The Tangam Language: Grammar, Lexicon and Texts 9004344322, 9789004344327

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements and Dedication
List of Plates, Figures, and Tables
Orthography and Other Conventions
List of Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Introduction to Tangam Language and Culture
A Who and Where are the Tangam?
B Linguistic and Cultural Context
C Material Culture and Traditions
D Looking Ahead
Chapter 2 Grammar
A Phonology and Morphophonology
1 Segmental Phonology
1.1 Segment Inventory
1.2 Phonemicity of Segments
1.3 Historical Phonology
2 Syllable Structure
2.1 Resyllabification of V.VV and VV.V Sequences
3 Stress
4 Tone
5 Phonological Processes I: Syllable Initials
5.1 Alternation among l and r
5.2 Alternation among s and h
5.3 Intervocalic Glide Deletion
6 Phonological Processes II: Syllable Finals
6.1 Type 1 – Light Syllables; Rhyme = -V
6.2 Type 2 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vː
6.3 Type 3 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vŋ
6.4 Type 4 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vk
6.5 Type 5 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vt
6.6 Type 6 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vn
6.7 Summary of Processes Affecting Syllable Finals
7 Phonological and Grammatical Words
B Lexicon and Morphology
8 Morphological Classes
9 Overview of Major Lexical Classes and Word Structures
10 Noun and Adjective Types and Structures
10.1 Common Nouns and Adjectives
10.2 Kinship Terms
10.3 Time Nouns
10.4 Adjective
11 Verb and Predicate Types and Structures
11.1 Predicate Types and Structures
11.2 Verb Types and Predicate Transitivity
11.3 Existence
11.4 Speech, Perception and Cognition
11.5 Predicate Derivations
11.6 Predicate Inflections
12 Minor Word Classes
12.1 Adverbs
12.2 Ideophones
12.3 Particles
C Syntax
13 Noun Phrase
13.1 Pronouns
13.2 Premodifiers 1: Genitive Phrases
13.3 Premodifiers 2: Nominalized Clauses and Relative Clause Formation
13.4 Post-modifiers: Numerals, Classifiers, Relator Nouns and Qualifying Nouns
13.5 Referential and Relational Marking
13.6 Coordination
14 Predicate Phrase
15 Clause Types
15.1 Predicative Clauses
15.2 Appositive Clauses
16 Dependent Clauses
16.1 Finite Conjoined
16.2 Co-Subordinate
16.3 Adverbial
16.4 Reported Speech and Related Complementation Constructions
17 Derived Clause Structures (Voice Constructions)
17.1 Applicative
17.2 Passive
17.3 Autonomous/Reflexive (“Middle”)
17.4 Collective and Reciprocal
18 Non-Declarative Speech Acts
18.1 Interrogative Clauses
18.2 Imperative and Hortative Clauses
Chapter 3 Lexicon
Index 1: English to Tangam
Index 2: Lower Adi to Tangam
Chapter 4 Texts
Text 1
Text 2
Text 3
Text 4
Bibliography
Index of Topics

Citation preview

The Tangam Language

Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library Edited by Henk Blezer Alex McKay Charles Ramble

Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region Edited by George L. van Driem

volume 19

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/btsl

The Tangam Language Grammar, Lexicon and Texts By

Mark W. Post With Contributing Assistance from Dugbang Lipir and Yankee Modi

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Gateway to the Tangam area, a bridge from Tuting town over the Siang (Tsangpo) River. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017012111

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1568-6183 isbn 978-90-04-34432-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34488-4 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents

Acknowledgements and Dedication ix List of Plates, Figures, and Tables xiii Orthography and Other Conventions xvi List of Abbreviations xviii

1 Introduction to Tangam Language and Culture 1 A Who and Where are the Tangam? 1 B Linguistic and Cultural Context 1 C Material Culture and Traditions 7 D Looking Ahead 11 2 Grammar 13 A Phonology and Morphophonology 13 1 Segmental Phonology 13 1.1 Segment Inventory 13 1.2 Phonemicity of Segments 14 1.3 Historical Phonology 16 2 Syllable Structure 21 2.1 Resyllabification of V.VV and VV.V Sequences 22 3 Stress 23 4 Tone 24 5 Phonological Processes I: Syllable Initials 25 5.1 Alternation among l and r 26 5.2 Alternation among s and h 28 5.3 Intervocalic Glide Deletion 30 6 Phonological Processes II: Syllable Finals 30 6.1 Type 1 – Light Syllables; Rhyme = -V 31 6.2 Type 2 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vː 33 6.3 Type 3 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vŋ 33 6.4 Type 4 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vk 34 6.5 Type 5 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vt 35 6.6 Type 6 – Heavy Syllables; Rhyme = -Vn 36 6.7 Summary of Processes Affecting Syllable Finals 38 7 Phonological and Grammatical Words 39

vi

Contents

B

Lexicon and Morphology 45 8 Morphological Classes 45 9 Overview of Major Lexical Classes and Word Structures 46 10 Noun and Adjective Types and Structures 47 10.1 Common Nouns and Adjectives 47 10.2 Kinship Terms 50 10.3 Time Nouns 51 10.4 Adjectives 52 11 Verb and Predicate Types and Structures 52 11.1 Predicate Types and Structures 52 11.2 Verb Types and Predicate Transitivity 55 11.3 Existence 57 11.4 Speech, Perception and Cognition 59 11.5 Predicate Derivations 59 11.6 Predicate Inflections 61 12 Minor Word Classes 70 12.1 Adverbs 70 12.2 Ideophones 72 12.3 Particles 72 C Syntax 74 13 Noun Phrase 74 13.1 Pronouns 76 13.2 Premodifiers 1: Genitive Phrases 80 13.3 Premodifiers 2: Nominalized Clauses and Relative Clause Formation 83 13.4 Post-modifiers: Numerals, Classifiers, Relator Nouns and Qualifying Nouns 88 13.5 Referential and Relational Marking 96 13.6 Coordination 108 14 Predicate Phrase 109 15 Clause Types 112 15.1 Predicative Clauses 113 15.2 Appositive Clauses 114 16 Dependent Clauses 117 16.1 Finite Conjoined 118 16.2 Co-Subordinate 118 16.3 Adverbial 120 16.4 Reported Speech and Related Complementation Constructions 123

vii

Contents

17

18

Derived Clause Structures (Voice Constructions) 126 17.1 Applicative 126 17.2 Passive 130 17.3 Autonomous/Reflexive (“Middle”) 131 17.4 Collective and Reciprocal 134 Non-Declarative Speech Acts 136 18.1 Interrogative Clauses 136 18.2 Imperative and Hortative Clauses 139

3 Lexicon 141 Index 1: English to Tangam  198 Index 2: Lower Adi to Tangam 233 4 Texts 260 Text 1: Prosperity 260 Text 2: Education 273 Text 3: Society 278 Text 4: Kids’ Future 284 Bibliography 295 Index of Topics 297

Acknowledgements and Dedication I would like to acknowledge the assistance of several people and organizations, without whose assistance this book could never have been successfully completed. I first thank Dugbang Lipir and Yankee Modi, my two contributing assistants. Dugbang Lipir is a native speaker of Tangam and a fluent speaker of Minyong (a variety of Upper Adi). He was my primary Tangam consultant, and is primarily responsible for producing and/or rechecking all of the TangamMinyong translations that occur in my database. Yankee Modi is a native speaker of Lower Adi, the Pasighat-area variety of Adi which functions as a lingua franca throughout most of the Siang River Valley. She reviewed all of the Minyong and English translations that appear in this book, regularized their presentation in terms of Lower Adi, and filled in a great number of “missing links” (usually, situations in which neither I nor my Tangam consultants could find the appropriate Minyong equivalent for a given Tangam expression). This book would have been impossible without both of their many hours of hard work over multiple revisions. When, in the main text of this book, statements such as “we have not found . . .” and “it seems to us that . . .” are found, the “we/ us” that is meant is the author and his two contributing assistants. I next thank the Taiwan National Science Council, which, under the aegis of grant NSC 100–2410-H-001–097-MY2 (PI Tian-Shin Jackson Sun), generously supported the three field trips (2012–2014) during which the data underlying this project were collected. I also thank the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL), a grant from which has facilitated printing of two hundred copies of a local edition of this book. The local edition was prepared and printed in hardcover by Bhabani Press of Guwahati, Assam in 2016, and has already been distributed by Dugbang Lipir among all Tangam-speaking households in Arunachal Pradesh, at no cost to them. I thank Zilpha Modi for assisting with transportation of the books from Guwahati to Itanagar, as well as for organizing the launching ceremony at Rajiv Gandhi University at which Dugbang Lipir was able to represent the Tangam community and accept the felicitations of the Vice Chancellor on his community’s behalf. I also thank my editor at Brill, Patricia Radder, who was gracious enough to permit the local edition of this book to be independently printed and distributed for the benefit of the Tangam community. In Pasighat, I thank the family of Jokut Modi, at whose house in Napit Village most of the data underlying this book were analysed. I also thank Lisa Lomdak at Rajiv Gandhi University, where Dugbang Lipir attended a language documentation workshop in 2011. It was Lisa Lomdak who initially put me in

