A phonetic and phonological
description of Ao: A Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland, north-east
India
Alec Coupe
The aim of this work is to provide
a comprehensive description of the phonetic and phonological
features of Ao, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the hill
state of Nagaland, north-east India. The description is primarily
based upon the data of three native speakers, and the language
under study is a variety of the Mongsen dialect spoken in
Waromung village, situated in the Mokokchung district. This
is the first extensive acoustic description of a language
belonging to the Kuki-Chin-Naga branch of the Tibeto-Burman
family.
The study describes the phonotactic structure, phonology,
articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and tone system
of the Mongsen dialect of Ao, illustrating how instrumental
techniques can be used to corroborate and quantify the auditory
analysis of an undescribed language. Methodology is described
in detail and the findings are correlated with what is known
cross-linguistically about aspects of the language being investigated.
It is hoped that this work will be of benefit to scholars
who wish to write descriptions of related languages and comparativists
who are interested in clarifying the genetic relationships
holding between the Tibeto-Burman languages of north-east
India. It is also hoped that the monograph will be of relevance
to a wider linguistic audience, in particular typologists
and phonologists interested in the study of phonological systems
and the characteristics of tone in less well-known languages
of the region.
Published: 2003
PL 543, ISBN (Paperback): 0 85883 519 3
7
Pages: xix + 137 pp
Prices: Australia A$39.60 (inc. GST), Overseas
A$36.00
previous next
Place an order
|
