Nathan W Hill
Biographic Data
| ID | 514932 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nathan W Hill |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nathan W |
| FAMILY NAME | Hill |
| SIGNATURE | HILL N W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6423-017X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Latin h- and Tibetan འ ḥ: A reply to Schuessler
This article critiques Axel Schuessler’s recent proposal on the development of *w- in Sino-Tibetan and its reflexes in Old Chinese and Tibetan. Focusing on the Tibetan letter འ ḥ , Hill argues against Schuessler’s characterization of it as a purely diacritic or erratically used letter, instead presenting historical phonological evidence that it originally represented the phoneme /ɣ/ with predictable allophonic variation. Drawing parallels with th…
Andrew West (1960–2025) – an Obituary by Nathan Hill
An Indological transcription of Middle Chinese
Because most Sino-Tibetan languages with a literary tradition use Indic derived scripts and those that do not are each sui generis , there are advantages to transcribing these languages also along Indic lines. In particular, this article proposes an Indological transcription for Middle Chinese
Making and agreeing to requests in Old Tibetan
The verbs གསོལ་ gsol `request' and གནང་ gnaṅ `agree, grant', because of theircomplementary semantics and parallel syntax, provide a convenient windowthrough which to caste light on the two forms of subordinate clausesthat they both govern, namely infinitives and terminative verbal nouns
Accusative alignment in the Old Tibetan switch reference system
The use of ནས་ - nas to mark cross-clausal co-reference in Version I of the Old Tibetan Rāmāyaṇa reveals accusative alignment in Tibetan syntax, which in turn vindicates the notion of ‘subject’ applied to Tibetan
Two notes on Proto-Ersuic
This paper looks at the history of Tosu using 'forward reconstruction'. It concludes that Proto-Ersuic changed *-im to *-am already before its breakup as a unity, but the ‘brightening’ of *-a- to -i- took place independently in Tosu and Lizu-Ersu. In Tosu this brightening did not target labial (or velar) initial words lacking an inherited medial *-j-. A number of changes in the history of Tosu probably preceded brightening, namely *-um, *-ak > -o…
Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe, and Lila San Roque: Egophoricity
Few airline passengers meet the one word question 'Coffee?' with a baffled stare; the question clearly means 'Would you like some coffee?' despite the absence of verbs and pronouns.Questions ask about the addressee or his ken and statements give information about the speaker or her ken.This pattern, which I shall call the 'conversational presumption', is built into the fabric of human communication; it permits languages even without verb agreemen…
The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese
The discovery of sound laws by comparing attested languages is the method which has unlocked the history of European languages stretching back thousands of years before the appearance of written records, e.g. Latin p- corresponds to English f- (pes, foot; primus, first; plenus, full). Although Burmese, Chinese, and Tibetan have long been regarded as related, the systematic exploration of their shared history has never before been attempted. Traci…
The use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging in the recording and analyses of Burmese Pyu inscriptions
Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages
Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction
The State of Sino-Tibetan
testifies to sustained interest in this language family.Comparing the first and second editions provides a window onto 14 years of research.The book's girth has grown from 716 to 1010 pages.Newly treated languages include Mongsen Ao
Vowel purity and rhyme evidence in Old Chinese reconstruction
Rhyme patterns in Old Chinese poems are important for the reconstruction of Old Chinese pronunciation, as they provide evidence for groups of words which formerly had similar pronunciation. Rhyme patterns can also be used to test Old Chinese reconstruction systems for consistency and plausibility, as reconstruction systems should minimize the conflict with attested rhyme patterns. Here, we build on the idea that rhyming in Old Chinese followed th…
Tibetan √lan ‘reply’ - Addendum
