Subject: review of mon - khmer studies 27

review of mon - khmer studies , vol . 27 ( 1997 ) ; mahidol university at salaya , thailand , and summer institute of linguistics , dallas , texas , usa ; us $ 39 . 00 . reviewed by neil h . olsen , neil . olsen @ ci . slc . ut . us volume 27 of mon - khmer studies ( mks ) is dedicated to paul k . benedict on the occasion of his 85th birthday ( 5 july 1997 ) . tragically , dr . benedict died sixteen days later in an automobile accident . robert s . bauer writes a memorial tribute which includes a concise biography . following bauer 's memorial , he and other mks editors have compiled a bibliography of benedict \ 213s articles , books , and conference papers - - the most current and complete published to date . mks 27 is the third volume in the special series dedicated to recognized experts in the field of southeast asian linguistics . mks 25 was dedicated to the late andre haudricourt and mks 26 to david thomas , one of the founding editors of mks in 1964 . mks 28 will resume the regular format of the journal . although mks is generally a journal devoted to mon - khmer and austroasiatic languages , it welcomes articles on other southeast asian languages and language families . the 28 papers in this volume are more ambitious than previous mks volumes and represent a wide range of linguistic topics which reflect dr . benedict 's broad , eclectic , and sometimes controversial interests . there are papers on chinese , japanese , tai , sino - tibetan , tibeto - burman , hmong - mien , austronesian , and , of course , austroasiatic . the main purpose of this review is to briefly summarize the various papers so that readers may select those articles which interest them . the first paper is paul k . benedict 's , " interphyla flow in southeast asia , " which was one of the keynote speeches at the 4th international symposium on languages and linguistics , pan - asiatic linguistics , held in bangkok in january 1966 . benedict warns us that the field of southeast asian linguistics is the bosnia of historical linguistics - - a lovely landscape strewn with land mines ! he playfully formulates a law of historical linguistics : the number of linguistic errors perpetrated is inversely proportional to the median length of the roots involved . the remainder of his paper is devoted to exploring sino - tibetan , mon - khmer , and austro - tai homelands ( with a map and diagram ) , distinguishing between direct and stimulus diffusion in interphyla tone flow , and contrasting affixation patterns among the superstocks . finally , he traces a pair of mon - khmer loan - words , ' tiger ' and ' raptor ' , as they ' invade ' southeast asia . " on the track of austric : part ii , consonant mutation in early austroasiatic ' by la vaughn h . hayes is a data-rich paper continuing ( part i in mks 21 ) his effort to validate wilhem schmidt 's 1906 hypothesis that austroasiatic and austronesian are genetically related and should be grouped under a new austric superstock . hayes claims that diachronic changes affecting proto - austroasiatic obscure and conceal the linkage between ancient consonants and their modern reflexes . these changes have contributed to the difficulty of establishing the lexical connection between austroasiatic and austronesian . this paper describes and details four plre phonological shifts - - palatalization , spirantization , assibilation , and voicing - - which took place early in the history of the austroasiatic language family causing massive mutations in the consonant system . dipankar moral , in " north - east india as a linguistic area , " delineates seven indian states - - with 220 languages belonging to the indo - european , sino - tibetan , and austroasiatic families - - as a linguistic area distinct from the rest of india . lists of common linguistic characteristics ( phonological , grammatical , and lexical features ) bolster the argument of areal uniqueness . read this paper in conjunction with simon 's paper noted below . michel ferlus , in ' le maleng bro et le vietnamien , describes the phonology and morphology of maleng bro , a viet - muong language spoken in khammouan , laos . data from maleng sheds light on viet - muong linguistic history , especially the syllable structure and ancient morphology of vietnamese and the development of its tones . david filbeck , in " the protasis - apodosis construction in mal , " gives a structural and functional description of a topic-comment syntactic pattern in mal , a mon - khmer language spoken in northern thailand . sujaritlak deepadung and suriya ratanakul , in " final particles in conversational mal ( thin ) , " discuss status , question , and mood sentence final particles in the ban sakat klang dialect of mal . dai qingxia and liu yan , in " analysis of the tones in the guangka subdialect of deang , " present a synchronic description