Proto-Tibeto-Burman (commonly abbreviated PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the

Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spe ...

, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by

James Matisoff James Alan Matisoff ( zh, , t=馬蒂索夫, s=马蒂索夫, p=Mǎdìsuǒfū or zh, , t=馬提索夫, s=马提索夫, p=Mǎtísuǒfū; born July 14, 1937) is an American linguist. He is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Cal ...

. Several other researchers argue that the Tibeto-Burman languages ''sans'' Chinese do not constitute a monophyletic group within Sino-Tibetan, and therefore that Proto-Tibeto-Burman was the same language as Proto-Sino-Tibetan.

Issues

Reconstruction is complicated by the immense diversity of the languages, many of which are poorly described, the lack of

inflection In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...

in most of the languages, and millennia of intense contact with other Sino-Tibetan languages and languages of other families. Only a few subgroups, such as Lolo-Burmese, have been securely reconstructed. Benedict's method, which he dubbed "teleo-reconstruction", was to compare widely separated languages, with a particular emphasis on Classical Tibetan, Jingpho, Written Burmese, Garo, and Mizo. Although the initial consonants of cognates tend to have the same place and manner of articulation, voicing and aspiration are often unpredictable. Matisoff attributes this to the effects of prefixes that have been lost and are often unrecoverable. The reconstruction also features "allofams", variant forms of a root postulated to explain inconsistent reflexes in daughter languages. The reconstruction of such "allofams" has been heavily criticized by other researchers in the field.

Homeland

Contrary to other hypotheses suggesting a Proto-Sino-Tibetan homeland in the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

valley of northern China, Matisoff (1991, 2015) suggests that the Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) homeland was located "somewhere on the Himalayan plateau," and gives Proto-Tibeto-Burman a date of approximately 4000 B.C., which is roughly on a par with the age of

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

. Language diversification occurred as speakers then moved downstream through various river valleys.

Phonology

The phonology of Proto-Tibeto-Burman here is from Matisoff's 2003 reconstruction, much of which is based on Benedict's earlier reconstructions.

Consonants

Proto-Tibetan–Burman has at least 23 consonants (Matisoff 2003:15). Some descendants of Proto-Tibetan–Burman, especially the Qiangic languages, have developed dozens of sibilant fricatives and affricates. According to Matisoff, Proto-Tibeto-Burman also has many final nasals, stops, and liquids.

Vowels

In Matisoff's reconstruction, Proto-Tibeto-Burman vowels can be split into primary and secondary sets. Modern-day Tibeto-Burman languages have anywhere from five vowels (Written Tibetan and Jingpho) to dozens of monophthongs and diphthongs ( Loloish and Qiangic languages) (Matisoff 2003:157). Matisoff (2003) also notes that languages which have greatly simplified or eliminated final consonants tend to have more vowels. The open front unrounded vowel *a is by far the most common and stable vowel in Tibeto-Burman languages. Matisoff (2003) reinterprets

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s from Paul Benedict's reconstruction as long vowels.

Preservation of stops

According to Matisoff, Sino-Tibetan languages go through a series of four stages in which final stops and nasals gradually decay (Matisoff 2003:238-239). #The six final stops and nasals, *-p, *-t, *-k, *-m, *-n, *-ŋ, are all intact. Written Tibetan, Lepcha, Kanauri, Garo, and Cantonese are currently on this stage. #One or more final consonants have been reduced or dropped. In Jingpho and Nung, the velars (*-k) are replaced by glottal stops (-ʔ), while in other languages they are completely dropped. In

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, all final stops are dropped, and *-m has merged with *-n. #All finals stops become glottal stops or constrictions (such as creaky voices), and final nasals may be replaced by nasality in the preceding consonant. Languages currently in this stage include modern Burmese and Lahu. #There are no glottal or nasal traces of the former final consonants left in the syllables.

Syntax

Proto-Tibeto-Burman was a verb-final ( subject–object–verb or SOV) language. Most modern-day Tibeto-Burman branches also display SOV word order. However, due to syntactic convergence within the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, three Tibeto-Burman branches, Karenic, Mruic, and Bai, display SVO (verb-medial) word order. This syntactic realignment has also occurred in Sinitic, which Scott DeLancey (2011) argues to be a result of creolization through intensive language contact and multilingualism during the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

