Cover not available

Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 45:4 (2021) ► pp.707–753

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Morphological structure can escape reduction effects from mass admixture of second language speakers

Evidence from Sino-Tibetan

 | University of Zurich
 | University of Zurich
 | University of Zurich
ORCiD logo with link | University of Zurich
Published online: 2 November 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.19059.wid
Abstract
Morphological complexity is expected to decrease under mass admixture from adult second language speakers. While this has been chiefly shown for morphological richness, an unresolved question is whether the effect extends to aspects of morphological boundedness. Here we report a case study of Sino-Tibetan verbs, contrasting verbal expressions of two languages with very large (Chinese, Burmese) and of two languages with very small (Bunan, Chintang) numbers of second language speakers. We find that while the amount of second language speakers accounts for differences in the range and number of inflectional categories (degrees of synthesis), it does not affect the way in which morphological constituents are bound together, reflecting fortification through a mix of diachronically stable and universally preferred patterns. This calls for theoretical models that narrow down the range of changes that are driven by second language speaker admixture, and for extensive empirical testing on a global scale.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1Bunan
      • 3.1.1Grammatical cohesion in Bunan
      • 3.1.2Phonological cohesion domains in Bunan
      • 3.1.3Synopsis of Bunan cohesion domains
    • 3.2Chintang
      • 3.2.1Grammatical cohesion domains in Chintang
      • 3.2.2Phonological cohesion domains in Chintang
      • 3.2.3Synopsis of Chintang cohesion domains
    • 3.3Burmese
      • 3.3.1Grammatical cohesion domains in Burmese
      • 3.3.2Phonological cohesion domains in Burmese
      • 3.3.3Synopsis of Burmese cohesion domains
    • 3.4Mandarin Chinese
      • 3.4.1Grammatical cohesion domains in Mandarin
      • 3.4.2Phonological cohesion domains in Mandarin
      • 3.4.3Synopsis of Mandarin cohesion domains
    • 3.5Synthesis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Morpheme types and cohesion
    • 4.2Synthesis
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Supporting materials
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (56)
References
Aldenderfer, Mark & Zhang Yinong. 2004. The prehistory of the Tibetan Plateau to the seventh century A.D.: perspectives and research from China and the West since 1950. Journal of World Prehistory 18(1). 1–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Stephen R. 2005. Aspects of the theory of clitics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Behr, Wolfgang. 2004. ‘To translate’ is ‘to exchange’ 譯者易也 – linguistic diversity and the terms for translation in Ancient China. In N. Vittinghoff & M. Lackner (eds.), Mapping meanings: the field of new learning in late Qing China (Sinica Leidensia 64), 173–209. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Role of language in early Chinese constructions of ethnic identity, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37(4). 567–587. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bentz, Christian & Bodo Winter. 2013. Languages with more second language learners tend to lose nominal case. Language Dynamics and Change 31. 1–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar & Fernando Zúñiga. 2017. The ‘word’ in polysynthetic languages: phonological and syntactic challenges. In Michael Fortescue, Marianne Mithun & Nicholas Evans (eds.), The Oxford handbook of polysynthesis, 158–185. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar & Johanna Nichols. 2005. Inflectional synthesis of the verb. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures, 94–97. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Inflectional morphology. In: Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 2nd edn., 169–240. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar, Goma Banjade, Martin Gaenszle, Elena Lieven, Netra Prasad Paudyal, Ichchha Purna Rai, Manoj Rai, Novel Kishore Rai, Sabine Stoll. 2007. Free prefix ordering in Chintang. Language 831. 43–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar, Johanna Nichols, Taras Zakharko, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich, Kristine Hildebrandt, Michael Rießler, Lennart Bierkandt, Fernando Zúñiga & John B. Lowe. 2020. The AUTOTYP typological databases, Version 0.1.1. [URL] (last access 15 September 2020).
Bickel, Balthasar, Kristine A. Hildebrandt & René Schiering. 2009. The distribution of phonological word domains: A probabilistic typology. In Janet Grijzenhout & Baris Kabak (eds.), Phonological domains: universals and deviations, 47–75. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar. 2003. Prosodic tautomorphemicity in Sino-Tibetan. In David Bradley, Randy J. LaPolla, Boyd Michailovsky & Graham Thurgood (eds.), Variation in Sino-Tibetan and South East Asian languages, 89–99. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Booij, Geert. 2010. Construction morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bradley, David. 1997. Tibeto-Burman languages and classification. In David Bradley (ed.), Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas, 1–71. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bruening, Benjamin. 2018. The Lexicalist Hypothesis: both wrong and superfluous. Language 941, 1–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, Matthew Y. 2000. Tone sandhi: patterns across Chinese dialects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dai, John Xiang-Ling. 1998. Syntactic, phonological, and morphological words in Chinese. In Jerome L. Packard (ed.), New approaches to Chinese word formation: morphology, phonology and the lexicon in Modern and Ancient Chinese, 104–134. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 1996. The Bipartite Stem Belt: disentangling areal and genetic correspondences. In David Librik & Roxane Beeler (eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society February 16–19, 1996, 37–54. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Creolization in the divergence of the Tibeto-Burman languages. In Thomas Owen-Smith & Nathan Hill (eds.), Trans-Himalayan linguistics: Historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area, 41–70. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. The historical dynamics of morphological complexity in Trans-Himalayan. Linguistic Discovery 131. 60–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. & Alexandra A. Aikhenvald. 