and analysis of guangka tones . they compare guangka to other deang dialects with and without tones . deang is a mon - khmer language spoken in southwest yunnan , china . this study contributes to further understanding of the development of tone systems in mon - khmer languages . theraphan l . - thongkum , in " the place of lawi , harak , and tariang within bahnaric , " presents the results of field work with mon - khmer languages spoken in sekong province , laos . ethnolinguistic data and word lists are included . lawi is classified as a west bahnaric language , while the place of harak and tariang within bahnaric is unclear at present . natalja m . spatar , in " imperative constructions in cambodian , " notes that the cambodian imperative paradigm consists of four categories : 1st person sg . and pl . , 2nd person , and 3rd person . the center of this paradigm is the 2nd person imperative forms : any imperative marker ( except oj ) can be used in a 2nd person imperative , and only 2nd person imperatives can be used without any marker and without a subject . suwilai premsrirat , in " linguistic contributions to the study of the northern khmer language of thailand in the last two decades , " surveys the linguistic work , major developments , and recent research that has been conducted on khmer ( cambodian ) as spoken in thailand . a 3 - page bibliography is included . sophana srichampa , in " serial verb constructions in vietnamese , " examines a specific verb construction in vietnamese - - a sequence of verbs occurring together with a non-overt subject and / or a non-overt object - - within the framework of government and binding theory . zhou zhizhi and yan qixiang , in their " on the genetic affiliation of vietnamese , " reopen the old debate concerning whether vietnamese is a tai , austroasiatic , or chinese language . they compare 159 basic vocabulary items from vietnamese with thai and zhuang ( tai languages ) and wa , blang , and palaung ( austroasiatic languages ) . focusing on a 40 % cognate rate with wa , they examine phonetic and grammatical similarities between vietnamese and wa and confirm that vietnamese is indeed an austroasiatic language . i . m . simon , in " on first looking into paul k . benedict 's sino - tibetan , " uses benedict 1972 as a starting point to compare khasi , a mon - khmer language spoken in assam , with tibeto - burman , and with huffman 's ( 1990 ) mon and kur wordlists . this paper should be read in conjunction with moral 's paper noted above . david bradley , in " what did they eat ? grain crops of the burmic groups . " follows up on benedict 1972 and 1975 and takes a closer look at the reconstruction of words for various grain crops within the burmic subgroup of sino - tibetan . bradley draws some conclusions about the implications of this reconstruction for the original homeland of the burmic , tibeto - burman , and sino - tibetan groups . james a . matisoff , in " dayang pumi phonology and adumbrations of comparative qiangic , " analyzes pumi 's complex phonology and tones in great detail . he discusses pumi 's place in the qiangic family and notes that much internal reconstruction will be necessary before details of the complex initial - and rhyme-correspondences will be figured out . pumi is a tai language spoken in yunnan , china . helen potopova , in " semantic characteristics of the tibetan honorific forms , " focuses on words taking honorific prefixes , the original meanings of which are anatomical terms . in tibetan , the choice to use an honorific form as opposed to a neutral form is determined by social stratification and the situation of the communication act itself . semantic and lexical evidence is presented . george bedell , in " causatives and clause union in lai ( chin ) , " examines causative constructions in lai within a generative framework . lai , also called hakha chin , is spoken in chin state , myanmar ( burma ) . ilia peiros , in " lolo - burmese linguistic archaeology , " discusses what linguistic data suggest about speakers of proto - lolo - burmese ( plb ) . three main issues are discussed : ( 1 ) localization of plb homeland ; ( 2 ) absolute dating for the disintegration of plb homeland ; and ( 3 ) some features of plb cultural reconstruction . peiros proposes that 3800-3600 years ago a highly developed culture flourished in yunnan , connected more with sub - himalayan cultures than southeast asian . there is an appendix of plb cultural lexicon . k . s . nagaraja 's " kinship terms in konyak naga " is a data paper listing kinship terminology collected for konyak naga , a tibeto - burman language of nagaland state in india . jerold a . edmonson and kenneth j . gregerson , in their " outlying kam - tai : notes on ta mit laha , " offer recent field notes primarily on the phonology of laha , a kadai language spoken in northern vietnam . there is a brief overview of