x

Acknowledgements and Dedication

contact with Dugbang Lipir, and who thereby enabled the entire project to commence. Finally, I reserve my heartiest thanks for the Tangam people of Kuging Village, who sat with me for many long hours to teach me their language, and who housed, fed and cared for me and my family during our stays in Tuting and Kuging. As this book will show, Tangam is one of the most unique of all Tani languages. It is also one of the most wonderfully complex languages that I have ever known. In reading this book, it will be clear that the scale of data and depth of analysis herein are both somewhat shallow, by comparison with A Grammar of Galo and, indeed, by comparison with some other volumes in this series. I plead that this should not imply any disrespect to the Tangam people, and insist that it should not imply any negative assessment of the scale and complexity of Tangam language – far from it. Instead, the choice that has been made here is one of either continuing to sit on the material that I have presented herein for another three, six, or ten years, as I while away my life entangled in the jungle of red tape, meetings and emails that constitutes the bulk of the job of a modern Australian academic; or, instead, of publishing it in whatever form it is currently able to take, in hopes that it can be of at least some use in the more immediate term. Somewhat uncharacteristically, perhaps, I have chosen the second. Given the increasingly precarious circumstances of the Tangam language – spoken by only 150 people, very few of whose children will have lives very much like their parents’ – we cannot afford to ignore Tangam language any longer, if we do not wish to witness its disappearance from the Earth altogether – if not in my lifetime, at least, quite possibly within the lifetimes of my and my consultants’ grandchildren. If anything is to be done about this, that something must begin to happen soon. I hope very much that this book may provide some sort of foundation, or at least an impetus, for the conservation and development of Tangam language, for the benefit of its speakers, their children, and indeed humanity as a whole. Tangam is truly an extraordinary language; it is a language rich in expressiveness and complexity at every level, and it is one whose speakers are passionate, optimistic, and wonderfully welcoming and kind. I thus offer this book to the Tangam-speaking people of Kuging Village, together with my admiration, and my gratitude.

xi

Plate 1

Leaving Tuting for a field trip to Kuging Village. Left to right: Dugbang Lipir, Yankee Modi, Neppi, Mark W. Post, Christopher Modi Post (inside backpack), Baamut Lipir, Geebo Siibo.

Plate 2

Gateway to the Tangam area, a hanging bridge over the Siang River. Yankee Modi is crossing the bridge, with Tuting town in the background. From this point, it is four hours via a footpath to Kuging Village.

xii

Plate 3

Children playing on a community field in Kuging Village. Most of the village is visible on the hill in the background.

Plate 4

Fieldwork in Kuging Village. Dugbang Lipir is explaining the process of text collection to his grandfather Baduk Lipir; Dugbang’s father-in-law Laǰong Tamut will act as Baduk Lipir’s interlocutor.

List of Plates, Figures, and Tables Plates 1 2 3 4 5 6

Leaving Tuting for a field trip to Kuging Village. Left to right: Dugbang Lipir, Yankee Modi, Neppi, Mark W. Post, Christopher Modi Post (inside backpack), Baamut Lipir, Geebo Siibo xi Gateway to the Tangam area, a hanging bridge over the Siang River. Yankee Modi is crossing the bridge, with Tuting town in the background. From this point, it is four hours via a footpath to Kuging Village xi Children playing on a community field in Kuging Village. Most of the village is visible on the hill in the background xii Fieldwork in Kuging Village. Dugbang Lipir is explaining the process of text collection to his grandfather Baduk Lipir; Dugbang’s father-in-law Laǰong Tamut will act as Baduk Lipir’s interlocutor xii Preparing sago for fementation (video still) 8 House of Dugbang Lipir, Kuging Village 9

Figures 1

North-eastern India, showing the approximate location of Upper Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh in rectangular outline 2 2 Tuting-Yingkyong Assembly Constituency, in the north of Upper Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh 3 3 Provisional family tree of the Tani languages 6 4 The Tangam syllable canon 21 5 Type 1 predicate 52 6 Predicate stem structures 53 7 Type 2 predicate 54 8 Basic structure of a Tangam pronominal noun phrase 75 9 Basic structure of a Tangam nominal noun phrase 76 10 Mapping of an action nominalization onto NP structure 85 11 Mapping of a noun complement clause onto NP structure 85 12 Predicate phrase structure 112

xiv

List of Plates, Figures, and Tables

Tables 1 Sound changes in Galo, Tangam and Minyong 5 2 Tangam vowel inventory 14 3 Tangam consonant inventory 14 4 Phonemicity of Tangam vowels 15 5 Phonemicity of Tangam consonants 16 6 Reflexes of Proto-Tani vowels in Tangam 18 7 Reflexes of Proto-Tani initial consonants in Tangam 19 8 Reflexes of Proto-Tani initial clusters in Tangam 20 9 Reflexes of Proto-Tani codas in Tangam 21 10 Heavy and light syllables in Tangam 22 11 Some minimal pairs on tone in Tangam 25 12 Conditions for the alternation of Tangam l and r 26 13 Illustrated distribution of reflexes of Proto-Tani *l and *r in Tangam 26 14 Conditions for the alternation of Tangam h and s 28 15 Illustrated distribution of reflexes of Proto-Tani *s in Tangam 29 16 Syllable types in Tangam, according to weight and rhyme/coda 31 17 Variant forms of Type 3 syllables (-Vŋ final) 33 18 Illustrated alternations among -ŋ final syllables 34 19 Variant forms of Type 4 syllables (-Vk final) 34 20 Illustrated alternations among -k final syllables 35 21 Variant forms of Type 5 syllables (-Vt final) 35 22 Illustrated alternations among -t final syllables 36 23 Variant forms of Type 6 syllables (-Vn final) 37 24 Illustrated alternations among -n final syllables 37 25 Summary of alternations among Tangam syllable finals, Types 3–6 38 26 Criteria for the identification of grammatical words 40 27 Criteria for the identification of phonological words 41 28 Morphological classes in Tangam 45 29 Basic Tangam word structures (nouns and adjectives) 46 30 Basic Tangam word structures (verbs) 47 31 Prefixation and compounding in the nominal/adjectival lexicon 48 32 Some nouns with the te- prefix 49 33 Some nouns with the hi- prefix 49 34 Some nouns with the pe- prefix 49 35 Relative time nouns: days and years 51 36 Transitivity types in Tangam verbs/predicates 56 37 Existential verbs 57

List Of Plates, Figures, And Tables

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Types of predicate derivations 60 Aspectual inflections 62 Tangam focus particles 73 Tangam connectivity particles 75 Tangam personal pronouns 76 Tangam interrogative pronouns 77 Tangam demonstratives 78 Tangam basic numerals 89 Tangam higher numerals 91 Tangam classifiers 93 Tangam relator nouns 94 Marking of core arguments, summary 105 Marking of adjunct NPs 108 Tangam dependent clauses 118

xv

Orthography and Other Conventions This book presents Tangam language in an IPA-based practical orthography designed by the author and his assistants. We here compare our Tangam orthography (top line) with its IPA equivalents (bottom line). Where applicable, the sort order followed is based on Nagari sort order: polar vowels followed by central vowels, then stops, liquids and fricatives. Stops are ordered by place of articulation: velars, palatals, dentals and labials in the order voiceless oral, voiced oral, and (voiced) nasal. a i u e o ɨ ə k g ŋ c ǰ ɲ t d n p bmy r l s h ʔ a i u e o ɨ ə k g ŋʨ ʥ ɲ t d n p bm j r l s h ʔ A few other conventions should be noted. Grammatical meanings are presented in abbreviated smallcaps. A list of abbreviations and their approximate meanings is presented in the following section. Stars (*) almost always mark reconstructed Proto-Tani forms, except in the very small set of numbered examples in which they indicate unacceptability. Hyphens typically mark bound morphemes, including prefixes (te-), suffixes (-do) and bound roots (de-). Glosses immediately follow Tangam words or morphemes, set off by single quotes, thus: de- ‘eat’. Examples are in essence presented in the standard “fourline” format, in which the top line represents a Tangam utterance, the second line parses it into words and (whenever possible and relevant) their constituent morphemes, the third line glosses the words and morphemes, and the fourth line gives a free translation of the top line utterance. However, in this book we have included two free translations for all examples, the first a translation into the Eastern Tani language Lower Adi, and the second a translation into English. There are a number of reasons for including both Lower Adi and English translations. First, since Lower Adi is a widely-spoken lingua franca in the Tangam area, inclusion of Lower Adi translations should increase this book’s accessibility to a local readership. Second, inclusion of Lower Adi translations will greatly facilitate the analysis of Tangam language in a comparative Tani context. For the sake of uniformity, data from other Tani languages, including Proto-Tani and Lower Adi, are presented in the same IPA-based orthography described above and used for Tangam. In presenting Lower Adi data in this way, we make no statement or claim regarding the appropriateness of our practical Tangam orthography to the representation of Lower Adi language; although we judge it to be phonologically adequate, the ideal orthographic representation of Lower Adi is a matter we leave to be determined by the Adi community itself.

