The Duhumbi perspective on Proto-Western Kho-Bwa onsets

Bibliographic Data

ID22024282
AuthorsTimotheus A Bodt (0000-0002-2024-0488, University of Bern, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume11
Issue1
Pages1-59
Publication date2021-04-16
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Historical Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2210-2116 • E-ISSN: 2210-2124
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/jhl.19021.bod
OpenAlexW3117606341
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited26

The eight Western Kho-Bwa varieties are spoken in western Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India and form a small, coherent sub-group of the Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan / Sino-Tibetan) language family. This paper presents 96 sound correspondences, mainly between the two Western Kho-Bwa varieties Duhumbi and Khoitam, with additional evidence from other Western Kho-Bwa varieties and other Tibeto-Burman languages whenever deemed illustrative. On basis of these sound correspondences, I propose 282 Western Kho-Bwa proto-forms including a total of 92 onsets. The less common reconstructed Western Kho-Bwa onsets are the uvular onsets and the voiceless nasal and approximant onsets. A unique innovation of the Western Kho-Bwa languages, and indeed the Kho-Bwa languages in general, is the correspondence of initial *s- in other Tibeto-Burman languages to a vocal onset in Proto-Western Kho-Bwa and its descendent varieties. Another relatively unique innovation is the correspondence between Western Kho-Bwa obstruent onsets *b- and *g- ~ *kh- ~ *k- and other Tibeto-Burman nasal onsets *m- and *ŋ-, respectively

Geography · Linguistics · Obstruent · History · Language and cultural evolution · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

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