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Scott DeLancey

University of Oregon, Linguistics, Faculty Member

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Ismael Lieberherr

Bern University

University of California, Berkeley

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research

La Trobe University

Gwendolyn Hyslop

The University of Sydney

Muhammad Zakaria

University of Bern

University of Cologne

University of Oregon

James A. MATISOFF

University of California, Berkeley

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Papers by Scott DeLancey

Lexical Comparisons between Proto-Kuki-Chin and Jinghpaw: Evidence for a Central Branch of Trans Himalayan

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2022

This paper presents a set of lexical correspondences between Jinghpaw and Proto-Kuki-Chin as reco... more This paper presents a set of lexical correspondences between Jinghpaw and Proto-Kuki-Chin as reconstructed by VanBik (2009) which have no attested comparanda outside the hypothesized Central branch of Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan suggested by Bradley (1997) and DeLancey
(2021). Jinghpaw and South Central/Kuki-Chin represent two hypothesized groupings, Sal and Kuki-Naga, which are the major constituents of this proposed branch, so these comparisons are adduced as potential evidence for the Central hypothesis. Included in these lexical comparisons is a substantial number of sets where there are Jinghpaw comparanda for one or the other, or both, of the alternating verbal stems reconstructed for PKC. It is argued that these represent particularly strong evidence for a special genealogical connection between the languages.

Still Mirative After All These Years

This article re-presents the case, first presented in , for the mirative as a crosslinguistic cat... more This article re-presents the case, first presented in , for the mirative as a crosslinguistic category, and responds to critiques of that work by Gilbert Lazard and Nathan Hill. The nature of the mirative, a category which marks a statement as representing information which is new or unexpected, is exemplified with data from Kham (Tibeto-Burman) and Hare (Athabaskan). The mirative category is shown to be distinct from the well-known mediative or indirective evidential category. Finally, the role of mirativity in the complex verbal systems of Tibetan languages is briefly outlined.

Grammaticalization and syntax: A Functional view

The Blue Bird of Ergativity

Adposition as a non-universal category

Grammaticalization: From syntax to morphology

The mirative and evidentiality.

The Universal Basis of Case

Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information

What an innatist argument should look like

Grammaticalization and linguistic theory

Event construal and case role assignment

Notes on Evidentiality in Hare

Transitivity in Grammar and Cognition

Toward a history of Tai classifier systems

On active typology and the nature of agentivity

Agentivity and Syntax

Notes on agentivity and causation

Aspect, transitivity and viewpoint

An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns

Nominative/absolutive case and verb agreement are, in many languages, indicators of a category wh... more Nominative/absolutive case and verb agreement are, in many languages, indicators of a category which is here called VIEWPOINT: t h e perspectiv e from which the speaker describes the event. The order of NP constituents in a sentence encodes ATTENTION FLOW, which is the order in which the speaker expects the hearer to attend to them. Split ergative case-marking patterns are shown to reflect conflicts between the most natural viewpoint and attention-flow assignments. It is argued that the characterization and grammatical marking of an event as first-hand or inferred knowledge for a speaker, and as intentional or inadvertent for an actor, can be described in terms of whether the entire event or only its terminal phase is directly accessible to the conscious mind of the speaker and the actor, respectively; and that these categories can also be described in terms of attention flow and viewpoint.* * The ideas presented in this paper were developed in the course of work done in collaboration with LaRaw Maran and Lon Diehl ; credit for any merit which the hypothesis advanced here may possess is at least as much theirs as mine. Tht; deficiencies of the paper are, of course, my own responsibility. Part of this paper was presented at the 1979 Winter LSA Meeting under the title 'Viewpoint, attention fl ow, and subject-coding properties'. 626 in this paper. The interaction between the 'empathy' or 'animacy' hierarchy and topicality has long been known; and recent studies (e.g. have shown an interaction between information structure and aspect. However, the questions implied here are beyond the scope of this paper.