Orthography And Other Conventions

xvii

(1) nodɨ kambɨt aahuto. nodɨ kambɨt aŋ-hu-to 3.SG by.self come-autn/refl-pfv ‘bɨɨ aɨgə aasuto.’ ‘He came by himself.’ Finally, a few remarks regarding the representation of word boundaries in Tangam: “word” is not a simple concept in Tani. Although “word” is easily enough defined from a grammatical perspective, the phonologies of Tani languages can vary widely in terms of whether and how they make reference to a unit “word”, and the unit(s) so identified may or may not line up very well with the “word” units which are defined in terms of the grammar. In Tangam, definition of phonological “words” is extremely problematic, and it may indeed be that there is no specifically phonological justification for identification of a “word” level unit at all (see Chapter 2, §A.7). This being the case, and for ease of presentation, numbered examples in this book will always follow grammatical word boundaries in the identification of word units bounded by spaces, as in example (1) above.

List of Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used in this book to indicate grammatical functions of Tangam morphemes. A Transitive actor ABIL Ability abl Ablative acc Accusative achv Achievement ADV Adverbial ALT Alternative anap Anaphoric ANTR Anterior ARG Argument Asm Assamese ATTN Attainment autn Autonomous ben Benefactive Bod Bodic cata Cataphoric caus Causative CFAC Counterfactual CL Clause clf Classifier cmpl Completive CNJ Conjunction COMP Comparative comt Comitative CONC Concessive cond Conditional cont Continuous cop Copula cos Change-of-state COSUB Cosubordinate dat Dative DECL Declarative def Definite/known/given

dir Direct DISP Disposal dl Dual dst Distal Eng English EPF Experiential perfect EPIS Episodic EV Event EXCL Exclamation exh Exhaustive F New/unassimilated information foc Focus gen Genitive GENP Genitive phrase HEST Hesitation Hin Hindi hort Hortative icep Inceptive incl Inclusive incp Incipient ind Indefinite/unknown/new Ind Indic inst Instrumental int interrogative ipfv imperfective IPTV Imperative irr Irrealis LAdi Lower Adi loc Locative man Manner MED Medial Mny Minyong

List Of Abbreviations N Noun nagt Non-agentive NCMPL Noun complement neg Negative nf Non-final NOM Nominal NP Noun phrase NZD Nominalized nzr Nominalizer O Transitive undergoer OBJ Object PASS Passive PERS Persistive pf Perfect pfv Perfective pl Plural POSMOD Post-modifier pq Polar question PRED Predicate PREMOD Pre-modifier PRO Pronoun proh Prohibitive prx Proximate PT Proto-Tani PURP Purpose QNOM Qualifying noun

xix rdup Reduplicant reas Reason REF Referential refl Reflexive REL Relational RELC Relative clause REP Reportative REPT Repetitive RQE Referential qualifying expression S Intransitive single argument sbrd Subordinate seq Sequential sg Singular Shi Shimong slev Same-level subj Subject sugg Suggestive T Old/assimilated information tag Question tag TENT Tentative tmp Temporal Tng Tangam V Verb via Viative VIS Visual

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Tangam Language and Culture A

Who and Where are the Tangam?

The Tangam language [taŋam] is spoken by around 150 Tani hill-tribespeople in the Upper Siang District of the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh, in the central Eastern Himalaya. The primary Tangam-speaking village is Kuging [kugɨŋ], a village which had twenty-six households in 2013. Nyereng [ɲereŋ] and Mayung [mayuŋ] are smaller villages in the same area in which much smaller numbers of Tangam speakers can be found. Several Tangam speakers have established households in the nearby town of Tuting [tutɨŋ], a melting pot of speakers of Bodic languages, speakers of Upper Adi varieties, and Hindi-speaking shopkeepers and Indian military personnel. However, the roots of Tangam speakers remain firmly in the village of Kuging, which is where research for this book was primarily conducted. The word “Tangam” is itself of uncertain origin, and may not have been used as an autonym for the Tangam-speaking group, or for their language, until recent times (in general in the Tani-speaking area, individuals primarily identify themselves in terms of clan and village affiliations, and only secondarily – if at all – adhere to broader ethnolinguistic labels such as “Tangam” or “Adi”). Nevertheless, the label “Tangam” does not seem to be at all objectionable to Tangam speakers, and will be used in this book to refer both to the Tangam language, and to the group of people who speak it. B

Linguistic and Cultural Context

Tangam is a member of the Tani subgroup of Trans-Himalayan [= Sino-Tibetan or Tibeto-Burman] languages – one of the largest and most diverse language families in the world. As a Trans-Himalayan language, Tangam is distantly related to Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese, as well as many of its Eastern Himalayan neighbour languages such as Kera’a (Idu), Koro, Bugun, and so on. However, the closest linguistic relatives of Tangam are other languages of the Tani subgroup, such as Apatani, Galo and Lower Adi. Within their immediate vicinity, Tangam speakers are traditionally bordered on the east, west and south by speakers of closely related Tani languages. To the south and west are found speakers of Aashing, an Eastern Tani lect with a relatively small population and distribution, in addition to speakers of other © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004344884_002

2

CHAPTER 1

Figure 1

North-eastern India, showing the approximate location of Upper Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh in rectangular outline (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Tuting-Yingkyong Assembly Constituency, in the north of Upper Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh.

Introduction To Tangam Language And Culture

3

4

CHAPTER 1

Upper Adi varieties. To the north and east, we find speakers of Bodic languages, and beyond them still, speakers of Kera’a (Idu). Most if not all of these populations are also represented, together with equally large populations of Hindispeaking shopkeepers and military personnel, in the nearby town of Tuting. Due to their small population size and to the low degree of Tangam’s mutual intelligibility with neighbouring languages, it is common for Tangam speakers to become bilingual in at least one other language of the broader area, and sometimes two or three. The second language most often adopted by Tangam is an upper variety of Minyong, an Adi dialect which, while it remains undescribed, is broadly similar to the Lower Adi variety which is frequently referenced in this book. Some Tangam also learn other Adi varieties, according to their needs. In earlier years, some Tangam also learned Bodic languages such as Tshangla or Khams Tibetan to communicate with the more powerful Tibetan groups to their immediate north. However, in the modern Indian state context, the common use of Arunachali Hindi by Tani speakers and Bodic speakers alike has rendered the learning of a Bodic language by Tangam largely unnecessary. In 2013, we could only find a small number of elderly Tangam males who were speakers of a Bodic lect. Almost all residents of Kuging Village who were of school age and above in 2013 were fluent in Minyong or some other closely-related Adi variety, and almost all Tangam speakers of middle age or below were also fluent in Arunachali Hindi. We found no children in Kuging Village who did not learn Tangam fluently as their first language, and we did find a small number of elderly Tangam monolinguals. Further remarks on the vitality of Tangam language will be found in the conclusion to this chapter. The precise status of Tangam in the Tani subgroup has yet to be conclusively determined. At the time that the eminent Taiwanese scholar Tian-Shin Jackson Sun wrote A Comparative-Historical Study of the Tani (Mirish) Branch of TibetoBurman (Sun 1993), the only Tangam data available was a short wordlist in the ethnographic sketch of Bhattacharjee (1975). On the basis of Bhattacharjee’s data, and citing statements also made in Anonymous (1987), Sun indicated that Tangam could perhaps be tentatively grouped with the Damu (Miguba) language spoken in Motuo County in Tibet. Around a decade later, Tapoli Badu published his Tangam Language Guide (Badu 2004). Although it is much larger than Bhattacharjee’s wordlist, and contains some tantalising glimpses into Tangam grammar (in addition to an ample vocabulary), Badu’s analyses of Tangam phonology and grammar were not fully and systematically justified; accordingly, this work was of uncertain reliability for historical-comparative purposes. An examination of our data indicates that determining the precise genealogical status of Tangam may not be straightforward. At first glance, Tangam seems to align best with the Eastern Tani branch of Tani languages, most of

