Japhug is a Gyalrong language spoken in Barkam County, Rngaba,

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, in the three townships of Gdong-brgyad (, Japhug ), Gsar-rdzong (, Japhug ) and Da-tshang (, Japhug ). The

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

of the Japhug language is . The name Japhug (;

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

: ''ja phug''; ) refers in Japhug to the area comprising Gsar-rdzong and Da-tshang, while that of Gdong-brgyad is also known as (Jacques 2004), but speakers of Situ Gyalrong use this name to refer to the whole Japhug-speaking area.

Phonology

Japhug is the only toneless Gyalrong language. It has 49 consonants and seven vowels.

Consonants

The phoneme /w/ has the allophones �and The phoneme is realized as an epiglottal fricative in the coda or preceding another consonant. The

prenasalized consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...

s are analyzed as units for two reasons. First, there is a phoneme /ɴɢ/, as in /ɴɢoɕna/ "large spider", but neither /ɴ/ nor /ɢ/ exist as independent phonemes. Second, there are clusters of fricatives and prenasalized voiced stops, as in /ʑmbri/ "

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...

", but never clusters of fricatives and prenasalized voiceless stops. Japhug distinguishes between palatal plosives and velar plosive + j sequences, as in /co/ "valley" vs. /kjo/ "drag". These both contrast with alveolo-palatal affricates. There are at least 339 consonant clusters in Japhug (Jacques 2008:29), more than in

Old Tibetan Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan language reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century. In 816 CE, during the reign of Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan ...

or in most

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

. Some of these clusters are typologically unusual: in addition to the previously mentioned clusters of fricatives and prenasalized stops, there are clusters where the first element as a semivowel, as in /jla/ " hybrid of a yak and a cow".

Vowels

Japhug has eight vowel phonemes: , , , , , , and . The vowel is attested in only one native word ( "fish") and its derivatives, but appears in Chinese loanwords.

Grammar

Jacques (2008) is a short grammar and Jacques and Chen (2010) a text collection with interlinear glosses. Other studies on morphosyntax include Jacques (2010) on Direct–inverse marking, Jacques (2012a) on valency (

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of o ...

antipassive The antipassive voice (abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valenc ...

anticausative An anticausative verb ( abbreviated ) is an intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject, while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event. The single argument of the anticausative verb (its subject) is a ...

lability Lability refers to something that is constantly undergoing change or is likely to undergo change. Biochemistry In reference to biochemistry, this is an important concept as far as kinetics is concerned in metalloproteins. This can allow for th ...

etc.), Jacques (2012b) on incorporation and Jacques (2013) on associated motion.

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Languages of China Qiangic languages Languages of China