The authors gratefully acknowledge the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this research as part of the project ‘Tibetan in Digital Communication’
The Contribution of Tangut to Trans-Himalayan Comparative Linguistics
Tangut is among a handful of Trans-Himalayan1 languages with an early date of attestation and a vast literature. First recorded from 1042 C.E., Tangut is younger than Chinese (c. 1200 B.C.E) and Tibetan (650 C.E.), but older than Burmese (1113 C.E.). With the loss of the Tangut polity to the Mongols in 1227 C.E., the language gradually declined, with the most recent known text from 1499 C.E. The decipherment of Tangut became possible after Pyotr …
The sku bla Rite in Imperial Tibetan Religion
Rolf Stein, Ariane Macdonald et d’autres savants considèrent le sku bla comme une divinité de la montagne. Stein voit ce culte comme une importation étrangère, tandis que Macdonald le considère comme un culte central de la religion impériale tibétaine. Après un réexamen des passages pertinents, l’auteur de cet article conclut que le sku bla n’est pas une divinité de la montagne et que la cérémonie sku bla n’est pas un emprunt extérieur au Tibet m…
Tibetan √lan ‘reply’
Recognising the parallelism between the conjugation of a verb such as √lug ‘pour’ (pres. ldug , past blugs , fut. blug , imp. lhugs ‘pour’ and a verb such as √kru ‘wash’ ( ḥkhrud, bkrus, bkru, khrus ), Li Fang-Kuei suggests deriving the present stem ldug from a reconstruction *ḥlug (1933: 149). In this sub-case of Conrady's law, the change of *ḥl to ld - may be analyzed into the following changes: *ḥl > *ḥdl > *ḥld > ld (cf. Conrady 1896: 59, Li …
Cognates of Old Chinese *-n, *-r, and *-j in Tibetan and Burmese
Following a suggestion of Starostin (1989), Baxter & Sagart (2011) reconstruct *-n, *-j, and *-r as distinct finals in Old Chinese. These three finals have regular correspondences in Tibetan and Burmese. The Trans-Himalayan proto-language distinguished *-n, *-j, *-r, *-l, and *-rl. Burmese loses *-r and generally loses *-l, except after - u -, where it changes to - y . Tibetan loses *-y and changes *-rl to - l . Chinese changes *-rl to *-r. Becau…
A Note on Voicing Alternation In The Tibetan Verbal System
A recent paper on the prehistory of the Tibetan verbal system by Guillaume Jacques (2012), in keeping with many previous authorities, presents Tibetan verbs as occurring in pairs, with a voiced intransitive and a voice‐alternating transitive member. However, as noticed by Uray, Tibetan verbs occur in triplets with no relationship between voicing and transitivity.
Grammatically Conditioned Sound Change
In the first half of the 20th century following the Neogrammarian tradition, most researchers believed that sound change was always conditioned by phonetic phenomena and never by grammar. Beginning in the 1960s, proponents of the generative school put forward cases of grammatically conditioned sound change. From then until now, new cases have continued to come to light. A close look at the development of intervocalic -s- in Greek, reveals the div…
Old Chinese *sm- and the Old Tibetan Word for ‘Fire’
Several sinologists have compared Chinese 𤈦 xjwɨjX ‘burn’ or 火 xwaX ‘fire’ to an Old Tibetan word smye ‘fire’. No such Old Tibetan word exists. Instead, mye is the Old Tibetan word for fire and smye , also spelled dmeḥ , means ‘stain, impurity, sin’. Tibetan evidence in this case does not support a reconstruction * sm - in Old Chinese. Plusieurs sinologues ont tenté de rapprocher les formes 𤈦 xjwɨjX «brûler» et 火 xwaX «feu» du chinois de la for…
Evolution of the Burmese Vowel System
Tibeto‐Burman historical linguistics has relied heavily on the spelling of Burmese and Tibetan words as found in standard modern dictionaries, at the expense of the earliest attested records. This examination of the development of the Burmese vowel system, in the light of early Burmese philological data and comparisons to Old Chinese and Old Tibetan, facilitates a refined understanding of Burmese historical phonology and the reconstruction of Tib…
The Six Vowel Hypothesis of Old Chinese in Comparative Context
Gong Hwang-Cherng in two papers (1980, 1995) collected a number of cognate sets among Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. This paper reexamines these cognate sets (base on Gong 1995) using a six vowel version of Old Chinese, specifically the Baxter-Sagart system. In light of six vowel theory it is possible both to be more confident about some cognate sets and possible to reject or revise others.