Morphology

Syllable structure

According to

, Proto-Tibeto-Burman syllables typically consist of the following structure (Matisoff 2003:11-13). *P₁: first prefix - optional *P₂: second prefix - optional *C_i: initial consonant *G: glide - optional *V: vowel (optionally lengthened) *C_f: final consonant *s: suffix - optional The following types of changes in syllable structure have been attested in Tibeto-Burman languages (Matisoff 2003:155). (''Note'': '' Sesquisyllable'', otherwise known as a ''minor syllable'', is a word coined by

meaning "one-and-a-half syllables.") *disyllable **disyllable → sesquisyllable **disyllable → complex monosyllable **disyllable → simple monosyllable *sesquisyllable **sesquisyllable → disyllable **sesquisyllable → complex monosyllable **sesquisyllable → simple monosyllable *complex monosyllable **complex monosyllable → sesquisyllable **complex monosyllable → simple monosyllable *simple monosyllable **simple monosyllable → disyllable Below are the ''sources'' of the syllable changes (i.e., reversal of the list above). *disyllable **from sesquisyllable **from simple monosyllable *sesquisyllable **from disyllable **from complex monosyllable *complex monosyllable **from disyllable **from sesquisyllable *simple monosyllable **from disyllable **from sesquisyllable **from complex monosyllable However, Roger Blench (2019) argues that Proto-Sino-Tibetan did not have sesquisyllabic structure; instead, sesquisyllabicity in present-day Sino-Tibetan branches had been borrowed from Austroasiatic languages due to typological

convergence Convergence may refer to: Arts and media Literature *''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen *Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics: **A four-part crossover storyline that ...

Verbs

According to many authors such as James Bauman, George van Driem and Scott DeLancey, a system of verbal agreement should be reconstructed for proto-Tibeto-Burman. Verbal agreement has disappeared in Chinese, Tibetan, Lolo-Burmese and most other branches, but was preserved in Kiranti languages in particular. This is a topic of scholarly debate, however, and the existence of a PTB verbal agreement system is disputed by such authors as Randy LaPolla.

Prefixes

Matisoff postulates the following derivational prefixes. * *s- — This prefix is used for the ''directive, causative, or intensive''. It also appears in words for animals and body parts. * *ʔa- / *(ʔ)ə / *ʔə̃ / *ʔaŋ / *ʔak — This glottal prefix is used for ''kinship functions'' and the ''third person possessive''. * *m- — Before verb roots, this prefix signifies ''inner-directed states or actions'', such as stativity, intrasitivity, durativity, and reflexivity. Before noun roots, it is used as a third person possessive prefix. * *r- — Before verbs, this prefix is used as a "''directive''." It is also used before a wide variety of semantically unrelated noun roots. * *b- — This prefix is often used before ''transitive verbs'', and usually marks the past (with suffix *-s, creating a *b- -s circumfix) and future (with a null suffix). * *g- — This velar prefix has a ''third person pronominal function'' before noun roots. It is also used before a wide variety of semantically unrelated noun roots. Before verb roots, it is used for the ''present and future tenses''. In Proto-Lolo–Burmese, the unvoiced velar prefix *k- is used commonly used before ''animal names''. Other constructed prefixes include *l- and *d-.

Circumfixes

Circumfixes have also been reconstructed for Proto-Tibeto-Burman. In Written Tibetan, s- -n and s- -d are collective circumfixes used in kinship terms (Matisoff 2003:453).

Suffixes

According to Matisoff, three Proto-Tibeto-Burman dental suffixes, *-n, *-t, and *-s, are highly widespread, but their semantics are difficult to reconstruct (Matisoff 2003:439). The suffixes *-s, *-h, and *-ʔ are often developed into tones in many Tibeto-Burman languages, and are thus highly "tonogenetically potent" (Matisoff 2003:474). * *-n – This suffix has a variety of functions, including ''nominalizing'', ''transitivizing'', and ''collectivizing'' (or pluralizing). The nominalizing function is attested in Lepcha as -m or -n and in Written Tibetan as -n. The transitivizing form is rare, and has only been attested in Kanauri. Finally, the collectivizing/pluralizing function is found not only in many modern-day Tibeto-Burman languages but also in

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

as well. * *-t – This suffix is used as a ''nominalizer''. It occurs in Jingpho as -t and Written Tibetan as -d. Other functions include ''verbalizing noun roots'' and making intransitive or stative verbs into ''transitive'' or ''causative'' ones (Matisoff 2003:457). In other cases, *-t appears to have no obvious function. The *-t suffix also occurs in

, but its semantic function is unclear. * *-s – Not easily distinguishable from *-t, this proto-suffix is preserved in written Tibetan, West Himalayish languages, Chepang, Kuki-Chin languages (as -ʔ) and some Qiangic languages. It can serve as a nominalizer (Qiang and Tibetan), locative, ''subordinator'' (Kuki-Chin languages), a ''stative, inner-directed, or "middle" meaning'' (Himalayish languages such as Kanauri), and causative ( Kiranti and Kuki-Chin languages). * *-k – This velar suffix occurs in the