Lexical Comparisons between Proto-Kuki-Chin and Jinghpaw: Evidence for a Central Branch of Trans Himalayan

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2022

This paper presents a set of lexical correspondences between Jinghpaw and Proto-Kuki-Chin as reco... more This paper presents a set of lexical correspondences between Jinghpaw and Proto-Kuki-Chin as reconstructed by VanBik (2009) which have no attested comparanda outside the hypothesized Central branch of Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan suggested by Bradley (1997) and DeLancey
(2021). Jinghpaw and South Central/Kuki-Chin represent two hypothesized groupings, Sal and Kuki-Naga, which are the major constituents of this proposed branch, so these comparisons are adduced as potential evidence for the Central hypothesis. Included in these lexical comparisons is a substantial number of sets where there are Jinghpaw comparanda for one or the other, or both, of the alternating verbal stems reconstructed for PKC. It is argued that these represent particularly strong evidence for a special genealogical connection between the languages.

Still Mirative After All These Years

This article re-presents the case, first presented in , for the mirative as a crosslinguistic cat... more This article re-presents the case, first presented in , for the mirative as a crosslinguistic category, and responds to critiques of that work by Gilbert Lazard and Nathan Hill. The nature of the mirative, a category which marks a statement as representing information which is new or unexpected, is exemplified with data from Kham (Tibeto-Burman) and Hare (Athabaskan). The mirative category is shown to be distinct from the well-known mediative or indirective evidential category. Finally, the role of mirativity in the complex verbal systems of Tibetan languages is briefly outlined.

Grammaticalization and syntax: A Functional view

The Blue Bird of Ergativity

Adposition as a non-universal category

Grammaticalization: From syntax to morphology

The mirative and evidentiality.

The Universal Basis of Case

Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information

What an innatist argument should look like

Grammaticalization and linguistic theory

Event construal and case role assignment

Notes on Evidentiality in Hare

Transitivity in Grammar and Cognition

Toward a history of Tai classifier systems

On active typology and the nature of agentivity

Agentivity and Syntax

Notes on agentivity and causation

Aspect, transitivity and viewpoint

An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns

Nominative/absolutive case and verb agreement are, in many languages, indicators of a category wh... more Nominative/absolutive case and verb agreement are, in many languages, indicators of a category which is here called VIEWPOINT: t h e perspectiv e from which the speaker describes the event. The order of NP constituents in a sentence encodes ATTENTION FLOW, which is the order in which the speaker expects the hearer to attend to them. Split ergative case-marking patterns are shown to reflect conflicts between the most natural viewpoint and attention-flow assignments. It is argued that the characterization and grammatical marking of an event as first-hand or inferred knowledge for a speaker, and as intentional or inadvertent for an actor, can be described in terms of whether the entire event or only its terminal phase is directly accessible to the conscious mind of the speaker and the actor, respectively; and that these categories can also be described in terms of attention flow and viewpoint.* * The ideas presented in this paper were developed in the course of work done in collaboration with LaRaw Maran and Lon Diehl ; credit for any merit which the hypothesis advanced here may possess is at least as much theirs as mine. Tht; deficiencies of the paper are, of course, my own responsibility. Part of this paper was presented at the 1979 Winter LSA Meeting under the title 'Viewpoint, attention fl ow, and subject-coding properties'. 626 in this paper. The interaction between the 'empathy' or 'animacy' hierarchy and topicality has long been known; and recent studies (e.g. have shown an interaction between information structure and aspect. However, the questions implied here are beyond the scope of this paper.

Evidence for Inland Penutian

Anthropological Linguistics 60.2: 95-109., 2018

Comparative evidence for the Penutian hypothesis is very thin, but more evidence has been present... more Comparative evidence for the Penutian hypothesis is very thin, but more evidence has been presented in the literature for the validity of two smaller units: Plateau Penutian, consisting of Sahaptian, Cayuse, Klamath-Modoc, and probably Maiduan, and Yok-Utian, consisting of Yokuts and Miwok-Costanoan. However, some evidence for a genetic relationship between these two units are provided here. Several lexical comparisons are presented that involve correspondences in internal word structure, larger word families, or both. Two morphological comparisons, of a locative construction and a numeral suffix, help to explain irregularities in the daughter languages.