Tibetan-las, -nas and -bas
In descriptions of Tibetan grammar it is common to treat -las and -nas together in the discussion of case marking, signaling merely that -las is capable of forming comparisons whereas -nas is not. Similarly, in the discussion of comparison most authors make no distinction between the suffixes -bas and -las. A look at a few examples of these three morphemes demonstrates that they have quite distinct syntax and semantics
"Mirativity" does not exist: Ḥdug in "Lhasa" Tibetan and other suspects
Largely through the efforts of Scott DeLancey the grammatical category "mirative" has gained currency in linguistics. DeLancey bases his elaboration of this category on a misunderstanding of the semantics of ḥdug in "Lhasa" Tibetan. Rather than showing "surprising information", linguists working on Tibetan have long described ḥdug as a sensory evidential. Much of the evidence DeLancey and Aikhenvald present for mirativity in other languages is al…
"Mirativity" does not exist: Ḥdug in "Lhasa" Tibetan and other suspects
Largely through the efforts of Scott DeLancey the grammatical category "mirative" has gained currency in linguistics. DeLancey bases his elaboration of this category on a misunderstanding of the semantics of ḥdug in "Lhasa" Tibetan. Rather than showing "surprising information", linguists working on Tibetan have long described ḥdug as a sensory evidential. Much of the evidence DeLancey and Aikhenvald present for mirativity in other languages is al…
An Inventory of Tibetan Sound Laws
Scholars of Indo-European historical linguistics have long found it convenient to refer to well known sound changes by the name of the researcher who first noticed the correspondences the sound change accounts for. Because of the proven utility of such named sound laws in Indo-European linguistics, the explicit listing and naming of sound laws in the Tibeto-Burman family could be expected to bring similar benefits
Grammatically Conditioned Sound Change
In the first half of the 20th century following the Neogrammarian tradition, most researchers believed that sound change was always conditioned by phonetic phenomena and never by grammar. Beginning in the 1960s, proponents of the generative school put forward cases of grammatically conditioned sound change. From then until now, new cases have continued to come to light. A close look at the development of intervocalic -s- in Greek, reveals the div…
Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction
Sommerschuh, Christine, Einführung in die tibetische Schriftsprache: Lehrbuch für den Unterricht und das vertiefende Selbststudium
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/001972409X12645171001974 Indo-Iranian Journal () – brill.nl/iij Book Reviews Sommerschuh, Christine, Einführung in die tibetische Schriftsprache: Lehr- buch für den Unterricht und das vertiefende Selbststudium (Nordstedt: Books on Demand GmbH, ), xvi + pp., ., ISBN . Indologists count on a steady stream of monographs with exciting titles such as Untersuc…
The converb -lasin Old Tibetan
In contrast to its description in available grammars and manuals, the converb -lasin Old Tibetan is used primarily to mark off the following clause as surprising given the background of the preceding clause. The converb-lasenters into two distinct syntactic constructions: after a reduplicated verb it indicates the interruption of a continuous event; and in a three-clause pattern with the converb-kyis, -lasintroduces a surprise or contrast in the …
An Inventory of Tibetan Sound Laws
Scholars of Indo-European historical linguistics have long found it convenient to refer to well known sound changes by the name of the researcher who first noticed the correspondences the sound change accounts for. Because of the proven utility of such named sound laws in Indo-European linguistics, the explicit listing and naming of sound laws in the Tibeto-Burman family could be expected to bring similar benefits
Evolution of the Burmese Vowel System
Tibeto‐Burman historical linguistics has relied heavily on the spelling of Burmese and Tibetan words as found in standard modern dictionaries, at the expense of the earliest attested records. This examination of the development of the Burmese vowel system, in the light of early Burmese philological data and comparisons to Old Chinese and Old Tibetan, facilitates a refined understanding of Burmese historical phonology and the reconstruction of Tib…
The Six Vowel Hypothesis of Old Chinese in Comparative Context
Gong Hwang-Cherng in two papers (1980, 1995) collected a number of cognate sets among Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. This paper reexamines these cognate sets (base on Gong 1995) using a six vowel version of Old Chinese, specifically the Baxter-Sagart system. In light of six vowel theory it is possible both to be more confident about some cognate sets and possible to reject or revise others.
Tibetan-las, -nas and -bas
In descriptions of Tibetan grammar it is common to treat -las and -nas together in the discussion of case marking, signaling merely that -las is capable of forming comparisons whereas -nas is not. Similarly, in the discussion of comparison most authors make no distinction between the suffixes -bas and -las. A look at a few examples of these three morphemes demonstrates that they have quite distinct syntax and semantics
"Mirativity" does not exist: Ḥdug in "Lhasa" Tibetan and other suspects
Largely through the efforts of Scott DeLancey the grammatical category "mirative" has gained currency in linguistics. DeLancey bases his elaboration of this category on a misunderstanding of the semantics of ḥdug in "Lhasa" Tibetan. Rather than showing "surprising information", linguists working on Tibetan have long described ḥdug as a sensory evidential. Much of the evidence DeLancey and Aikhenvald present for mirativity in other languages is al…
Old Chinese *sm- and the Old Tibetan Word for ‘Fire’
Several sinologists have compared Chinese 𤈦 xjwɨjX ‘burn’ or 火 xwaX ‘fire’ to an Old Tibetan word smye ‘fire’. No such Old Tibetan word exists. Instead, mye is the Old Tibetan word for fire and smye , also spelled dmeḥ , means ‘stain, impurity, sin’. Tibetan evidence in this case does not support a reconstruction * sm - in Old Chinese. Plusieurs sinologues ont tenté de rapprocher les formes 𤈦 xjwɨjX «brûler» et 火 xwaX «feu» du chinois de la for…
Cognates of Old Chinese *-n, *-r, and *-j in Tibetan and Burmese
Following a suggestion of Starostin (1989), Baxter & Sagart (2011) reconstruct *-n, *-j, and *-r as distinct finals in Old Chinese. These three finals have regular correspondences in Tibetan and Burmese. The Trans-Himalayan proto-language distinguished *-n, *-j, *-r, *-l, and *-rl. Burmese loses *-r and generally loses *-l, except after - u -, where it changes to - y . Tibetan loses *-y and changes *-rl to - l . Chinese changes *-rl to *-r. Becau…
A Note on Voicing Alternation In The Tibetan Verbal System
A recent paper on the prehistory of the Tibetan verbal system by Guillaume Jacques (2012), in keeping with many previous authorities, presents Tibetan verbs as occurring in pairs, with a voiced intransitive and a voice‐alternating transitive member. However, as noticed by Uray, Tibetan verbs occur in triplets with no relationship between voicing and transitivity.