Kukish languages The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most not ...

and also in

. Its semantic function is still unknown. However, Pulleyblank assigns a ''distributive'' sense to the *-k suffix, but only in relation to ''pronominal'' forms (LaPolla 2003:26). * *ʔay – This proto-morpheme means "to go", and can be attached to various roots as a palatal suffix to signify ''motion away from the deictic center''. This fully syllabic proto-morpheme has now been grammaticalized and reduced to palatal offglides in modern-day Tibeto-Burman languages. * *ya / *za / *tsa / *dza – Meaning "child" or "little one", this proto-morpheme appears in Tibeto-Burman languages as a palatal suffix (-j), and has also been reconstructed in several ways. Its purpose is mainly

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

. Matisoff (2003) also notes that high front vowels tend to be used for diminutive functions. * *-way / *-ray – This proto-copula can also appear as a palatal suffix (-j) and occurs in ''roots carrying abstract grammatical meanings'', such as articles, pronouns, and deictics (Matisoff 2003:487).

Vocabulary

Among other researchers, Paul K. Benedict and

have proposed reconstructed vocabulary items for Proto-Tibeto-Burman. Matisoff's Proto-Tibeto-Burman reconstruction is by far the most cited, and with his last version published in the final release of the ''

Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus The ''Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus'' (commonly abbreviated ''STEDT'') was a linguistics research project hosted at the University of California at Berkeley. The project, which focused on Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan hi ...

'' (2015).Matisoff, James A. 2015
''The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus''
Berkeley: University of California.
PDF
Bruhn, Daniel; Lowe, John; Mortensen, David; Yu, Dominic (2015). ''Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Database Software''. Software, UC Berkeley Dash. ''Allofams'' (a term coined by Matisoff to mean alternate proto-forms) are marked using ⪤.

Stable roots

Matisoff (2009) lists 47 stable Tibeto-Burman roots (i.e., etyma that have cognates widely distributed in branches throughout the family) and their Proto-Tibeto-Burman reconstructions. *Body parts (10 words): ''blood; bone; ear; eye; hair (body)/fur/feather; hand; nose; tail; tongue; tooth'' *Animals (5 words): ''animal; dog; fish; pig; snake'' *Numerals (6 words): ''three; four; five; six; eight; hundred'' *Natural objects and units of time (5 words): ''day (of 24 hours); fire; moon; smoke; sun/daytime'' *People and habitation (6 words): ''child/son; grandfather/elder brother; house; husband/male; man/person; name'' *Plants and ingestibles (2 words): ''medicine/juice/paint; poison'' *Pronouns (2 words): ''I (1st person); thou (2nd person)'' *Verbs (8 words): ''bitter; die; dream; eat; ill; kill; lick; steal'' *Abstract (3 words): ''copula; negative; negative imperative'' ;Body parts * *s-hywəy 'blood' (STEDT
230
* *s-rus ⪤ *m-rus ⪤ *g-rus 'bone' (STEDT
232
* *r-na 'ear' (STEDT
811
* *s-mik ⪤ *s-myak 'eye' (STEDT
33
* *mil ⪤ *mul 'hair (body)/fur/feather' (STEDT
363
* *l(y)ak ⪤ *dyak; k(r)ut'hand' (STEDT
377

712
* *may ⪤ *mey ⪤ *mi 'tail' (STEDT
1288
* *l(y)a ⪤ *lay ⪤ *ley 'tongue' (STEDT
621
* *g-na 'nose' (STEDT
803
* *swa; džway'tooth' (STEDT
632

635
;Animals * *sya-n 'animal/meat/flesh' (STEDT
571134
* *kʷəy 'dog' (STEDT
1764
* *ŋ(y)a 'fish' (STEDT
1455
* *pʷak 'pig' (STEDT
1006
* *s-b-ruːl 'snake/vermin' (STEDT
2623
;Numerals * *g-sum 'three' (STEDT
2666
* *b-ləy 'four' (STEDT
2409
* *b-ŋa ⪤ *l-ŋa 'five' (STEDT
2623
* *d-k-ruk 'six' (STEDT
2621
* *b-r-gyat ⪤ *b-g-ryat 'eight' (STEDT
2259
* *b-r-gya 'hundred' (STEDT
2258
;Natural objects and units of time * *r(y)ak 'day (24 hours)/spend the night' (STEDT
2636
* *mey; bar ⪤ *par'fire' (STEDT
2136

