The studies in this book represent the rich, diverse and substantial research being conducted today in the linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. The chapters cover a broad scope. Several studies address questions of language relatedness, often challenging conventional assumptions about the status of language contact as an explanatory factor in accounting for linguistic similarities. Several address the question of Mainland Southeast Asia as a linguistic area, exploring new ways to imagine and define the boundaries, and indeed the boundedness, of a Mainland Southeast Asia area. Two contributions rethink the received notion of the 'sesquisyllable' with new empirical and theoretical angles. And a set of chapters explores topics in the morphology and syntax of the region's languages, sometimes challenging orthodox assumptions and claims about what a typical language of Mainland Southeast Asia is like. Written by leading researchers in the field, and with a substantial overview of current knowledge and new directions by the volume editors N. J. Enfield and Bernard Comrie, this book will serve as an authoritative source on where the linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia is at, and where it is heading.
Author(s): N.J. Enfield; Bernard Comrie
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 660
City: Berlin
N. J. Enfield and Bernard Comrie
Mainland Southeast Asian languages: State of the art and new directions | 1
Part 1: Language relatedness in MSEA
Martha Ratliff
Word-initial prenasalization in Southeast Asia: A historical
perspective | 31
Paul Sidwell
Local drift and areal convergence in the restructuring of Mainland Southeast
Asian languages | 51
Marc Brunelle and James Kirby
Re-assessing tonal diversity and geographical convergence in Mainland
Southeast Asia | 82
James A. Matisoff
Re-examining the genetic position of Jingpho: Putting flesh on the bones of the
Jingpho/Luish relationship | 111
Part 2: Boundaries of the MSEA area
Mathias Jenny
The far West of Southeast Asia: ‘Give’ and ‘get’ in the languages of
Myanmar | 155
Mark W. Post
Morphosyntactic reconstruction in an areal-historical context: A pre-historical
relationship between North East India and Mainland Southeast
Asia? | 209
David Gil
The Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area |
Hilário de Sousa
The Far Southern Sinitic languages as part of Mainland Southeast
Asia | 356
Part 3: Defining the sesquisyllable
Becky Butler
Approaching a phonological understanding of the sesquisyllable with phonetic
evidence from Khmer and Bunong | 443
Pittayawat Pittayaporn
Typologizing sesquisyllabicity: The role of structural analysis in the study of
linguistic diversity in Mainland Southeast Asia | 500
Part 4: Explorations in MSEA morphosyntax
Mark J. Alves
Morphological functions among Mon-Khmer languages: Beyond the
basics | 531
Roger Blench
The origins of nominal classification markers in MSEA languages:
Convergence, contact and some African parallels | 558
Alice Vittrant
Expressing motion: The contribution of Southeast Asian languages with
reference to East Asian languages | 586
Indexes
Subject index | 633
Author index | 641
Place index | 643
Language index | 646
