j/ /ɯ-jɯ/ ‘its handle’
/dz/ /dzɯrdzɯr/ ‘straight’ /k/ /kɯki/ ‘this’
/ndz/ /ndzɯpe/ ‘way of sitting’ /kʰ/ /kʰɯna/ ‘dog’
/n/ /nɯŋa/ ‘cow’ /g/ /gɯgɯɣ/ ‘very dark (sky)’
/s/ /sɯmat/ ‘fruit’ /ŋg/ /ɯ-ŋgɯ/ ‘inside’
/z/ /zɯmi/ ‘almost’ /ŋ/ /ɕaŋɯ/ ‘heat (deer)’
/l/ /rɯlɯ/ ‘medicine’ /x/ /xɯrxɯr/ ‘round’
/ɬ/ /ɬɯɣnɤɬɯɣ/ ‘breathing movement’ /ɣ/ /ɣɯ/ ‘genitive’
/tʂ/ /tʂɯmpa/ ‘apron’ /q/ /qɯqli/ ‘staring’
/tʂʰ/ /tʂʰɯɣ/ ‘maybe’ /qʰ/ /kɯ-sɤqʰɯqʰa/ ‘naughty’
/dʐ/ /dʐɯɣdʐɯɣ/ ‘strong (of tea)’ /ɴɢ/ /mɯɴɢɯ/ ‘Ligularia fischeria’
/ndʐ/ /ndʐɯnbu/ ‘guest’ /χ/ /χɯχɯ/ ‘having big nostrils’
/ʂ/ /ʂɯŋʂɯŋ/ ‘clear’ /ʁ/ /naŋʁɯ/ ‘shirt’
/r/ /rɯ/ ‘temporary place’ /h/ /hanɯni/ ‘a little’
(nomads)
‘also’ (§9.1.6.2), the highly polyfunctionalci‘one’ (§6.6.1, §6.8, §6.7.2, §9.1.7, §7.1.1,
§9.1.4.1 and §22.2.1) and the demonstrativeki‘this’ (§6.9).
The palatal stops/c/,/cʰ/,/ɟ/and/ɲɟ/cannot be analyzed as velar+/j/clusters, as a clear contrast exists between the palatal series and velar stops followed by /j/(§4.2.2.2), in minimal pairs such asɲɟo‘have damages’ andŋgio‘slip’, ‘glide’.1 That the onsets/ɲɟ-/and/ŋgj-/have a different syllabic structure is confirmed by their reduplication patterns (§4.1): while in the former the palatalization is present on the reduplicant pɯ-nɤ-ɲɟɯ~ɲɟo‘have damages everywhere’ (in the distributed action derivation, §19.4), in the latter the /j/is not reduplicated as pɯ-nɤ-ŋgɯ~ŋgio‘he slipped everywhere’.
The alveolo-palatal affricates/tɕ/,/tɕʰ/,/dʑ/and/ndʑ/ are also contrastive with dental affricates+jclusters, as shown by the minimal pairndziaʁ ‘be tight’
1The grapheme<i>represents an allophone of/j/in medial position with dental and dorsal initials (§4.2.2.2).
(of knot) vs.ndʑaʁ ‘swim’ (§4.2.2.2). There is also a contrast with dental stops+j, though no good minimal pairs can be found due to the rarity of these clusters.
The attested contrasts between coronal affricates and dorsal stops with and without thejmedial are illustrated in Table 3.3 in combination with the vowel /o/.
Table 3.3: Palatalization contrasts in coronal and dorsal onsets
Onset Example
/ts/ tɤtsoʁ‘Potentilla anserina’
/tsj/ tɤ-mtsioʁ‘beak’
/tʂ/ tʂoʁ‘add water’
/tɕ/ mtɕoʁ‘be sharp’
/c/ co‘valley’
/k/ ko‘prevail over’
/kj/ kio‘cause to glide’
/q/ rqoʁ‘hug’
/qj/ qioʁ‘vomit’
The voiceless lateral/ɬ/(realized by some speakers as a postaspirated lateral [lʰ]), is a marginal phoneme in Japhug, which does not appear in clusters (except heterosyllabic ones, as in/cɯɣɬaj/‘symptom in which the oral cavity becomes white’) and is very rare in the native vocabulary. Yet, its phonemic status is justi-fied by the fact that it contrasts with/lx/. There are no minimal pairs contrasting the two, but the contrast can be indirectly illustrated by examples such asalxaj
‘not properly put’ (of clothes) andlxɯlxi‘thick and cumbersome’ on the one hand, andɬɤt‘become old’ andɬɤndʐi‘ghost’ on the other hand.
3.2.2 Codas
The inventory of consonants in coda position in Japhug is more restricted than in initial position. In particular, the voicing and aspiration contrasts are neutralized in codas.
Only twelve consonants out of fifty appear as codas:/-p/,/-w/,/-m/,/-t/,/-z/, /-n/,/-l/,/-r/,/-j/,/-ɣ/,/-ŋ/,/-ʁ/. The stop/-p/is restricted to a few ideophones (§10.1.5.2), and is found neither in the inherited non-ideophonic vocabulary nor in Tibetan loanwords, except as the first element of the heterosyllabic cluster
/pt/in the word/sqap.tɯɣ/‘eleven’ (§4.2.3.1 ). The codas/-n/,/-l/and/-ŋ/are extremely rare (but not entirely absent) in the non-ideophonic native vocabulary.
A list of possible combinations between codas and vowels in Japhug is de-scribed in §3.3.2.
In word-final position, codas are voiced when followed by a word beginning with a voiced consonant or a vowel, but are devoiced in phrase-final position, before a pause or before a voiceless segment (even across word boundaries, §4.3).
In isolation, word-final/-z/,/-r/,/-j/,/-ɣ/and/-ʁ/in particular are realized as[s], [r̥],[j̥],[x]and[χ], respectively. The coda/-ʁ/can also be realized alternatively as pharyngealization of the preceding vowel.
Since the voicing contrast between the voiceless fricatives/s/,/x/,/χ/and the voiced ones/z/,/ɣ/,/ʁ/is neutralized in coda position, it could seem bet-ter to argue that the fricative codas, whatever their phonetic realization, are archiphonemes {s,z}, {x,ɣ}and {χ,ʁ}, and that any discussion of their underlying voicing is futile (Hill 2016). However, in the case of Japhug at least, some mor-phophonological rules are easier to describe if one assumes that fricative codas are underlyingly voiced.2
First, when the 1sg-asuffix is added to a verb stem ending in a fricative coda, that coda is resyllabified, becoming the onset of the syllable witha as rhyme.
In these cases, the voiced allophone always surfaces (§14.2.1.1): for instance the 1sg→3sg Imperfective ofntɕʰoz‘use’ istu-ntɕʰóz-a, syllabified as/tu.ntɕʰo.za/. If one were to assume that the fricative coda-zwere voiceless or underspecified for voicing, a context-specific voicing rule would have to be assumed to have taken place, sinceV́sais a permissible sequence in Japhug, as inpjɤ́-wɣ-satifr-inv-kill (see for instance example 36 in §20.4.2). It is more economical to assume that-z and the other fricative codas are underlying voiced, and become devoiced in the same contexts as the sonorants.
Second, the locative postpositionzɯ(§8.2.4.1) is the result of the degrammati-calization of the locative*-ssuffix still attested in Situ (§8.2.1). The fact that it has a voiced, rather than an voiceless onset, suggests that the fricative was voiced when it was a suffix.
2I owe the idea that final-zis voiced to Sun (2005), where a similar analysis is implicitly proposed about Tshobdun.