Grammatically Conditioned Sound Change
In the first half of the 20th century following the Neogrammarian tradition, most researchers believed that sound change was always conditioned by phonetic phenomena and never by grammar. Beginning in the 1960s, proponents of the generative school put forward cases of grammatically conditioned sound change. From then until now, new cases have continued to come to light. A close look at the development of intervocalic -s- in Greek, reveals the div…
The Contribution of Tangut to Trans-Himalayan Comparative Linguistics
Tangut is among a handful of Trans-Himalayan1 languages with an early date of attestation and a vast literature. First recorded from 1042 C.E., Tangut is younger than Chinese (c. 1200 B.C.E) and Tibetan (650 C.E.), but older than Burmese (1113 C.E.). With the loss of the Tangut polity to the Mongols in 1227 C.E., the language gradually declined, with the most recent known text from 1499 C.E. The decipherment of Tangut became possible after Pyotr …
The sku bla Rite in Imperial Tibetan Religion
Rolf Stein, Ariane Macdonald et d’autres savants considèrent le sku bla comme une divinité de la montagne. Stein voit ce culte comme une importation étrangère, tandis que Macdonald le considère comme un culte central de la religion impériale tibétaine. Après un réexamen des passages pertinents, l’auteur de cet article conclut que le sku bla n’est pas une divinité de la montagne et que la cérémonie sku bla n’est pas un emprunt extérieur au Tibet m…
Tibetan √lan ‘reply’
Recognising the parallelism between the conjugation of a verb such as √lug ‘pour’ (pres. ldug , past blugs , fut. blug , imp. lhugs ‘pour’ and a verb such as √kru ‘wash’ ( ḥkhrud, bkrus, bkru, khrus ), Li Fang-Kuei suggests deriving the present stem ldug from a reconstruction *ḥlug (1933: 149). In this sub-case of Conrady's law, the change of *ḥl to ld - may be analyzed into the following changes: *ḥl > *ḥdl > *ḥld > ld (cf. Conrady 1896: 59, Li …
Tibetan √lan ‘reply’ - Addendum
The authors gratefully acknowledge the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this research as part of the project ‘Tibetan in Digital Communication’
Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages
Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction
The State of Sino-Tibetan
testifies to sustained interest in this language family.Comparing the first and second editions provides a window onto 14 years of research.The book's girth has grown from 716 to 1010 pages.Newly treated languages include Mongsen Ao
Vowel purity and rhyme evidence in Old Chinese reconstruction
Rhyme patterns in Old Chinese poems are important for the reconstruction of Old Chinese pronunciation, as they provide evidence for groups of words which formerly had similar pronunciation. Rhyme patterns can also be used to test Old Chinese reconstruction systems for consistency and plausibility, as reconstruction systems should minimize the conflict with attested rhyme patterns. Here, we build on the idea that rhyming in Old Chinese followed th…
The use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging in the recording and analyses of Burmese Pyu inscriptions
The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese
The discovery of sound laws by comparing attested languages is the method which has unlocked the history of European languages stretching back thousands of years before the appearance of written records, e.g. Latin p- corresponds to English f- (pes, foot; primus, first; plenus, full). Although Burmese, Chinese, and Tibetan have long been regarded as related, the systematic exploration of their shared history has never before been attempted. Traci…
Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe, and Lila San Roque: Egophoricity
Few airline passengers meet the one word question 'Coffee?' with a baffled stare; the question clearly means 'Would you like some coffee?' despite the absence of verbs and pronouns.Questions ask about the addressee or his ken and statements give information about the speaker or her ken.This pattern, which I shall call the 'conversational presumption', is built into the fabric of human communication; it permits languages even without verb agreemen…
Making and agreeing to requests in Old Tibetan
The verbs གསོལ་ gsol `request' and གནང་ gnaṅ `agree, grant', because of theircomplementary semantics and parallel syntax, provide a convenient windowthrough which to caste light on the two forms of subordinate clausesthat they both govern, namely infinitives and terminative verbal nouns
Accusative alignment in the Old Tibetan switch reference system
The use of ནས་ - nas to mark cross-clausal co-reference in Version I of the Old Tibetan Rāmāyaṇa reveals accusative alignment in Tibetan syntax, which in turn vindicates the notion of ‘subject’ applied to Tibetan
Two notes on Proto-Ersuic
This paper looks at the history of Tosu using 'forward reconstruction'. It concludes that Proto-Ersuic changed *-im to *-am already before its breakup as a unity, but the ‘brightening’ of *-a- to -i- took place independently in Tosu and Lizu-Ersu. In Tosu this brightening did not target labial (or velar) initial words lacking an inherited medial *-j-. A number of changes in the history of Tosu probably preceded brightening, namely *-um, *-ak > -o…
Philosophy (23 works) · History (22 works) · Linguistics (21 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (15 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (14 works) · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations (12 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Burmese (5 works)