laha ethnolinguistic history along with comparative comments on the rather large shared vocabulary with the tai branch . they conclude that the laha language of ta mit township will prove useful in future work in deciphering the history of outlier kadai languages . wave form and pitch trajectory of two words are illustrated ; a map showing laha groups in vietnam and china is very useful . luo yongxian , in " expanding the proto - tai lexicon - - a supplement to li ( 1977 ) , " examines a sizable number of new cognate sets which substantially expands li 's seminal 1977 work . using lexical classification , the new cognates sets are arranged by semantic field : nature and environment , agricultural terms , etc . implications of lexical classification for subgrouping in tai langauges are discussed and cognates rates are tabulated . qin xiaohang , in " evolution of the initial consonant clusters pl , kl , ml in the hongshiuhe vernacular of zhuang , " analyzes the historical evolution of the initial consonant clusters pl , kl , ml in the hongshuihe vernacular , a northern dialect of zhuang , a tai language , spoken in guangxi zhuang autonomous region in china . udom warotamasikkhadit , in " fronting and backing topicalization in thai , " observes that , in thai , topicalization can occur at the beginning of , in the middle of , or at the end of a sentence . illustrative sentences are given and it is concluded that topicalization is closely related to emphasis . apiluck tumtavitikul , in " reflection on the x ' category in thai , " questions whether or not there is an intermediate level of x ' category in thai . evidence is presented for the existence of x ' in thai , in particular , n ' and v ' , and most probably a ' and p ' as well , if a similar kind of argumentation is applied . there is a concluding discussion of the implications . martha ratliff , in " hmong - mien demonstratives and pattern persistence , " examines the persistence of a 3 - way , person-oriented demonstrative system in the hmong - mien ( miao - yao ) family . the hmong daw ( white hmong ) demonstrative ko ' that-near you ' is discussed in detail . ratliff comments on the implications of pattern persistence in relation to southeast asia areal types , relexification , and hmong - mien as austro - tai . christiane cormo , in " towards a constructivist approach of the japanese ' passive ' , " recategorizes japanese passive verbs according to the pronominal approach in a constructivist framework . joseph f . kess and tadao miyamoto , in " psycholinguistic aspects of hanji processing in chinese , " explore the psycholinguistic dimensions of logographic hanji character processing and linguistic recognition in chinese . they review the current literature on the subject and attempt to synthesize the conflicting explanations offered by two opposing theoretical models of chinese lexical access , word recognition , and the architecture of the chinese mental lexicon . the final paper in the volume , ernest w . lee 's , " austronesian for ordinary speakers of austronesian languages " demonstrates the pedagogical technique of introducing the notion of a proto-language and daughter languages to non-linguist austronesian speakers from the solomon islands and vanuatu using roglai ( vietnam ) and maguindanao ( philippines ) cognates . errata for two articles that appeared in mks 26 , and a publications list of the institute of language and culture for rural development at mahidol university complete this issue . soliciting , compiling , and editing articles for inclusion in dedicatory or special issues of journals is difficult in itself ; the editors of mks have done an admirable job on the last three volumes . my only criticism is that in a few papers ( e . g . , ratliff , cormo ) , some works cited are not referenced in the bibliography , making it difficult to follow up on an interesting topic . bibliography benedict , paul k . 1972 sino - tibetan : a conspectus . james a matisoff , contributing ed . cambridge : cambridge university press . benedict , paul k . 1975 austro - thai language and culture . new haven : human relations area files . huffman , franklin e . 1990 burmese mon , thai mon , and nyah kur : a synchronic comparison . mks 16-17 : 31-84 . li , fang - kuei . 1977 a handbook of comparative tai . oceanic linguistics special publications , 15 . honolulu : the university press of hawaii . the author of this review is neil h . olsen , information planner with salt lake city corporation . he earned a m . a . in linguistics from the university of utah in 1994 . olsen has been an adjunct instructor at the english language institute , university of utah . his linguistic interests focus on south bahnaric languages , where he did field work with koho speakers in vietnam ( 1967-68 ) and in north carolina ( 1997 ) . he is currently working on a koho grammar and dictionary .
