Tonogenesis in Northeastern Trans-Himalayan
Résumé
Tonogenesis is a topic of perennial interest in Trans-Himalayan linguistics (the name of the family is the subject of some debate. Other terms for the family are Sino-Tibetan and Tibeto-Burman). The phonetic origins of the tones of the many languages in the family, such as Tibetan (Huáng 1995), Burmese (Nishi 1999; Hill 2019), and Chinese (Haudricourt 1954; Sagart 1999) are relatively well understood. However, the phonetic origins of tone in many Trans-Himalayan languages remains an open question (Sagart 2006). There has been a paucity of work describing the origins of tone in the languages classified as belonging to the Qiangic subgroup of Trans-Himalayan. This paper gives an account of tonogenesis in three tonal subgroups of Trans-Himalayan languages: Rma (also called 羌 Qiāng (see Wang 1999 for a history of the terminology)) and Prinmi (also called 普米 Pǔmı̌), two modern subgroups, along with Tangut, a mediaeval Trans-Himalayan language attested from 1042–1502 ce.