PhoTon

This project explores and empirically tests recently uncovered contrasts involving sounds of the lower vocal tract in Qiangic and Tibetic languages (Sino-Tibetan) of Western Sichuan, China. These contrasts are among the most notable recent discoveries in the little-explored and multi-lingual area that is Western Sichuan. Given their rarity in the languages of the world, they are of great interest for our understanding of sounds of the lower vocal tract, and, more generally, for the typology of phonological systems. These recently uncovered contrasts also have the potential to contribute significantly to our understanding of sound change and the historical development and genetic relationships of various phylogenetically obscure Sino-Tibetan languages of Western Sichuan. The project thoughtfully combines methodologies from different fields — documentary and descriptive linguistics; instrumental and experimental phonetics; historical and comparative linguistics — to provide an in-depth analysis of these recently uncovered contrasts in two language clusters: the Qiang language (Qiangic) and its neighboring Tibetic varieties. These two geographically adjacent but genetically distinct language clusters have been chosen because they conveniently offer the possibility to examine both synchronic and diachronic aspects of the contrasts. We first examine synchronic aspects of the reported contrasts in Mawo Qiang, and Chos-rje and Baima Tibetan through acoustic analysis, electroglottography, and ultrasound imaging, so as to yield first-ever comprehensive descriptions on the basis of a representative number of speakers and tokens (at least eight different speakers per variety balanced for gender and age). The main focus of our synchronic analysis is on physically-internal factors underlying the contrastive sets in each variety, their physiological nature and associated lingual-laryngeal-pharyngeal interactions. The Laryngeal Articulator Model by Esling et al. (2019) will serve as a guide for related work providing some key details of laryngeal behavior in producing voice quality and associated segmental and phonatory phenomena. We then examine diachronic aspects of the reported contrasts by applying comparative-historical methods to two types of evidence: (1) cross-dialectal evidence—correspondences of the contrast sets in closely related varieties, namely (a) Xiaoxing, Yonghe, and Longxi for Qiang; and (b) Kun sngon, and Zhongu for Tibetic varieties; and (2) diachronic evidence—a comparison of modern forms in Tibetic varieties to Old Tibetan forms, as evidenced by the traditional spelling system of Written Tibetan. This part of work will focus on the phonological interpretations of laryngeal events in the investigated varieties. We will attempt to account for the historical development of the reported contrasts with reference to the synergistic interactions within the lower vocal tract, as outlined in the Phonological Potentials Model by Esling et al. (2019). The expected findings of the project extend to three distinct fields: (1) phonetics and phonology, (2) Sino-Tibetan languages and linguistics, and (3) endangered language documentation. The major contributions of the project will include: (1) a wealth of experimental data on typologically rare contrasts in little-studied languages accompanied by underlying data in open access; (2) reconstructions of the developmental pathways of the contrasts in our case studies, which have the potential to shed new light on various characteristic phonological developments in Western Sichuan, including vowel harmony, uvulars, and tonogenesis; (3) analysis of the role of language contact in the propagation of the contrasts across varieties that are but distantly genetically related (Qiangic, Tibetic) and related mechanisms of contact-induced change; and (4) an exploration of the potential for instrumental phonetic methods to bolster the documentation of endangered languages.