Proto-Kuki-Chin: A Reconstructed Ancestor of the Kuki-Chin Languages

626 Pages·2009·5.52 MB·English

by  Van Bik Kenneth

Proto-Kuki-Chin:

A Reconstructed Ancestor of
the Kuki-Chin Languages

Kenneth VanBik

San José State University and STEDT Project

STEDT Monograph 8

University of California, Berkeley
ii

Proto-Kuki-Chin:

A Reconstructed Ancestor of
the Kuki-Chin Languages

by

Kenneth VanBik

Volume # 8 in the

STEDT Monograph Series

Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Project
<http://stedt.berkeley.edu/>
Department of Linguistics research unit in
University of California, Berkeley

James A. Matisoff, Series Editor
Book design by Richard S. Cook.

Printing of 2009-10-20
ISBN 0-944613-47-0
iii

To the Kuki-Chin people

who have chosen to preserve their languages

in the midst of endangerment

and have given me a heritage language

this book

is dedicated

with

gratitude and love
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v
Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Berkeley Linguistics Department and
the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT) Project for giving me
the opportunity to become the first Lai Chin to earn a Ph.D. in Linguistics.
I am most grateful to James A. Matisoff (“Jim”), my teacher, advisor, mentor,
employer, and above all friend, whose guidance has been indispensible for the creation of
Proto-Kuki-Chin, and who has always been ready to provide painstaking assistance
throughout the process of its formation. This book and Kuki-Chin studies in general have
benefitted tremendously not only from Jim’s intellectual resources, but also from his
endless passion for documenting understudied languages.
Special thanks are also due to the following faculty members who were essential
parts of my graduate career in Berkeley as members of my dissertation committee: Gary
Holland, who always gives insightful comments which ensure the integrity of the
materials, and who is ever willing to help students along as they struggle through
graduate school; to Ian Maddieson, whose enthusiasm never fails to inspire students in
their collection of data, and whose work on the phonetics of Hakha Lai and Khumi has
contributed greatly to this book; and to Johanna Nichols, who appreciates all kinds of
linguistic work, and always sees the potential contribution that any language can offer to
the world of linguistic typology. Her insightful probing has truly improved the quality of
my research.
I am very thankful to Larry Hyman, my phonology teacher and co-fieldworker,
whose tireless work on the tones of Hakha Lai, Falam Lai, Thado Kuki, and Thlantlang
Lai (a dialect of Hakha Lai) has contributed so much to our understanding of tonal
patterns in Kuki-Chin languages.
I also would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Andreas Kathol, whose work
on Hakha Lai syntax has significantly clarified the syntactic function of verbal stem
alternation. This book owes a great deal to the insights of many Kuki-Chin specialists
such as George Bedell, Albert Ceu Hlun, Lalnunthangi Chhangte, David Peterson, Kee
Shein Mang, Khoi Lam Thang, F. K. Lehman, Thlasui Tluangneh, to name a few.
This book is in essence a product of linguistic “fieldwork” done at Berkeley. It
began with a year-long Field Methods class that Jim conducted at STEDT in 1996-1997
where Hakha Lai was the object of study. I was very fortunate to be the consultant for
that class. A noteworthy result of that course was the publication of a rich collection of
articles on H. Lai linguistics, which appeared in two volumes, in the journal Linguistics
of the Tibeto-Burman Area (1997-1998, Vol. 20.2 and 21.1). I am very grateful to all the
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students in that course (Jonathan Barnes, Darya Kavitskaya, Jason Patent, David
Peterson, Rungpat Roengpitya, and Tomoko Yamashita Smith) who patiently endured my
probing of their analyses of various linguistic phenomena in Hakha Lai.
Most significantly, the H. Lai Field Methods class was very fortunate to have
David A. Peterson (now a tenured professor at Dartmouth College, NH), a morpho-
syntactician who specializes in the “applicative” construction. Having worked on Hakha
Lai, one of the most conservative KC languages, he continued to do field linguistics on
Southern Chin languages such as Khumi and Hyaw, among several others. This
monograph profits enormously from David’s copious data on Khumi. I have gained many
insights and an appreciation of rigorous investigations of syntactic phenomena due to my
work and friendship with him.
I owe a lasting debt of gratitude to Rev. Thian Haokip and Ms. Veih Khaw Ning
for providing data on Thado Kuki, Dr. Milan Za for Falam Lai data, and Mr. Ngo Co Le
(Ngun Cung Lian) for data on Mara.
I also would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my colleagues and friends at
STEDT (the “STEDTniks”: Richard Cook, Nina Keefer, J. B. Lowe, David Mortensen,
David Solnit, and Dominic Yu) for all the support they have provided. In the final stages
of preparation, this manuscript has also greatly benefitted from the pro bono editorial
assistance of Daniel Bruhn, David Kamholz, and Liberty Lidz (a visiting Ph.D. candidate
from the University of Texas, Austin, who has spent countless hours proofreading the
manuscript). Had it not been for their help and suggestions, this book could not have been
produced so well. All remaining drawbacks and possible mistakes, however, are due to
my own shortcomings.
I would like to say kaa lawm tuk (“thank you very much”) to my family members
and friends, especially, ka-nu (my Mom, Mabel Zo Kai), ka-pa (my Dad, Rev. Dr. David
Van Bik) in van cung khua (“the village above the sky”), and my siblings: Steven Van
Bik, Eric Van Bik, Rev. Rollin Van Bik, and Mrs. Alice Tialhleipar Kyi Thu Hla for their
help and support.
The back cover background of this book was designed by my nephew, Calvin
Van Bik. I truly appreciate his ingenuious representation of a traveling Proto-Kuki-Chin
man and woman.
Last, but only because they are most important, my sincere gratitude to my wife
Sen (Martha-nu) and my daughter Martha who have struggled together with me and
sustained me through these years.
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Preface

This book is the culmination of many years of dedicated research. The author,
Dr. Kenneth VanBik, is a native speaker of Hakha Lai, one of the most important
languages of Chin State, Burma. After graduating from the University of Rangoon,
Burma Institute of Theology, and American Baptist Seminary of the West, Ken won a
scholarship to the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. A year or two later, during
the academic year 1996-97, I was delighted to hear that there was a speaker of Lai Chin
in Berkeley who was eager to be the consultant in my Linguistic Field Methods class.

That class turned out to be one of the most enjoyable that I ever taught, largely
because of Ken’s irrepressible sense of humor. The students will always remember Ken’s
famous tag-line whenever he changed his mind about something. Demonstrating his
theological training, he would solemnly lift a finger and intone “I recant!” So stimulating
did Ken find his experience working with linguistics graduate students that he applied for
admission to Berkeley’s graduate program in linguistics.

Several years of intense study later, Ken decided to work on a reconstruction of
Proto-Kuki-Chin for his dissertation, and began to devour everything that had been
written on this language family. During this whole dissertation writing process, Ken
displayed great patience and perseverance, cheerfully going through multiple recensions
and revisions of his manuscript. Up to the moment of submitting the dissertation, he kept
discovering new Burmese/Chin cognates, most of which he could not resist
incorporating, even though this usually required extensive renumbering of the sets
already reconstructed.

The results of all this hard work have been impressive. This book represents a
high-water mark in our understanding of the history of the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-
Burman. Nearly 1400 reconstructed cognate sets are presented, at various taxonomic
levels: Proto-Kuki-Chin, Proto-Central-Chin, Proto-Northern-Chin, and Proto-Maraic.
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Special attention is paid to the subgrouping of this highly ramified family, based on the
patterns of shared phonological innovations which the various languages display.

The rich harvest of etyma that this book provides is now being incorporated into
the main STEDT data-base. While many of these roots are attested elsewhere in Tibeto-
Burman, quite a few have yet to be identified outside of Kuki-Chin. Such subgroup-
specific etyma are of particular interest, since they establish isogloss boundaries which
are essential to the ultimate goal of a finer subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman as a whole.

Thanks largely to Kenneth VanBik’s work, the crucially important and
phonologically conservative Kuki-Chin family has become one of the most exciting
growth points in Tibeto-Burman studies.