5

Introduction To Tangam Language And Culture

which can be said to fall within the “Adi” dialect cluster: like more mainstream Adi varieties, Tangam lacks characteristic Western Tani innovations such as velar palatalization and labial palatalization (Sun 1993: §3.2.1), and similarly resolves the Proto-Tani cluster *ry- to y- as in Eastern Tani, rather than retaining ry- or shifting to ly- or r- as in most Western Tani lects (Sun 1993: 128). Furthermore, and again like Eastern Tani lects, Tangam retains ProtoTani velar nasal syllable coda *-ŋ (in some, though not all, environments). These frequently-occurring and to a degree iconic segmental features noticeably mark Tangam to other Tani speakers as being similar to other Eastern Tani lects, and to (therefore, perhaps) plausibly fall within the Adi dialect cluster despite its relatively low degree of intelligibility to other Adi speakers in general. In other respects, however, Tangam aligns more closely with Western Tani languages. For example, unlike Eastern Tani languages, Tangam does not retain Proto-Tani *-t² codas, but instead – like most Western Tani languages – drops them with no compensatory effects. Furthermore, Tangam joins most Western Tani languages in retaining voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate *c- initials rather than merging them to s- or h- as the Eastern Tani languages tend to do. (Table 1). Table 1

Sound changes in Galo, Tangam and Minyong

Sound change

PT

Galo (WT)

Tangam

L. Adi (ET)

Gloss

Velar palatalization

*ki *ken *mik *mi *ryi *ryek *duŋ *b(r)at² *caŋ

cìcènɲɨ́kɲírɨ́rə́ kduubacaa-

kikinmikmiyɨyɨkduŋbacaŋ-

kikenmikmiyiyekduŋbatsaŋ-

‘ill’ ‘know’ ‘eye’ ‘man’ ‘bow’ ‘pig’ ‘sit’ ‘vomit’ ‘ascend’

Labial palatalization Deliquidation Velar nasal drop Coda *t²-drop Fricative shifts

Given these facts, one possibility would be to suppose that Tangam may descend from a pre-Western-Tani ancestor shared by Apatani, Galo, and other Western Tani languages. After branching off from this dialect group – and, perhaps, after a change in linguistic context induced by migration – Tangam

6

CHAPTER 1

would have then undergone some of the characteristic sound changes that have been suggested by Post (2013a) to have spread within the greater Siang River Valley into languages from several Tani branches, and to have taken on the more Eastern Tani-like character that we now find today as a result of language contact and the consequent areal diffusion of innovations (Figure 3). Similar remarks might be made concerning the lower-level subgrouping of Tangam within Tani. Although Sun (1993: §1.3) notes that Tangam shares a number of characteristic innovations with Damu, and perhaps also with Shimong and Aashing, lack of first-hand field data from these other Tani languages prevents us from drawing any firm conclusions concerning their potential alignment with Tangam. Finally, the question of Tangam dialectology: with a population of only around 150 speakers, inhabiting a fairly compact area in which most people are in fairly regular contact, it might be thought that relatively few opportunities for dialectal differentiation among the Tangam might exist. In general, the Tangam language does seem to be fairly uniform, however some clear indications of systematic variation have nonetheless been found. For example, with regard to applications of the complex set of morphophonological processes found in Tangam Proto-Tani Pre-Western Tani

Western Tani Damu Apatani

Bangni-Tagin

Figure 3

Milang

Eastern Tani Tangam Bori

Siang

Subansiri

Nyishi- Galo Hill Miri Lare

Bokar

Minyong

Pasi Padam

Mising Pugo

Provisional family tree of the Tani languages (revision of Sun 1993).

Introduction To Tangam Language And Culture

7

(see Chapter Two, §A.6), it has been found that some speakers may apply some rules differently from some others. Consider the following exchange from a spoken text (2)–(3): here, speaker Dugbang Lipir – who was the primary Tangam consultant for this book – realizes the final n of the root dun- ‘muntjac’ as [n] in the environment of a following d, and as [s] in the environment of a following s (observing the rule described in Chapter 2, §A.6.6). Speaker Laǰong Tamut, Lipir’s father-in-law – who lives about forty metres away from him – systematically deletes this n in both environments, instead compensatorily lengthening the nuclear vowel – here, and, indeed, throughout this rather long text. (2) DL: ahɨge; ŋyen ahɨgen? ahɨk=e ŋen ahɨk=en skin=cop what skin=ind ‘asigə; ɨŋko asigə?’ ‘(So) it’s a skin; what (sort of) a skin?’ (3) LT: hiduu duusɨge. DL: hidun dussɨge. hidun dussɨk=e hidun dussɨk=e muntjac skin.muntjac=cop muntjac skin.muntjac=cop ‘LT: sidum dumsigə. DL: sidum dumsigə.’ ‘LT: It’s a muntjac skin. DL: A muntjac skin.’ It was not possible when preparing this work to determine the extent to which this and other similar differences should be described as idiolectal idiosyncrasies or as dialect differences, to say nothing of the circumstances in which dialect differentiation within such a small community might have occurred. This would be a fascinating, if potentially very challenging, topic for further field research. C

Material Culture and Traditions

Like all Tani groups of Arunachal Pradesh – and despite the relatively high altitude of their villages, from which enormous glaciers are clearly visible and where it will occasionally snow even on the village itself in winter – the speakers of Tangam language are prototypical Trans-Himalayan hill-tribespeople, with a material culture which is broadly compatible with that of most other hill peoples of Greater Mainland Southeast Asia. Like other Siang-area Tanispeaking groups, Tangam villages are located on hillsides, nearby but not directly adjacent to a river. The primary productive strategy in Tangam-speaking

8

Plate 5

CHAPTER 1

Preparing sago for fementation (video still).

villages is hillside grain agriculture, with perhaps a dozen varieties of wet and dry rices in regular cultivation, together with millets, sorghum, maize and Job’s tear. Millets are primarily grown for fermentation in apoŋ beer, to which the Tangam typically add finely-chopped sago pith (core of the trunk, with outer skin removed) – a rare technique in the Eastern Tani area, where sago is nowadays almost never prepared for human consumption.1 Tangam also tend kitchen gardens, where varieties of Solanum (eggplants) are grown together with various chili peppers, in addition to mustards and other leafy plants. Bamboo is used as a building material as well as a foodstuff (often diced and fermented as the sour-and-savoury flavouring agent deekyuŋ). Grain agriculture and kitchen gardens are balanced with extensive foraging for wild plants and mushrooms, including the incomparably delicious wild shiitake. Domestic animals include dogs, chickens, pigs, and bovines. Pigs are often kept confined in an ugyun, a pigsty-cum-toilet in which human waste is usefully recycled as pig fodder. The prototypical bovine in the Tangam area is the semi-domesticated, mountaindwelling mithun (Bos frontalis), however in modern times, mithun are often 1  To the far west of the Tani area, sago consumption remains popular, for example among the Bangni and the non-Tani Puroik.