Derniers locuteurs et revitalisation des langues indiennes d'Oregon

Bipartite verbs in languages of western North America

The semantic structure of Klamath bipartite stems

Location and direction in Klamath

Argument structure of Klamath bipartite stems

Lexical prefixes and the bipartite stem construction in Klamath

The bipartite stem belt: Disentangling areal and genetic correspondences

The Penutian Hypothesis: Retrospect and Prospect

International Journal of American Linguistics 63.1: 171-202, 1997

Klamath and Sahaptian numerals

Chronological strata of suffix classes in the Klamath verb

Some Sahaptian-Klamath-Tsimshianic lexical sets

Klamath and Wintu Pronouns

International Journal of American Linguistics, 1987

The History of Postverbal Agreement in Kuki-Chin

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 6, 2013

In the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman we find both a widespread prefixal verb agreement paradi... more In the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman we find both a widespread prefixal verb agreement paradigm and, in many languages, a distinct, competing postverbal agreement system. It is clear, and generally acknowledged, that the prefixal system is a KC innovation, while the postverbal system traces back to Proto-Tibeto-Burman. This paper assembles the evidence for the postverbal paradigm from the conservative Northern Chin, Old Kuki, and Southern Chin subbranches, and makes some suggestions toward a preliminary reconstruction of the paradigm in Proto-Kuki-Chin. The older paradigm has been lost in the Central Chin (e.g. Mizo) and Mara languages, but the older 2nd person index has been incorporated into the modern paradigms.

Verb agreement in languages of the Eastern Himalayan region

by Linda Konnerth and Scott DeLancey

HImalayan Linguistics, 2019

Special issue of HImalayan Linguistics devoted to verb agreement systems in languages of the Indo... more

Non-singular pronouns in Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan)

Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 42.1, 2019

This paper surveys the forms of dual and plural pronouns across Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan), ... more This paper surveys the forms of dual and plural pronouns across Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan), and offers a reconstruction of the non-singular pronouns, and a general account of how various branches and languages have diverged from this original system. We can certainly reconstruct two, perhaps three, person-number portmanteaus: #i 1PL, or perhaps 1PL.INC, #ni 2PL, and, less certainly, #ka 1PL.EXC. We also reconstruct #tsi DUAL which combined with singular pronouns to make dual forms. This construction was the model on which most daughter languages have innovated a analytic system of person and number marking, with distinct person and dual and/or plural morphemes combining to make the morphologically complex but semantically transparent compositional forms found in the majority of languages. Abstract: This paper surveys the forms of dual and plural pronouns across Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan), and offers a reconstruction of the non-singular pronouns, and a general account of how various branches and languages have diverged from this original system. We can certainly reconstruct two, perhaps three, person-number portmanteaus: #i 1PL, or perhaps 1PL.INC, #ni 2PL, and, less certainly, #ka 1PL.EXC. We also reconstruct #tsi DUAL which combined with singular pronouns to make dual forms. This construction was the model on which most daughter languages have innovated a analytic system of person and number marking, with distinct person and dual and/or plural morphemes combining to make the morphologically complex but semantically transparent compositional forms found in the majority of languages.

DeLancey_Deictic and sociopragmatic effects in Tibeto-Burman.pdf

Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony, Edited by Sonia Cristofaro and Fernando Zúñiga

The study of hierarchical argument indexation systems shows that while the ranking of both 1st an... more The study of hierarchical argument indexation systems shows that while the ranking of both 1st and 2nd person over other arguments is robust and reliable, it is impossible to find any compelling crosslinguistic evidence for one or the other ranking of the two Speech Act Participants, and rare to find a consistent ranking even within a single language. This paper assembles and reviews historical changes in the indexation of the "local" categories (1→2 and 2→1) in a number of Tibeto-Burman languages. We see that the fundamental deictic ranking SAP > 3 is conservative, and inverse marking to emphasize that ranking has been reinvented several times in the family. Changes in the marking of local categories are more diverse, but two phenomena recur independently in different languages and branches: a tendency for the 1→2 form to be uniquely marked, sometimes with forms which are not synchronically relatable to anything else in the paradigm, and a contrasting tendency for the 2→1 form to merge with the marking of 3→1. I propose that these tendencies reflect what I call sociopragmatic effects, i.e. the socially delicate nature of any and all natural utterances involving both the speaker and the addressee.

The inclusive-exclusive distinction in Kuki-Chin and Naga Belt Languages

DeLancey, Scott 2018. The inclusive-exclusive distinction in Kuki-Chin and Naga Belt Languages, In Linda Konnerth, Stephen Morey, and Amos Teo (eds.), North East Indian Linguistics (NEIL), 8. Canberra, Australian National University: Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access

In some Tibeto-Burman languages we find a distinction, in the pronouns and/or in verbal agreement... more In some Tibeto-Burman languages we find a distinction, in the pronouns and/or in verbal agreement forms, between exclusive and inclusive 1 st person plural forms – a category which has come to be known as CLUSIVITY (Filiminova 2005). This distinction is absent in many other languages of the family (LaPolla 2005). Until recently we had very few examples of this distinction in the " Naga " and Kuki-Chin languages of the Indo-Myanmar border region. Recent research has uncovered the exclusive/inclusive distinct in several more of these languages, and correspondences between the forms make it clear that we must reconstruct this distinction for the common ancestor at least of Kuki-Chin and the Ao group, and probably of the other languages of the Naga Belt. This then offers a likely explanation for the innovative 1 st person singular pronouns found in most of these languages, as we will see in Section 2. The Kuki-Chin and Naga forms further correspond to forms in Kiranti languages, suggesting that they can be reconstructed for Proto-Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan). Nevertheless, the similarities among the exclusive, inclusive, and 1 st person singular forms in the various Kuki-Chin and Naga Belt languages provide an argument for a Kuki-Naga branch of the family.

The Comparative Method, Subgrouping, and the Antiquity of Verb Agreement in Trans-Himalayan.docx

Hierarchical and Accusative Alignment of Verbal Person Marking in Trans-Himalayan.doc

Verbal Person Marking is a neglected feature of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages. TH syst... more Verbal Person Marking is a neglected feature of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages. TH systems are of great typological interest, showing both canonical versions and unusual variations of both hierarchical and accusative alignment. The predominant and ancestral pattern is hierarchical, but we also see innovative accusative patterns. Canonical hierarchical and accusative systems do occur, but a majority of VPM systems of both alignments show variations on the basic patterns. Hierarchical systems sometimes develop means to index both participants in a transitive configuration rather than only the higher. Accusative systems frequently develop secondary O indexation for SAP arguments, and sometimes move further in the direction of hierarchical patterning. Thus Trans-Himalayan offers a wealth of examples of VPM systems, which deserve greater attention from the field of typology.

Evidentiality in Tibetic

Adjectival Constructions in Bodo and Tibeto-Burman1

In:

The Historical Dynamics of Morphological Complexity in Trans-Himalayan

Certain subbranches of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibeto-Burman) stand out as islands of complexity in... more Certain subbranches of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibeto-Burman) stand out as islands of complexity in a Eurasian sea of simplicity (Bickel and Nichols 2013). Others show a radically simpler verbal system more consistent with their South and Southeast Asian neighbors. The complex systems include elaborate systems of argument indexation; most of these reflect a hierarchical indexation paradigm, which can be traced to Proto-Trans-Himalayan. This morphology has been lost in many languages, including the most familiar branches of the family such as Sinitic, Boro-Garo, Tibetic, and Lolo-Burmese, as a result of creolization under intense language contact. The archaic system is preserved fairly intact in rGyalrongic and Kiranti and with various structural reorganization in several other branches. The Kuki-Chin branch has innovated an entirely new indexation paradigm, which in some subbranches has completely replaced the original system, while in others the two paradigms coexist.