2152
* *s-la ⪤ *g-la 'moon/month' (STEDT
1016
* *kəw ⪤ *kun ⪤ *kut 'smoke' (STEDT
2361
* *nəy 'sun/daytime' (STEDT
85
;People and habitation * *tsa ⪤ *za 'child/son' (STEDT
2727
* *bəw ⪤ *pəw 'grandfather/elder brother' (STEDT
2582
* *k-yim ⪤ *k-yum 'house' (STEDT
1612
* *pʷa 'husband/male' (STEDT
1612
* *r-mi(y) 'human/person' (STEDT
1002
* *r-miŋ; s-braŋ'name' (STEDT
2450

2169
;Plants and ingestibles * *tsəy; s-man'medicine/paint/juice' (STEDT
5427

5434
* *duk ⪤ *tuk 'poison' (STEDT
2530
;Pronouns * *ŋa-y; ka-y'1st person' (STEDT
2530
* *naŋ ⪤ *na '2nd person' (STEDT
2489
;Verbs * *ka-n 'bitter' (STEDT
229
* *səy 'die' (STEDT
27
* *r-maŋ 'dream' (STEDT
126
* *dzya 'eat' (STEDT
36
* *na ⪤ *nan ⪤ *nat 'ill' (STEDT
160
* *g-sat 'kill' (STEDT
1018
* *m-lyak; *s-lyam 'lick/tongue' (STEDT
629
* *r-kəw 'steal' (STEDT
2365
;Abstract * *way ⪤ *ray 'copula' (STEDT
1821
* *ma 'negative' (STEDT
2436
* *ta ⪤ *da 'negative imperative' (STEDT
2681

Reconstructed branches

Proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...

reconstructions for Tibeto-Burman branches include: *Proto- TGTM (Mazaudon 1994)
list
*Proto- Tibetic (Tournadre 2014Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.) (

list A list is a Set (mathematics), set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of t ...

) *Proto- Western Tibetan (Backstrom 1994) (

) *Proto- Kiranti (Michailovsky 1991; Opgenort 2011; Jacques 2017)
list 1list 2list 3
*Proto- West Himalayish (several proto-forms reconstructed by Widmer 2014, 2017) (

) *Proto- Dura (several proto-forms reconstructed by Schorer 2016) (

) *Proto-Himalayish ncestral proto-language of Kiranti, Magar, and Kham(Watters 2002) *Proto-

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibet, Tibetan regions, the others being Domey also known as Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The official name of this Tibetan region/province is Dotoe (). The original residents of ...

(Watters 2002Watters, David E. 2002. ''A grammar of Kham, Cambridge grammatical descriptions''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) (

) *Proto- Siangic (Post & Blench 2011) (

) *Proto- Puroik (Lieberherr 2015Lieberherr, Ismael. 2015. A progress report on the historical phonology and affiliation of Puroik
North East Indian Linguistics (NEIL), 7
Canberra, Australian National University: Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access.) (

) *Proto- Hrusish (Bodt & Lieberherr 2015) (

) *Proto- Tani (Sun 1993)
list
*Proto- East Bodish (Hyslop 2014) (

) *Proto- Central Naga o(Bruhn 2014)
list
*Proto- Tangkhulic (Mortensen 2012)
list
*Proto- Kuki-Chin (VanBik 2009)
list
*Proto- Bodo–Garo (Joseph & Burling 2006; Wood 2008) (

) *Proto- Northern Naga onyak(French 1983)
list
*Proto- Luish (Huziwara 2012; Matisoff 2013) (

) * Proto-Karenic (Jones 1961; Luangthongkum 2013, 2019)
list
*Proto- Rma (Sims 2017Sims, Nathaniel. 2017. ''The suprasegmental phonology of proto-Rma (Qiang) in comparative perspective''. Presented at the 50th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Beijing, China.)
list
*Proto- Prinmi (Sims 2017)
list
*Proto- Ersuic (Yu 2012Yu, Dominic. 2012.
Proto-Ersuic
'. Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Linguistics.) (

) *Proto- Naish (Jacques & Michaud 2011) (

) *Proto- Lolo-Burmese (Matisoff 2003)
list
* Proto-Loloish (Bradley 1979)
list
*Proto- Bai (Wang 2006) (

) *Proto- Tujia (Zhou 2020Zhou, Yulou. 2020
Proto-Bizic: A Study of Tujia Historical Phonology
B.A. honors thesis, Stanford University.)
list

References

*Bauman, James. 1975. Pronouns and pronominal morphology in Tibeto-Burman. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. * * * * * *

Book reviews

* : ** ** ** ** ** ** ** * : ** **

External links

The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus

STEDT database

STEDT Proto-Tibeto-Burman reconstructionsSino-Tibetan Branches Project (STBP)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Proto-Tibeto-Burman Language Tibeto-Burman languages Tibeto-Burman