Introduction To Tangam Language And Culture

Plate 6

9

House of Dugbang Lipir, Kuging Village.

cross-bred with cattle, and the two animals are not generally distinguished. Bovines are traditionally used by Tangam speakers as sources of meat protein only, not as draught animals. Dogs are used as guards, and also in hunting. Wild animals hunted by the Tangam include a wide range of high-altitude ungulates such as the Himalayan goral (Nemorhedus goral), Himalayan serow (Capricornis thar), Mishmi takin (Budorcas taxicolour), barking deer (Muntiacus spp.) and musk deer (Moschus spp.), in addition to langurs, wild boars and civets. Smaller prey includes a great range of jungle rodents (usually trapped) and birds (usually shot), as well as trout and other cold river fish. Tangam houses are typically raised from the ground, and are constructed using bamboo, wood planks, and teo cane thatched roofs. A small number of architectural features, such as covered joints and framed windows, are uncommon in the Tani area and may be signs of Tibetan influence. Inside is a large meran fireplace, which serves as the nexus of almost all domestic activities. Suspended above the meran is a large complex of racks, on which various tools, pots, baskets and other implements are kept and where meats and other items are smoke-dried over the fire. Guests warm themselves in the pedaŋ, the side of the meran which is closest to the door, or – if there are many guests – in the kooraŋ, a passageway adjacent to the fireplace. Opposite

10

CHAPTER 1

the kooraŋ is the laaɲo, where the father of the house sits and warms himself with other privileged members of his family. To his left and opposite the pedaŋ is the ləəɲɨŋ, where the mother of the house sits and works with easier access to passageways. Nearby to the parents’ seating areas is the mondin, where various hunting trophies such as the skulls of wild pigs, deer and takin are accumulated. Tangam traditionally maintain an animist-shamanist knowledge system, which seems to be identical to that of other Tani groups (in its basic outlines, at least). Despite the geographical proximity of Tangam speakers to Tibetans, and despite the high value that Tangam traditionally place on various platters, pot shards, ornaments and other mostly bronze and silver items of apparent Tibetan origin, there is little evidence that Tangam underwent any sort of sustained conversion to Buddhism in earlier times. There are no temples in Tangam villages, no altars in Tangam houses, and no Buddha images among the possessions of any Tangam people we encountered. Ritual objects of apparent Tibetan origin may be used in various Tangam rituals, just as they are among most if not all Tani groups. However, their function and value seem to be interpreted and defined in relation to the Tani animist-shamanist context itself, rather than being directly imported from the Buddhist traditions of Bodic speakers. In more recent times – perhaps on the order of a generation – exposure of Tangam to Buddhist beliefs and practices has started to increase. The recent construction of a large Buddhist monastery and temple in the nearby town of Tuting has encouraged Tangam to visit, learn, participate in meals, and even send some young children to study with the resident monks. Local political leaders primarily emerge from the relatively larger and more politically organized Bodic-speaking groups of the Tuting area, and Tangam are aware of the consequent material, educational and political advantages that might be gained by adapting to aspects of Tibetan culture and its iconography. A few signs of cultural convergence are now becoming evident: for example, a stone pile at the entrance of Kuging village must be passed on the right rather than on the left – a distinctly Tibetan, rather than Tani, cultural tradition. And, there is a relatively larger number of Bodic loanwords now in use in Tangam language than we find in the languages of most other Tani groups, most of whom seem much more inclined to borrow lexemes from Indic languages of the Assam plains and beyond, as well as (in the modern era) from English. Only time will tell whether the current and steadily increasing scale of contact between Tangam and both Bodic and Hindi speaking communities may lead to cultural-linguistic convergence on an even larger scale.

Introduction To Tangam Language And Culture

D

11

Looking Ahead

As we look toward the future of Tangam language, we must first note that speakers of Tangam, like most peoples of Arunachal Pradesh, now find themselves at a historical turning point. At the present time, the Tangam language is every bit as vital as any other language of its immediate region. As noted above, all Tangam children that we encountered in Kuging Village either had learned or were learning Tangam as a first language, and most children preferred to speak Tangam to their family members, to other villagers, and to one another. This is not what we find in all Tani-speaking villages. Even in some of the remotest Galo-speaking villages, it is common to find young Galo children speaking to one another in Arunachali Hindi. However, given the factors of small population size, lack of availability of primary or secondary education in Tangam language, and the necessity of learning a lingua franca in order to communicate with outsiders, it is obvious that most younger Tangam will need to learn at least one and perhaps as many as four languages other than Tangam, and that many will end up speaking these languages more often than they speak Tangam throughout the remainder of their lives. These factors of course threaten the ongoing vitality of Tangam language, and to these factors we need to add the additional factors of increased exposure to outsiders and outside media, and the increased likelihood of outward migration among young Tangam. The average Tangam child of today will perhaps speak primarily Tangam until about age five, and then quickly learn Minyong (or another Adi variety) as soon as they begin primary education. Almost as quickly, modern Tangam children will begin learning Arunachali Hindi, and the more economically fortunate among these children may be sent to a boarding school at which Hindi is spoken almost exclusively. As this book was going to press, it was learned that a long-planned vehicle road linking Kuging Village directly to Tuting town has finally been completed, and there is no doubt that this will dramatically increase contacts of Kuging villagers with outsiders, facilitate the outward migration of Tangam speakers to Tuting and parts beyond it, and speed the decline of Tangam language as the primary medium of communication in the Tangam-speaking area. To this must be added the fact that, as marriages between Tangam speakers and speakers of other languages become more common – a virtual necessity within a population of only 150 souls – the opportunities that Tangam speakers will have to pass Tangam language on to their children will decrease as a consequence. The modern-day Tangam speakers thus find themselves at a point in their history at which a number of forces are combining to threaten the future

12

CHAPTER 1

vitality of their language. Although there may be nothing inherently undesirable about many of the changes that are currently taking place in the Tangam-speaking area – and certainly no suggestion is here being made to the contrary – the fact nevertheless remains that the conditions under which Tangam language can be securely passed down to future generations in a substantially unchanged form are rapidly disappearing. Under the circumstances, and again given the small population of Tangam speakers by almost any measure, Tangam language must be considered to be critically endangered, and to merit serious attention by linguists, by archivists, and by policymakers. The good news, of course, is that given Tangam’s current vitality, there is no reason in principle why Tangam language should not be able to be preserved, used and enjoyed by Tangam people, their children and their neighbours for many decades yet to come – in parallel with, rather than instead of, the many “newer” languages that Tangam speakers are now learning. However, experience suggests that this will not happen in the absence of effort, both on the parts of individuals and institutions. It is hoped that this book, and its locally-adapted version published in 2016, will count as a small but necessary step forward in recognizing the nature, status and value of Tangam language, and that these books may also help to provide a foundation for the language maintenance and revitalization efforts Tangam that speakers are likely to need in the nottoo-distant future.

CHAPTER 2

Grammar This chapter presents a sketch of Tangam grammar. Its goal is to treat all of the basic categories and constructions which are exemplified in our existing database and text corpus, and to justify their description and analysis using modern linguistic methods for the first time. As we begin, it must be clearly stated that the database that underlies this analysis represents a collection effort of months rather than years. As a consequence, and due to the relatively small scale of this database and the genre-biased nature of the existing text corpus (mostly monologues and narratives, with comparatively little of the face-to-face conversation that makes up the bulk of Tangam language use), there must be no doubt that several features of Tangam grammar have either not yet been discovered or are not yet thoroughly understood, and that further research on a larger and more diverse text corpus will be required to discover and/or adequately describe them. Therefore, while language typologists and comparative linguists should find ample material to answer most basic types of question in what follows, the present chapter is – or at least, it should be – far from the last word on Tangam grammar. The body of this chapter is organized into three main sections: A. Phonology and Morphophonology, B. Lexicon and Morphology, and C. Syntax. A

Phonology and Morphophonology

1 Segmental Phonology 1.1 Segment Inventory Tangam has the seven-vowel system that is common to most other Tani languages, and that reconstructs with relative ease to the Proto-Tani stage: there are three high and three mid vowels at front, central and back positions, and one low vowel (Table 2). The Tangam consonant inventory is also typical for a Tani language. We find voiced and voiceless oral stops and voiced nasals at labial, alveolar, alveolopalatal and velar places of articulation; the alveolo-palatal stops are in fact phonetically affricated, but can be considered on phonological grounds to fall within the stop series.1 Two voiceless fricatives are found, one glottal 1  Primarily, in filling a paradigmatic “gap” that would be present at the alveolo-palatal place of articulation if stops and affricates were presented separately.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004344884_003

14 Table 2

High Mid Low

Table 3

CHAPTER 2 Tangam vowel inventory (all symbols represent IPA values) Front

Central

Back

i e

ɨ ə a

u o

Tangam consonant inventory (symbols represent IPA values, except where the IPA value is given in [brackets])

Labial Alveolar (Alveolo-)Palatal Velar Glottal

-V Stop

+V Stop

Nasal

p t c [ʨ] k ʔ

b d j̆ [ʥ] g

m n ɲ ŋ

Fricative

Approximant

s [s ~ ɕ]

l, r y [j]

h

and one varying between alveolar and alveolo-palatal places – depending on the speaker and the occasion. The alveolar variant seems to be innovative, and to be used mostly by younger speakers and/or speakers with relatively more exposure to Lower Adi (in which the corresponding fricative is almost always alveolar). Three voiced approximants are found, a trilled or flapped alveolar rhotic, an alveolar lateral, and a palatal glide. Finally, Tangam makes rather extensive use of a glottal stop, by comparison with most other Tani languages. Table 3 presents the Tangam consonant inventory. Note that IPA values representing phonetic realizations are given in square brackets when they differ from the standard values of our orthographic forms. 1.2 Phonemicity of Segments All Tangam vowels are straightforwardly phonemic. Table 4 demonstrates the phonemicity of Tangam vowels via a series of minimal and near-minimal pairs in non-conditioning environments. Most Tangam consonants are also straightforwardly phonemic. Some exceptions, or perhaps near-exceptions, are r, s and ʔ:

