Northern and Southern Munya Dialects: Towards a Historical Perspective

• Junwei Bai ^[1]
  1. [1] James Cook University

     James Cook University

     Australia

     
• Localización: Studia linguistica: A journal of general linguistics, ISSN 0039-3193, Vol. 75, Nº 2, 2021, págs. 328-344
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Munya, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in western Sichuan Province in China, is believed to have two dialects, an undescribed eastern dialect and a relatively better-known western dialect. Based on previous studies and data gathered from fieldwork, I found that the western dialect can be further divided into a northern and a southern dialect. This study will present linguistic evidence for such a dialectal distinction and will discuss some diachronic changes that have created it. The dialects have a different phonological inventory and lexical differences. Grammatically, the two dialects differ in directional prefixes, formation of certain types of negation and questions, and the system of copula verbs of existence.