Tibeto-Burman Languages of the Indo-Myanmar borderland

by Scott DeLancey, Krishna Boro, Amos Teo, and Linda Konnerth

Intransitive si 'go': Imperfective Negative 1SG si nìŋ si-má:-ŋ (< si ma-iŋ) 1PL:EXCL si nùŋ s... more

The Origins of Postverbal Negation in Kuki-Chin

North East Indian Linguisitics 8

Morphological evidence for a Central branch of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan)

The verb agreement systems of Jinghpaw, Meyor, Northern Naga, and Northern, Northwest and Souther... more The verb agreement systems of Jinghpaw, Meyor, Northern Naga, and Northern, Northwest and Southern Kuki-Chin contain material which is demonstrably inherited from Proto-Trans-Himalayan. Here we discuss morphological evidence that these systems share a common ancestor more recent than PTH. There is strong evidence connecting Jinghpaw with both Northern Naga and Kuki-Chin, and weaker comparisons directly linking Northern Naga and Kuki-Chin, and both of these with Meyor. These data support the claim that all of these languages belong to a single branch of the family, an idea which has been suggested in the past but never argued for.

Prosodic Typology and the Morphological Structure of the Verb in Tibeto-Burman

Nepalese Linguistics 29: 36-41, 2014

n the “pronominalized” languages of Nepal and the rGyalrongic languages of western China verb ag... more n the “pronominalized” languages of Nepal and the rGyalrongic languages of western China verb agreement is part of the verb word. In languages of the far eastern Himalayas and North East India, agreement and tense/aspect occur in a separate word. This correlates with prosodic structure: trochaic in Kiranti and Central Himalayan versus iambic in the NEI languages.

Sociolinguistic typology in North East India: A tale of two branches

Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. Volume 1, Issue 1, Pages 59–82

Long-standing ideas about the "linguistic cycle" hold that languages naturally shift from analyti... more Long-standing ideas about the "linguistic cycle" hold that languages naturally shift from analytic to synthetic morphological patterns and then from synthetic back to analytic in a long-term cyclic pattern. But the demonstrable history of actual languages shows dramatic differences in their tendencies to shift in either direction, and there are well-known examples of language families which preserve complexity or analyticity over millennia. We see the same thing within Tibeto-Burman, where some branches are highly synthetic and others analytic. Examining the history of a representative language from each of two TB branches in Northeast India, analytic Boro (Boro-Garo) and synthetic Lai (Kuki-Chin), suggests a possible sociolinguistic explanation for these tendencies. Trudgill and others have suggested that the tendency to develop and maintain strongly analytic grammatical patterns is associated with "exoteric" languages spoken by large populations, and regularly used to communicate with outsiders, while the development and maintenance of morphological complexity is characteristic of "esoteric" languages spoken by small communities and used only to communicate with other native speakers. This paper presents Boro-Garo and Kuki-Chin as exemplifying these tendencies.

Argument Indexation (Verb Agreement) in Kuki-Chin

Both the preverbal and the postverbal indexation paradigms show typologically unusual morphologic... more Both the preverbal and the postverbal indexation paradigms show typologically unusual morphological behavior. Both systems pose descriptive difficulties in that they do not fit neatly into predefined concepts of affixation and agreement. Following Haspelmath (to appear), it is better to refer to these systems as argument indexation than verb agreement. Besides the general arguments which Haspelmath presents, both the preverbal and the postverbal argument indices in Kuki-Chin are of very ambiguous morphological status, different in meaningful ways from the Indo-European-type systems which many people immediately think of when hearing the term "verb agreement".