15

Grammar Table 4

Phonemicity of Tangam vowels

Vowel

Form

Gloss

a i u e o ə ɨ

adu idu udu e odu əədu ɨdu

‘pick (a flower)’ ‘do (something)’ ‘boil, of water’ ‘definite/given/known article’ ‘fall, of rain’ ‘scoot; move by shifting buttocks’ ’ ‘pound using a pestle’

The bulk of our data indicate that the pairs l/r and h/s each display complementary distribution in terms of the native Tangam lexicon; for example, r- and s- do not generally occur in the initial position of a Tangam phonological word, whereas l and h both do (see §A.5 for further details). Accordingly, Tangam morphemes that display an l/r or h/s alternation in this book are represented via an l- or an hrespectively in underlying forms. For example, consider the root lak- ‘arm/hand’, which is realized [rak] in arak ‘arm/hand’ but [lak] in laʔki ‘left arm/hand’. However, a small number of words in our database show r- and s- in wordinitial position; for example, ruŋ ‘very’ and sobo ‘male wildcat’, the latter of which forms a minimal pair with hobo ‘bovine bull’. It seems likely that the unusual r-initial and s-initial words in our database are all recent loans; certainly, the majority of s-initial words in our database are clearly recent loans (see p. 193). Nevertheless, their existence could support an analysis of all four consonants as phonemes. Glottal stop ʔ presents a slightly different case. Glottal stop is non-contrastive in word-initial and word-final positions in Tangam, and does not occur in the underlying forms of Tangam morphemes (lexical roots and affixes).2 However, several of the morphophonological processes described in §A.6 create glottal stops in word-medial positions. As a result of these morphophonological processes, glottal stop is a pervasive and noticeable feature of Tangam speech, and it does produce minimal pairs at the word level, at least; for example: aato ‘came’ and aʔto ‘shot’ (from underlying aŋ-to ‘come-pfv’ and at-to ‘shoot-pfv’). Thus, there is an argument for analysing glottal stop as an at least 2  Vowel-initial words generally occur with a glottal stop onset in Tangam, even in phrase-medial position. However, and unlike in some other Tani languages (such as Galo), the glottal stop onset does not produce morpholexical contrasts in Tangam.

16 Table 5

CHAPTER 2 Phonemicity of Tangam consonants ( forms given in parentheses are marginally phonemic)

Consonant

Form

Gloss

k g ŋ c j̆ ɲ t d n p b m y (r) l (s) h (ʔ)

kadu gedu ŋadu caadu j̆aadu ɲaddu tadu dadu nandu padu badu maadu yaadu ruŋ laadu samu haddu aʔto

‘filter rice beer’ ‘carry/wear’a ‘breathe’ ‘ascend’ ‘strong’ ‘shift the body’ ‘listen’ ‘lie down’ ‘smell’b ‘strike as to cut’ ‘vomit’ ‘creep, as a creeping plant’ ‘rotten’ ‘very (< Mny?)’ ‘elbow’ ‘bolete (< Bod)’ ‘grab with pincers’ ‘shot’

a Also consider -ga ‘pfv’, which forms a minimal morpheme pair with ka- ‘filter rice beer’. b Also consider na ‘decl’, which forms a minimal morpheme pair with ka- ‘filter rice beer’.

marginal phoneme, even if it is not responsible for contrasts in the underlying forms of Tangam morphemes. Table 5 illustrates the phonemicity of Tangam consonants via a series of minimal and near-minimal pairs in non-conditioning environments. 1.3 Historical Phonology Most Tangam segments in the underlying forms of morphemes conservatively reflect the Proto-Tani segment inventory reconstructed by Sun (1993: 57). The Proto-Tani seven vowel system *a, *i, *u, *e, *o, *ɨ, *ə is mostly preserved among the low and back vowels, however the high, front and central vowels

Grammar

17

exhibit a few possibly relatable changes.3 Most noticeably, the very common Tani vowel *ə regularly shifts to e in Tangam, as in PT *a-mə > Tng ame ‘fire’. The fronting of this very frequent vowel results in the perception of a distinctly Tangam ‘accent’ among Tani language speakers. On the other hand, *e frequently raises to i, as in PT *lak-ke > Tng laʔki ‘left hand’ and PT *met > Tng mit- ‘swallow’; possibly then, Tangam *ə > e, *e > i could be said to constitute a chain shift. However, since counterexamples to *e > i also exist (such as PT *len > Tng len- ‘exit’), it may either be that the shift is conditioned, or irregular, or that the pattern has been disturbed through borrowing. Further research on a larger database will be required to resolve this issue. PT *ɨ has a number of Tangam reflexes, and the conditions for their alternation are not yet understood. For example, *-ɨŋ sometimes lowers to -əŋ as in PT *tɨŋ > Tng təŋ- ‘drink’ and *-ɨr sometimes fronts and lowers to -en as in PT *a-pɨr > Tng apen ‘root’. Possibly, this could link *ɨ to the chain shift discussed above; however, several counterexamples also exist in which *ɨ is conserved, such as PT *ryɨŋ > Tng yɨŋ- ‘plains’. It may be that the palatal initial in yɨŋ- favours retention of the higher vowel in this instance; further research is required here too. As for the six long vowels *aa, *ii, *ee, *oo, *ɨɨ, *əə reconstructed by Sun (1993), Post (2015a) found that the preponderance of comparative evidence in fact converges on reconstructing only two long vowels *ii and *ee, with the remainder being secondary. In Tangam, *ii and *ee typically merge to ee, however a newer -ii rhyme has also been innovated due to the possibly conditioned *e > i change discussed above (Table 6). Among Proto-Tani initial consonants, stops and nasals are in general wellpreserved in the underlying forms of Tangam morphemes. One very noteworthy feature of Tangam is that it preserves PT *c- – as in most Western Tani languages – rather than deaffricating it to s- or h- as is the wider tendency among Siang-area languages. Proto-Tani fricatives and approximants are less well preserved in Tangam. Tangam lost proto-fricatives *f- and *v- outright, showing no traces or compensatory effects in the modern language. This is unlike Western Tani lects and Milang, which generally preserve a usually voiced glottal fricative ɦ- reflex of these segments in word-initial positions (word-medially, it is generally deleted). Outright loss of *f- and *v- in Tangam aligns it with the mainstream of Siang-area lects, the 3  Note that Sun reconstructs *ɯ for our *ɨ. This is simply a minor difference of presentation, and reflects our observation that this vowel has been instrumentally verified as phonetically central in all modern Tani languages with which we are familiar. No phonological difference between these two modes of presentation is intended.

18 Table 6

CHAPTER 2 Reflexes of Proto-Tani vowels in Tangam

PT Vowel

Tng Vowel

PT Ex.

Tng Ex.

Gloss

*a *i *u *e

a i u e i o e ɨ ee ee ii

*aki *in *fu *len *ke *ho *mə *ryɨŋ *tii *bee *keŋ

aki inulen kiomeyɨŋteebeekii-

‘guts’ ‘go’ ‘boil’ ‘exit’ ‘left’ ‘fall (rain)’ ‘fire’a ‘plains’ ‘sweet’ ‘monkey’ ‘finger’

*o *ə *ɨ *ii *ee

a In a few cases, PT *ə has i or ɨ reflexes in Tangam, for example -gi ‘comt’ < PT *gə ‘carry/wear’ and anɨ ‘leaf’ < PT *a-nə. However, such forms may be irregular or conditioned by factors not yet understood; the bulk of evidence supports PT *ə > Tangam e (compare also Tangam ge‘carry/wear’ in Table 7).

majority of which underwent the same losses. Also like most Siang-area lects, PT *z- (phonetically, probably [ʑ]) usually becomes a palatal glide y in Tangam; however, it can also be deleted in some vocalic environments (see §A.5.3). One important feature of Tangam phonology from a comparative Tani perspective is its retention of a rare reflex of a Proto-Tani initial consonant which is here symbolized *h2. This segment merged with *h in most other Tani languages, and thence to zero in most Siang-area lects. In Tangam, *h2- resisted this widespread merger, instead merging *h2- with d-. It is difficult to reconstruct the phonetic value of a segment which merges to h- on the one hand and d- on the other; perhaps it was something like *ts- or *dz-?4 Pending further comparative research, these two PT segments will be symbolized in this work as *h1 and *h2. Table 7 summarizes the reflexes of PT consonant initials in Tangam. The mergers of l-/r- and s-/h- are discussed in §A.1.2 and §A.5. 4  Karko appears to have an r- reflex for some, but not all such forms, in the data of Megu (1993); for example Karko ro- ‘fall from height’ (< PT *h2o, cp. Tangam do- ‘fall from height’ and Apatani ho- ‘fall from height’. However, it is especially interesting to note that Milang, which seems to have branched away from Tani prior to Sun’s (1993) Proto-Tani stage, appears to share the *h2- > d- change; for example, Milang du- ‘fall from height’ (data from Yankee Modi).