James A. Matisoff
Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus
September, 2009
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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 1

1.1 The Names: Kuki-Chin......................................................................... 2
1.1.1 Kuki ...................................................................................................... 2
1.1.2 Chin....................................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER 2 THE SUBGROUPING OF THE KUKI-CHIN LANGUAGES........... 5

2.1 The Subgrouping of Kuki-Chin within the Tibeto-Burman Family..... 5
2.2 The Separation of Kuki-Chin from the Rest of the Tibeto-Burman
Family................................................................................................... 9
2.2.1 Verbal Stem Alternation....................................................................... 10
2.2.2 PTB initials *s/sy > PKC *th................................................................ 16
2.3 Internal Subgrouping in Kuki-Chin...................................................... 18
2.3.1 Peripheral Group (Northern and Southern-Plains Group).................... 23
2.3.1.1 Northern (Zo) group.............................................................................. 24
2.3.1.2 Southern-Plains (Khumi-Cho-Asho) Group......................................... 32
2.3.2 Central Chin (Laamtuk Thet-Lai-Mizo) Group.................................... 39
2.3.3 Maraic Group........................................................................................ 51

CHAPTER 3 THE PKC SYLLABLE CANON......................................................... 57

CHAPTER 4 INITIAL CONSONANTS.................................................................... 59

4.1 Initial Stops........................................................................................... 62
4.1.1 Initial Voiced Implosive Stops.............................................................. 64
4.1.1.1 *ɓ........................................................................................................... 65
4.1.1.2 *ɗ.......................................................................................................... 74
4.1.2 Initial Voiceless Stops........................................................................... 83
4.1.2.1 *p........................................................................................................... 83
4.1.2.2 *t........................................................................................................... 93
4.1.2.3 *k........................................................................................................... 105
4.1.3 Initial Voiceless Aspirated Stops.......................................................... 118
4.1.3.1 *ph......................................................................................................... 119
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4.1.3.2 *th ........................................................................................................ 127
4.1.3.3 *kh ........................................................................................................ 138
4.1.3.4 *ʔ .......................................................................................................... 148
4.2 *Initial Affricates ................................................................................. 157
4.2.1 *ts ......................................................................................................... 157
4.2.2 *tsh ....................................................................................................... 167
4.3 Initial Fricatives ................................................................................... 174
4.3.1 *θ ......................................................................................................... 174
4.3.2 *s .......................................................................................................... 179
4.3.3 *sh ........................................................................................................ 186
4.3.4 *h .......................................................................................................... 189
4.4 Initial Nasals ........................................................................................ 197
4.4.1 Initial Voiced Nasals ............................................................................ 197
4.4.1.1 *m ........................................................................................................ 197
4.4.1.2 *n .......................................................................................................... 207
4.4.1.3 *ŋ .......................................................................................................... 215
4.4.2 Initial Voiceless Nasals ........................................................................ 220
4.4.2.1 *hm ...................................................................................................... 220
4.4.2.2 *hn ........................................................................................................ 224
4.4.2.3 *hŋ ........................................................................................................ 229
4.5 Initial Liquids ....................................................................................... 232
4.5.1 Initial Voiced Liquids .......................................................................... 232
4.5.1.1 *r .......................................................................................................... 232
4.5.1.2 *l .......................................................................................................... 243
4.5.2 Initial Voiceless Liquids ...................................................................... 258
4.5.2.1 *hr ........................................................................................................ 259
4.5.2.2 *hl ........................................................................................................ 265
4.6 Initial Glides ......................................................................................... 271
4.6.1 *w ......................................................................................................... 271
4.6.2 *y .......................................................................................................... 280
4.7 Initial Clusters ...................................................................................... 290
4.7.1 Lateral Clusters .................................................................................... 290
4.7.1.1 *pl ........................................................................................................ 290
4.7.1.2 *kl ........................................................................................................ 292
4.7.1.3 *phl ...................................................................................................... 296
4.7.1.4 *khl ...................................................................................................... 296