Second Person Verb Forms in Tibeto-Burman

Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 37.1: 3-33. (2014)

Since the beginning of research on the PTB verb agreement, 2nd person marking has posed a persist... more Since the beginning of research on the PTB verb agreement, 2nd person marking has posed a persistent problem. Every scholar who has dealt with the problem reconstructs a set of person/number suffixes including 2sg #-n(a). But there is also strong evidence for a #t-prefix which also indexes 2nd person. My purpose in this paper is to summarize the results of a number of descriptions and analyses which have appeared over the last decade or so, which provide new evidence concerning the #t-prefix, and resolve some of the problems which had previously impeded our understanding of this form. I will show that there were two distinct verb forms used for 2nd person reference in PTB. In the final section of the paper I will speculate about the implications of this fact.

Creolization in the Divergence of Tibeto-Burman

One dimension along which language families differ considerably is in the range of typological va... more One dimension along which language families differ considerably is in the range of typological variation across languages of the same stock. 1 Indo-European, for example, shows dramatic divergence in word order patterning (contrast Irish, English, and Bengali) and inflectional complexity (contrast Russian and English). We have long been aware that typological divergence is often a result of contact with other languages: the typological consistency of Indic with the OV patterns of its South Asian neighbors, or the fact that within Finno-Ugric we find tendencies toward VO typology in Europe rather than Siberia, are hardly coincidental.

The Origins of Sinitic

A persistent problem in Sino-Tibetan linguistics is that Chinese is characterized by a mix of lex... more A persistent problem in Sino-Tibetan linguistics is that Chinese is characterized by a mix of lexical, phonological, and syntactic features, some of which link it to the Tibeto-Burman languages, others to the Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, and Mon-Khmer families of Southeast Asia. It has always been recognized that this must reflect intense language contact. This paper develops a hypothesis about the nature of that contact. The language of Shang was a highly-creolized lingua franca based on languages of the Southeast Asian type. Sinitic is a result of the imposition of the Sino-Tibetan language of the Zhou on a population speaking this lingua franca, resulting in a language with substantially Sino-Tibetan lexicon and relict morphology, but Southeast Asian basic syntax.

The History of Postverbal Agreement in Kuki-Chin

In the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman we find both a widespread prefixal verb agreement paradi... more In the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman we find both a widespread prefixal verb agreement paradigm and, in many languages, a distinct, competing postverbal agreement system. It is clear, and generally acknowledged, that the prefixal system is a KC innovation, while the postverbal system traces back to Proto-Tibeto-Burman. This paper assembles the evidence for the postverbal paradigm from the conservative Northern Chin, Old Kuki, and Southern Chin subbranches, and makes some suggestions toward a preliminary reconstruction of the paradigm in Proto-Kuki-Chin. The older paradigm has been lost in the Central Chin (e.g. Mizo) and Mara languages, but the older 2 nd person index has been incorporated into the modern paradigms.

Language and Culture in Northeast India and Beyond: In Honor of Robbins Burling

by Mark W. Post and Scott DeLancey

2015. Canberra, Asia-Pacific Linguistics. (Paperback/eBook, 364 + xxvii pp., ISBN: 978-19-2218-5266/978-19-2218-5259)

In the greater Northeast Indian region, one of the richest and most diverse ethnolinguistic areas... more In the greater Northeast Indian region, one of the richest and most diverse ethnolinguistic areas in all of Asia, Robbins Burling stands out as a true scholarly pioneer. His extensive fieldwork-based research on Bodo-Garo languages, comparative-historical Tibeto-Burman linguistics, the ethnography of kinship systems, and language contact, has had a profound impact on the field of Northeast Indian ethnolinguistics and beyond, and has inspired generations of Indian and international scholars to follow his example. This volume of papers on the anthropology and linguistics of Northeast India and beyond is offered as a tribute to Robbins Burling on the occasion of his 90th birthday, his 60th year of scholarly productivity, and his umpteenth trip to Northeast India.