19

Grammar Table 7

Reflexes of Proto-Tani initial consonants in Tangam

PT Initial

Tangam Initial

PT Ex.

Tangam Ex.

Gloss

*k*g*ŋ*c*ǰ*ɲ*t*d*n*p*b*m*y*r*l*s*z*f*v*h1*h2-

kgŋcǰɲtdnpbmyl/rl/rh/sy∅∅∅d-

*ki *gə *ŋoo *caŋ *j̆ap *ɲi *tu *dak *nar *pa *bi *mar *yaŋ *ruŋ *lak *sap *zin *fu *vaŋ *h1o *h2or

kigeŋoo caŋj̆atɲitudaknanpabimanyaŋluŋlakhapyinuaŋodon-

‘pain’ ‘carry/wear’ ‘1.sg’ ‘ascend’ ‘duck’ ‘two’ ‘kick’ ‘stand’ ‘borrow’ ‘strike to cut’ ‘give’ ‘angry’ ‘rotten’ ‘ear’ ‘arm/hand’ ‘fishing net’ ‘nail’ ‘boil’ ‘come’ ‘fall (rain)’ ‘distribute’

Proto-Tani initial clusters are generally well-preserved in Tangam. *Cr- clusters usually merge to Cy- in Tangam, but the resulting Cy- clusters are generally preserved intact (they do not palatalize as in most Western Tani lects, nor do they simplify to C- as in some Eastern Tani lects5). An exception is *ry-, which de-rhoticizes to y- in Tangam – an important sound change in the history of Tani languages which is strongly characteristic of almost all Siang-area lects (Table 8).

5  Compare for example PT *a-gya ‘clothing’ > Tangam agya but Galo ej ̌ì, Lower Adi əga.

20

CHAPTER 2

Table 8

Reflexes of Proto-Tani initial clusters in Tangam6

PT Cluster

Tangam Cluster PT Ex.

Tng Ex.

Gloss

*ky*kr*gy*gr*ŋy*py*pr*by*br*my*mr*ry-

kykygygyɲpypybybymymy-

kyoŋkyuŋgyagyoŋɲatpyaŋpyonbyaŋbyaŋmyomoye-

‘plains area’ ‘sour’ ‘clothing’ ‘call’ ‘Job’s tear’ ‘dhole (wild dog)’ ‘soak’ ‘swim’ ‘roast’ ‘tiger’ ‘arrow poison’ ‘live/exist’

*kyoŋ *kruŋ *gya *grok *ŋyat *pyaŋ *prom *byaŋ *braŋ *myo *mro *rye

Proto-Tani codas have undergone a number of significant and characteristic changes leading to modern Tangam, and these changes contribute strongly to the perception of Tangam’s “difference” from other Tani languages. Proto-Tani *-ŋ is generally preserved in the underlying forms of Tangam morphemes, as is *-k. However, *‑t1 and *‑p merge to -t, *‑t2 is deleted outright,7 and the remaining sonorant finals *-m, *-n, *-r, and *-l all merge to Tangam -n (Table 9). Deletion of *-t2 in Tangam is especially notable, as this change again aligns Tangam with Western as opposed to Eastern Tani languages. The remaining coda changes are not widespread in Tani, and may be unique to Tangam.

6  Clusters *ky- and *ŋy- are not securely reconstructed to Proto-Tani, and should be treated with caution. 7  Sun’s (1993: 184) *-t1/*-t2 distinction refers to a pair of segments which typically merge to -t in Eastern Tani languages, but which have different reflexes in Western Tani languages. Specifically, while *-t1 has a diverse set of reflexes, including an underspecified consonant -K in Galo and a glottal stop -ʔ in Apatani, *-t2 is deleted outright.

21

Grammar Table 9

Reflexes of Proto-Tani codas in Tangam

PT

Tangam

PT Ex.

Tangam Ex.

Gloss

*-ŋ *-k *-t1 *-p *-m *-n *-r *-l *-t2

-ŋ -k -t -t -n -n -n -n ∅

*duŋ *dak *kot1 *j̆ap *dum *sin *bar *kil *tat2

duŋdakkotj̆atdunhinbankinta-

‘sit’ ‘stand’ ‘filth; body dirt’ ‘duck’ ‘barking deer’ ‘jungle fowl’ ‘loosely-woven basket’ ‘spittle’ ‘listen’

Table 9 only presents the outcomes of historical changes as far as the underlying representations of Tangam morphemes is concerned. In the process of word-formation, a significant number of morphophonological processes are then applied to these base forms; these will be discussed in §A.6. 2 Syllable Structure The Tangam syllable canon perfectly preserves the Proto-Tani syllable canon reconstructed by Sun (1993) (Figure 4). There is an obligatory nucleus V, an optional initial onset Ci , an optional medial glide G, and an optional X position which may be realized either as a nucleus-identical vowel, i.e. vowel length, or as a final consonant Cf . In other words, Tangam syllables can have the forms (C)(G)V, (C)(G)Vː or (C)(G)VC. μ μ | | (Ci ) (G) V (X)

Figure 4

The Tangam syllable canon (X = nucleus-identical V, or Cf).

As in most Tani languages, syllable weight is a very important organizing force in Tangam phonology. The obligatory nucleus and the optional X constituent each carry a mora weight of one; onset consonants carry no weight. Syllables

22

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with an X constituent are thus said to be heavy, while syllables without an X constituent are said to be light. Table 10 summarizes and illustrates the weight distribution of syllables in Tangam. Table 10

Heavy and light syllables in Tangam

Form

Gloss

Syl. 1 Weight

Syl. 2 Weight

te.me taa.tuŋ gyuʔ.ki te.dɨt

‘cucumber melon’ ‘bird’ ‘pigsty toilet stall’ ‘scabies’

light heavy heavy light

light heavy light heavy

Several phonological processes in Tangam are sensitive to the factor of syllable weight; for further discussion and examples, see §A.6. 2.1 Resyllabification of V.VV and VV.V Sequences When a concatenation of morphemes produces a sequence of three or more vowels across a syllable boundary, the resulting vowel sequence is truncated in Tangam. In the case of a short-long syllable sequence V.VV, the nucleus of the second syllable is reduced (4). (4) mello ŋoo lagae. mello ŋo laga=ee dst.down 1.sg goat=antr ‘bəə ŋok sobenəai.’ ‘It had been my goat down there (but someone took it away or it has a new owner now).’ If the syllable sequence initiates with a long vowel (VV.V or VV.VX), it is the first syllable which becomes truncated. In (5), note that in verb 1 caareera, the vowel of -lee is audible as long, whereas in verb 2, the vowel is shortened. In addition to an audible length difference, this creates a difference in syllable prominence: due to its weight in verb 1, -lee receives an accent, whereas in verb 2, the resulting light syllable is unaccented.

