Himalayas

The mystery of word-initial consonant loss in Kera’a

Kera’a, a Trans-Himalayan language, shows a theoretically and typologically unexpected loss of word-initial consonants in CV syllables (e.g. /kalondrõ/ /alondrõ/ ‘mosquito’, /tahru/ /ahru/ ‘to listen’, /miku/ /iku/ ‘dog’). Word-initial consonant …

Bumthang

Bumthang (iso: kjz; glottocode: bumt1240) is an East Bodish language spoken in the central highlands of Bhutan, between Trongsain the western lowlands andUrain the east near Mongar. It is part ofthe Kurtöp-Bumthang-Khengkha continuum, and is itself …

An initial exploration of the interaction of tone and intonation in Kera'a

This paper provides a first acoustic analysis of the lexical tones found in Kera’a, an endangered language spoken in the North-East of India (Arunachal Pradesh).

Multi-verbal expressions and the "one intonation unit" constraint

In this talk, I address how the "one intonation unit" constraint interacts with the formal realisation of serial verb constructions and clause-chaining, as well as processes of grammaticalisation. The effects of discourse, verbal meaning, and weakening of prosodic boundaries are discussed.

Piloting a multivariate approach to complex verbal constructions

In this talk, I explore a multivariate approach to visualising the distribution of complex verbal constructions in Kera’a (Idu), a Trans-Himalayan language spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, India.