In the Shangzhai dialect of Horpa, an under-studied Tibeto-Burman language of northwestern Sichuan, pervasive phonological alternations occur in the morphological causative formation. This paper applies the study of this phenomenon to the analysis of the historical development of alternative modes of encoding causativity in Horpa and two related rGyalrongic languages: rGyalrong (proper) and Lavrung. Despite bewildering surface variations, Shangzhai Horpa can be analyzed as having a single consistently non-syllabic causative prefix s- which exerts pressure on the already elaborate onset system and triggers multiple phonological adjustments. The excessive allomorphy and constraints exhaust the morphological means of causation coding, leading to the rise of the periphrastic causative construction as the primary causativizing strategy in the language. By contrast, the dominant mode of expressing causativity still rests in the realm of derivational morphology in the other rGyalrongic languages where the old causative prefix *s˙- remains syllabic.
This study explores the phenomenon of uvularization in the vowel systems of two Heishui County varieties of Qiang, a Sino-Tibetan language of Sichuan Province, China. Ultrasound imaging (one speaker) shows that uvularized vowels have two tongue gestures: a rearward gesture, followed by movement toward the place of articulation of the corresponding plain vowel. Time-aligned acoustic and articulatory data show how movement toward the uvula correlates with changes in the acoustic signal. Acoustic correlates of uvularization (taken from two speakers) are seen most consistently in raising of vowel F1, lowering of F2 and in raising of the difference F3-F2. Imaging data and the formant structure of [l] show that uvular approximation can begin during the initial consonant that precedes a uvularized vowel. Uvularization is reflected phonologically in the phonotactic properties of vowels, while vowel harmony aids in the identification of plain–uvularized vowel pairs. The data reported in this paper argue in favor of a revision of the catalog of secondary articulations recognized by the International Phonetic Alphabet, in order to include uvularization, which can be marked with the symbol [ʶ] in the case of approximation and [χ] for secondary uvular frication.
In the Northern Horpa (NH) language of Sichuan, vowels are divided between plain and pharyngealized sets, with the latter pronounced with auxiliary articulatory gestures involving more constriction in the vocal tract. The current study examines how the NH vocalic contrast is manifested in line with the process of pharyngealization both acoustically and articulatorily, based on freshly gathered data from two varieties of the language (i.e., Rtsangkhog and Yunasche). Along with formant analyses, ultrasound imaging was employed to capture the tongue postures and positions during vowel production. The results show that in contrast with plain vowels, pharyngealized vowels generally feature lower F2 values and higher F1 and F3 values. Mixed results for F2 and F3 suggest that the quality contrasts are vowel-dependent. Ultrasound images, on the other hand, reveal that the vocalic distinction is affected by different types of tongue movements, including retraction, backing, and double bunching, depending on the inherent tongue positions for each vowel. The two NH varieties investigated are found to display differential formant changes and different types of tongue displacements. The formant profiles along with ultrasound images support the view that the production of the NH phonologically marked vowels is characteristic of pharyngealization.
The Rgyalrongic languages (Qiangic branch, Sino-Tibetan family) are prime examples of a split verb agreement system grounded in the pragmatic salience of speech act participants. However, the Horpa language in this group presents a hybrid system involving a more intricate interplay of functional and syntactic factors, despite having less elaborate morphological material than some related languages. Many fundamental issues of Horpa verb agreement remain to be adequately explored, despite preliminary descriptions in the literature. This paper provides a new study of verb agreement in the Gexi variety of Horpa based on first-hand fieldwork data. Compared with Shangzhai Horpa of Rangtang County, Gexi displays many points of difference in its agreement system, including reduplication as a number-marking device, and functionally differentiated special and general sets of person-marking suffixes, the former restricted to transitive singular actants. Gexi verb agreement is undergoing typological transition from pragmatics-driven split agreement to syntax-driven subject agreement, as part of a global morpho-syntactic shift from a head-marking to a dependent-marking grammatical type. The conversion, possibly catalyzed by contact influences from Tibetan, is still ongoing with traces of the original system preserved in the form of alternating patterns. The phenomena under analysis constitute an intermediate stage in the evolution of Qiangic verbal agreement typology between the conservative Rgyalrong, Lavrung, and Shangzhai Horpa split-agreement type and the innovative subject-agreement type observed in Qiang and Prinmi.
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