Grammar

23

(5) britise caareera . . . caabolleaara . . . britis=e caŋ-lee-la caŋ-bon-lee-aŋ-la name=DEF ascend-seq-nf ascend-PERS-seq-inward-nf ‘britisə saaroŋəm, saaboolaŋkula . . .’ ‘After the British came, after they shifted up here . . .’ 3 Stress As in many other Tani languages, stress is an important aspect of Tangam phonology. It is also among the more difficult aspects, and as a result, it has not yet been fully analysed. Here, only a few general remarks will be made. The core organizational unit in Tangam prosody is the metrical foot. Feet are trochaic in Tangam; given a disyllabic foot in an unmarked context, the first of the two syllables will carry primary stress (6). (6) ˈbuʔka-ˈtaatuʔ ˈkei, ˈbuʔka-ˈtaatuu ˈden . . .ˈtoodɨ-ˈyaamo buʔka-taatuŋ keŋ-yi buʔka-taatuŋ de=en toodɨ-yaamo rat.jungle-bird kill-irr rat.jungle-bird anap.acc special.occasion ˈroo . . . ˈdegaʔ-ˈtəŋgas ˈsina ˈdu. lo degan-təŋgan-hi-na-du(ŋ) loc invite.guests.at.special.occasion-autn/refl-inst-ipfv  ‘kəbu-pəttaa batye, kəbu-pəttaa dəm toodɨ-yaamo lo . . . dobo tɨɨbo sinaduŋ.’ ‘(We) trap small animals, and provide them for people to eat at the festival.’ There can be one and only one primary stress accent in a metrical foot. In order to carry a stress accent, a foot must be minimally bimoraic. Since the overwhelming majority of Tangam lexemes are at least bisyllabic, minimal foot requirements do not cause many morphophonological changes. However, when a morpheme with an underlyingly light ((C)V) structure stands in a position which for whatever reason must attract stress, its nuclear vowel must be lengthened; this is the case with the Locative postposition in (6). Other frequently affected morphemes are the first and second person pronominal roots ŋo- and no-. While underlyingly light/monomoraic, as can be clearly seen in complex forms such as ŋome ‘1sg.nagt’ and nome ‘2sg. nagt’, the singular forms in most contexts are in fact realized ŋoo and noo respectively.

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When the initial syllable of a bisyllabic Tangam word is heavy/bimoraic, it will almost always carry a stress accent, as in (6). When the initial syllable of a bisyllabic word is light/monomoraic, we must look to the second syllable. If the second syllable is also light, stress falls on the first of the two light syllables. If the second syllable is heavy, it is more likely to carry the stress accent.8 When that is the case – as with akee ‘dog’ in (7), which contrasts with ami ‘person’ in the same sentence – it is possible to analyse the initial, light syllable as being extrametrical. (7) ˈpulləə ˈyoŋen, ˈami deˈraa aˈkeede pun-lək-yoŋ=en ami de=laa akee=de enclose-appl:into-nzr:after=tmp person anap=and dog =anap ˈidduu. ip-du(ŋ) sleep-ipfv ‘umlɨk roŋəm, ami dəlaŋ əki də ibduŋ.’ ‘After shutting the frog up in the container, the man and the dog went to sleep.’ One important thing to note about stress and meter in Tangam is that it seems to be independent of phonological or grammatical wordhood. Looking back to example (6) again, note that although the grammatical predicate is five morphemes and seven syllables in length, there are four separate primary stress accents marking out four audibly distinct metrical feet. This point will be taken up again in §A.7. 4 Tone Like many other Tani languages, Tangam is a tone language. A large number of segmentally-identical words are distinguished only by tone, as in the following examples (Table 11). 8  By “more likely” here is meant “in the absence of any morphophonological changes which could affect the distribution of mora”. In related languages such as Galo, large numbers of morphophonological processes affecting segments render the analysis of stress extremely complex, and we cannot rule out the possibility that similar complications will arise in Tangam. As of this writing, a complete analysis of Tangam prosody has not yet been conducted.

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Grammar Table 11

Some minimal pairs on tone in Tangam

Form A

Gloss

Form B

Gloss

àdó àmé dúuráǰù āadú

‘vegetable; side dish’ ‘small’ ‘let’s sit’ ‘loving’

ádò ámè dúuráǰú āadū

‘(one’s own) child’ ‘fire’ ‘let’s run’ ‘coming’

However, and as in most other Siang-area languages (Post 2015b), tone appears to have a low functional load in Tangam by comparison with several more westerly Tani languages. Among other things, this means that analysis of the Tangam tone system has proved extremely challenging, and traditional elicitation-based methods have for the most part thus far met with failure. In some cases, individual consultants have been unable to reliably perceive or produce tone contrasts among lexemes, while in other cases groups of consultants were not able to reach agreement regarding the tone contrasts (or lack thereof) found in a set of segmentally-identical lexemes. That being the case, and although a fair amount of tonally-specified Tangam data such as the examples in Table 11 do exist, a decision has been made to refrain from transcribing morpheme tones in the remainder of this work. This is a decision that has not been taken lightly; it is unfortunate indeed to be aware of certain tonal contrasts and to be unable to report them at this time, and thus to be withholding data that could be of use to comparative Trans-Himalayan phonology. However, unless and until a comprehensive and reliable analysis of the Tangam tone system can be arrived at, it has been decided that no representation would be preferable to the risk of a mis-representation. We are hopeful that further research will be conducted that will fill this large gap in our understanding of the nature of Tangam language. 5 Phonological Processes I: Syllable Initials The two phonological processes discussed in this section affect syllable initials in word-initial and word-medial environments in Tangam in very similar ways. The first is a conditioned alternation between l and r, while the second is between s and h:

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5.1 Alternation among l and r Proto-Tani initials *l- and *r- merge to a single modern Tangam phoneme /l/, with allophones [l] and [r] in complementary distribution as shown in Table 12–Table 13. Table 12

Conditions for the alternation of Tangam l and r

Allophone

Environment

l

word-initial preceded by a consonant preceded by a vowel

r

Table 13

#_ C_ V_

Illustrated distribution of reflexes of Proto-Tani *l and *r in Tangam

PT

Environment

PT Ex.

Tng Ex.

Gloss

*l *r *l *r *l *r

#_ #_ C_ C_ V_ V_

*lom-duŋ *rə-duŋ *ǰap-li *kil-ruk *a-lə *a-rɨk

londu ledu ǰaʔle killuk are arək

‘be startled’ ‘buying’ ‘breeding duck’ ‘residue from boiling (e.g. tea)’ ‘leg/foot’ ‘crop field’

There are three possible approaches to the representation of this phoneme: first, one might posit an underspecified phoneme R or L (arbitrarily), which is realized as l or r according to the environments shown in Table 12. Second, one might posit a single phoneme l, since it occurs in the widest range of environments, together with a single phonological rule changing l to r after vowels. Third, one might suppose that this is not a synchronic process at all, but that *r historically merged with l in one set of environments, while *l merged with r in another. It seems to us that the choice between the first and second types of representation is essentially arbitrary, at least from a theory-neutral perspective; we will say nothing further here about this matter. The more significant choice

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Grammar

is between the synchronic and diachronic approaches to analysis. Here, we find arguments both for and against each approach. In favour of a diachronic analysis, it is possible to point to an admittedly small number of lexemes – possibly all loans – that “violate the rules” implied by Table 12. The clearest example in our database is ruŋ ‘very’, which may be a loan from Lower Adi; note in (8) that according to the patterns shown in Table 12, r should occur as l in word-initial position. Note in particular here that even if ruŋ is analysed as a clitic – an analysis we need not pursue here – the post-consonantal segmental environment would still favour a surface realization as l, not r as is in fact attested. This might suggest that ruŋ ‘very’, which is a word commonly used for emphasis in Lower Adi, may have been borrowed into Tangam after the l/r alternation played its course, and that the l/r alternation may no longer apply across the entirety of Tangam synchronic phonology. (8) kegyot ruŋe! ke-gyot ruŋ=e look-hateful very=cop ‘kaŋgot ruŋə!’ ‘How utterly awful (to see)!’ On the other hand however, the pattern shown in Table 12 accounts for the vast majority of our data – more than 99%, it would seem – and is clearly active in determining the surface representations of Tangam morphemes. Consider the behaviour of the Sequential suffix -lee and the root/derivation pair -len ‘exit; outward’ in (9)–(11), which reproduce a single passage of text. In the first mentions in (9) and (10), -lee first surfaces [ree] post-vocalically, while in the second mentions in (9) and (11), -lee surfaces [lee] post-consonantally. Similarly in (9), the root len- ‘exit’ surfaces [lel] in word-initial position. In (11), the related derivation -len ‘outward’ surfaces [rel] post-vocalically (note that the final -n regularly assimilates to the following syllable initial; see §A.6.6). (9) britise toreera . . . aun-ato lelleekura . . . britis=e to-lee-la name=def have/exist-seq-nf

aun-atoŋ len-lee-ku-la prosperity exit-seq-cmpl-nf

(10) iboreaakura [. . .]gandi ǰi india . . . saasoʔ . . . i-bo-lee-aŋ-ku-la gandi ǰi india do-ben-seq-inward-cmpl-nf Gandhi Ji India saaso=en freedom(