2002. Word: A typological framework. In Robert M. W. Dixon & Alexandra A. Aikhenvald (eds.), Word: A cross-linguistic typology, 1–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1977. A grammar of Yidiny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duanmu, San. 2000. The phonology of Standard Chinese, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, T. Alan & Ursula Kleinhenz (eds.). 1999. Studies on the phonological word. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, T. Alan, Kristine A. Hildebrandt & Balthasar Bickel. 2008. Introduction: theory and typology of the word. Linguistics 461. 183–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2011. The indeterminacy of word segmentation and the nature of morphology and syntax. Folia Linguistica 451. 31–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hildebrandt, Kristine. 2005. The Himalayan enclave hypothesis and bipartite stems. Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, 6–9 January 2005 [[URL]].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hildebrandt, Kristine A. 2007. Prosodic and grammatical domains in Limbu. Himalayan Linguistics 81. 1–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. The prosodic word. In John R. Taylor (ed.), The Oxford handbook of the word, 221–245. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. 2008. Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu. Linguistics 461. 309–350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacobsen, William H. Jr. 1980. Washo bipartite verb stems. In Kathryn Klar, Margaret Langdon & Shirley Silver (eds.), American Indian and Indoeuropean Studies: Papers in Honor of Madison S. Beeler, 85–99. Berlin. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume. 2018. Bipartite verbs in Japhug and other Trans-Himalayan languages. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 411. 75–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jenny, Mathias & San San Hnin Tun. 2016. Burmese: A comprehensive grammar. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levshina, Natalia. 2015. How to do Linguistics with R. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul (ed.). 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 16th edn. Dallas: SIL International.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Charles N. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lupyan, Gary & Rick Dale. 2010. Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PLoS ONE 5(1), e8559. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mansfield, John, Sabine Stoll & Balthasar Bickel. 2020. Category clustering: a probabilistic bias in the morphology of argument marking. Language 961. 255–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1989. The bulging monosyllable or the mora the merrier: echo-vowel adverbialization in Lahu. In Jeremy H. C. S. Davidson (ed.), Southeast Asian linguistics: Essays in honour of Eugénie J.A. Henderson, 163–197. London: SOAS.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McWhorter, John. 2007. Language interrupted: Signs of non-native acquisition in standard language grammars. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nespor, Marina & Irene Vogel. 2007. Prosodic Phonology. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paudyal, Netra P. 2015. Aspects of Chintang Syntax: University of Zürich PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sagart, Laurent, Guillaume Jacques, Yunfan Lai, Robin J. Ryder, Valentin Thouzeau, Simon J. Greenhill & Johann-Mattis List. 2019. Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1161. 10317–10322. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiering, René, Balthasar Bickel & Kristine A. Hildebrandt. 2010. The prosodic word is not universal, but emergent. Journal of Linguistics 461. 657–709. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sharma, Devidatta. 1989. Tribal languages of Himachal Pradesh, part I. Delhi: Mittal.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thurgood, Graham. 2017. Sino-Tibetan: genetic and areal subgroups. In Graham Thurgood & Randy J. LaPolla (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages, 3–39. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2001. Contact and simplification: Historical baggage and directionality in linguistic change. Linguistic Typology 51. 371–374.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Driem, George. 2001a. Languages of the Himalayas: An ethnolinguistic handbook of the greater Himalayan region. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001b. Zhangzhung and its next of kin in the Himalayas. In Yasuhiko Nagano & Randy LaPolla (eds.), New research on Zhangzhung and related Himalayan languages, 31–44. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Widmer, Manuel. 2017. A grammar of Bunan. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wiedenhof, Jeroen. 2015. A grammar of Mandarin. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Winter, Bodo. 2020. Statistics for Linguists. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wray, Alison & George W. Grace. 2007. The consequences of talking to strangers: Evolutionary corollaries of socio-cultural influences on linguistic form. Lingua 1171. 543–578. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Menghan, Shi Yan, Wuyun Pan & Li Jin. 2019. Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the Late Neolithic. Nature 5691. 112–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Bausman, William C. & Marcel Weber
2025. What you can do for evolutionary developmental linguistics. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 15:1 DOI logo
Herce, Borja & Balthasar Bickel
2025. Paradigmatic complexity metrics as signals of phylogenetic relatedness. Diachronica 42:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Bickel, Balthasar, Anne-Lise Giraud, Klaus Zuberbühler & Carel P. van Schaik
2024. Language follows a distinct mode of extra-genomic evolution. Physics of Life Reviews 50 ► pp. 211 ff. DOI logo
Dedio, Stefan
2023. Is This Verb a Word? A philological Study of the Distribution of Phonological and Morphological Domains in the Middle Welsh Verb. Transactions of the Philological Society 121:1 ► pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
Di Garbo, Francesca & Ricardo Napoleão de Souza
2023. A sampling technique for worldwide comparisons of language contact scenarios. Linguistic Typology 27:3 ► pp. 553 ff. DOI logo
Enfield, N. J.
2023. Scale in Language. Cognitive Science 47:10 DOI logo
Mansfield, John, Carmen Saldana, Peter Hurst, Rachel Nordlinger, Sabine Stoll, Balthasar Bickel & Andrew Perfors
2022. Category Clustering and Morphological Learning. Cognitive Science 46:2 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue