A PHONOLOGICAL SKETCH OF SIZANG CHIN

TYLER DAVIS

AL603 Introduction to Phonological Analysis4 November 2558

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction.................................................................................................................11.1 Sizang Chin Language..........................................................................................11.2 The Informant and Data Collection Methodology...............................................1

2 Syllable Structure........................................................................................................22.1 The Syllable..........................................................................................................22.2 Ambiguous Segments...........................................................................................3

3 Chart of Phones...........................................................................................................44 Contrast.......................................................................................................................6

4.1 Consonants...........................................................................................................64.2 Vowels..................................................................................................................94.3 Tones...................................................................................................................11

5 Chart of Phonemes....................................................................................................145.1 Consonant Phonemes.........................................................................................145.2 Vowel Phonemes................................................................................................14

6 Distribution Chart......................................................................................................157 Conclusions...............................................................................................................16 Bibliography................................................................................................................16Appendix A Sizang Word List......................................................................................17

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1 IntroductionThe aim of this phonology sketch is to provide an accurate description of the phonology of Sizang Chin, a Kuki-Chin language spoken in the Sizang Valley of the Chin state of Myanmar.

1.1 Sizang Chin LanguageThe Chin valley is located West of the city of Kalay, North of the Falam township, and South of the Tedim township. According to the Ethnologue, a United Bible Societies census conducted in 1991 indicated that there were over 10,000 Sizang speakers at that time. Sizang Chin has been classfied as Northern-Kuki-Chin alongwith Tedim and Zou (Bradley 1997:2830). Kuki-Chin languages are tonal, are somewhat agglutinative with some prefixing and much suffixing, and their base sentence structure is SOV (Bradley 2002:88). Based on the authors limited experience with Sizang Chin and other Northern Chin languages, the structure of thelanguages is generally the same, with some phonological and lexical differences.

1.2 The Informant and Data Collection MethodologyThe informant for this data was Pa Victor Ngo Cin Pau, a 67-year old native speaker of Sizang Chin currently living in Yangon, Myanmar. He claims to also speak Burmese and English and says he understands Tedim Chin. Other than Yangon, he has lived in Theizang, Tedim, Tonzang, and Falam in Chin State; other places in Myanmar, including Bago, Mandalay, Maungdaw, Laputta; and also internationally in Singapore and Cambodia.I sent Pa Victor the MSEA 436 Word List and asked him to repeat each item three times. With his sons help, he recorded the list digitally and sent me a copy via email. I first transcribed the list by hand, and then looked at the data in PRAAT to check my work.

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2 Syllable StructureThis section will provide a brief overview of the syllable structure of Sizang. These data also contain several ambiguous segments, which will be briefly addressed and discussed in this section, starting with the consonants, and then moving on to the vowels.

2.1 The SyllableThe most common syllable structure found in these data is CVC (or its variant CVC).Examples of this unambiguous structure are shown in the following words:(3. lum to be warm, 11. muun silver, 18. li thorn, 21. pak flower, 27. ptpak mushroom, 72. mul body hair, etc.). There are no unambiguous CC clusters which occur at the beginning of syllables, but there is one odd occurrence of a CC cluster at the end of a syllable: 58. nhi unt house lizard, which is CVC.CVCC, which is most-likely due to Burmese influence, as it does not appear anywhere else in the data. The smallest cluster that occurs is a CV cluster (see for example 167. h to know), but the majority of these clusters are realised as CV (e.g. 41. na to bark 57. u poison (from snake)). The largest unambiguous cluster that occurs in these data is CVVC (e.g. 28. umamka betel nut). This cluster may also occur with a V, as shown in 67. piplab butterfly, 70. tuak brain, and 77. bi cheek These examples also demonstrate that V is a separate phoneme and must not be interpreted as VV. Otherwise, the previous three examples would have a large sequence of vowels (CVVVC).Therefore, the proposed syllable formula is C(V)V(C), where any V may be a long vowel (V).

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2.2 Ambiguous SegmentsThis section will give a brief overview of the interpretation of ambiguous segments in the data. As this paper is a draft, the basic details will be shown only.

Segment InterpretationC C

C/Cu CVV CVt CV VVj VCVw VC

Also, in my raw transcription, there are other diacritics such as nasalization on certain words, but not on others. Since no genuine pattern could be found between nasalization and glottalization, they have been left out of the analysis.

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3 Chart of PhonesThis section provides the reader with a chart of phones which have been obtained by analyzing a list of 212 words (see Appendix A).

Bilabial Labio-Dental AlveolarPost-

AlveolarAlveolo-Palatal Velar Glottal

Plosive

[p] [t] [k]

[][p] [t] [k][b] [d][p] [t] [k]

Nasal[m] [n] [][m] [n] []

Fricative [v][s]

[h][z] []

Affricate[t][t]

Lateral[l][l]

Approximate [w] [j]

Table 1: Chart of Consonant Phones of Sizang

Sizang Chin, according to my analysis, has 28 consonant phones. All plosives exceptfor the velar have voiceless, voiceless unreleased, voiced and aspirated correspondences. Each nasal phone also has an unreleased allophone. Some peculiarities about the phones in Sizang, however, are its lack of the [g] phone, which is included in other Northern-Kuki-Chin languages, like Tedim Chin and Paite Chin and its lack of the [f] phone, despite there being two other voiced and voicelessFricative distinctions.

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Close [i] [i] [u] [u]Near-Close [] [] [] []

Mid [e] [e] [] [] [o] [o]Near-Open [] [] [] []

Open [a] [a]Table 2: Chart of Vowel Phones in Sizang

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4 ContrastThis section will display the contrast between the various Phonologically-similar Segments (PSS) found in these data beginning with the consonants in 4.1, the vowels in 4.2 and finally the tones in 4.3. The format of each section is as follows: the data will be presented with each segment being contrasted with other PSS (unless Complementary Distribution or Free Variation is proven), and then a brief discussion will follow each set to

4.1 Consonants

[p]-[p] C.D./p/ [p]/__#

[p]/__[p]-[p] C.A.E. 21. pak flower

195. paltam to split[p]-[b] C.A.E. 29. pkan soy bean

42. bt to bite[b]-[m] C.A.E. 6. bn mud

13. mual mountainC.A.E. 133. lbnakan sleeping area

3. lum to be warm (water)[b]-[v] C.A.E. 16. tinbak branch (tree)

136. panvan blanket

[t]-[t]/p/ [t]/__#

[t]/__

[t]-[t] C.D./t/ [t]/i__

[t]/__[t]-[t] C.A.E. 110. ta son

51. ta wingC.A.E. 90. kttak palm

70. tuak brain

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[t]-[d] C.A.E. 75. mitta eye154. dakow to be thirsty

[d]-[l] C.A.E. 155. dn to drink187. ln to throw

[d]-[n] C.A.E. 155. dn to drink193. nl to wipe

C.A.E. 175. da to be afraid133. lbnakan sleeping area

[k]-[k] C.D./k/ [k]/__#

[k]/__[k]-[k] C.A.E. 47. ki horn (of a buffalo)

37. ski barking deerC.A.E. 29. pkan soy bean

133. lbnakan sleeping areaC.A.E. 79. km mouth

156. km to be drunk (alcohol)[k]-[w] C.A.E. 96. taw fat/grease

134. tak mat[k]-[h] C.A.E. 135. lukam pillow

161. ham to yawn[]-[h] C.A.E. 40. uj dog

108. hej to be old (person)

[m]-[m] C.D./m/ [m]/__#

[m]/__[m]-[n] C.A.E. 69. maj face

100. naj pusC.A.E. 3. lum to be warm (water)

11. muun silver

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[n]-[n] C.D./n/ [n]/__#

[n]/__[n]-[] C.A.E. 107. nu mother

208. u to stealC.A.E. 29. pkan soy bean

94. hejza thigh[s]-[z] C.A.E. 71. sam hair (head)

94. hejza thighC.A.E. 14. tujsu jungle/forest

139. zubu ring[t]-[t] C.A.E. 12. ti iron

98. ti blood

[l]-[l] C.D./l/ [l]/__#

[l]/__[j]-[] F.V. 38. j monkey

38b. monkey[j]-[z] F.V. 94. hejja thigh

94b. hejza thighThere are some issues raised with this small set of data. I will start by analyzing the Free Variation presented here. Free Variation (henceforth F.V.) is defined by Burquest as a variant wa[y] of pronouncing the same word (60). The F.V. between [j]~[z] is one that is easily resolved, as this is a historical shift between theolder Sizang generations pronunciation and the younger generations pronunciation.The older generation pronounces /z/ as [j], which can be demonstrated by reading the transcriptions in Rundalls Manual of The Siyin Dialect Spoken in The Northern Chin Hills (1891) and comparing them to the more-recent publication, Handbook of The Siyin Language (Sizang Kam Sinna) (Bo Sing Za Nang 2010). Therefore, the F.V. between [j]~[] can also be attributed to the shift from [j] to [z]. As those are the only examples where [j] is syllable-initial, it may then be concluded that [j] appears in these data as a syllable-final semi-vowel only. Other noteworthy points is that [w] occurs only syllable-final and that there is no evidence for [g].

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4.2 Vowels[i]-[i] C.A.E. 73. talki forehead

47. ki buffalo hornF.V. 207. pi to pay

191. pi to give[i]-[] C.A.E. 105. mihi person

124. mn name[i]-[] C.A.E. 47. ki buffalo horn

175. da to be afraid[]-[] C.A.E. 158. kl.sia to spit

175. da to be afraid[e]-[e] C.A.E. 7. lejwe dust

104. numej woman[e]-[] C.A.E. 7. lejwe dust

167. h to know[e]-[] None[ej]-[j] C.A.E. 60. lj crocodile

80. lej tongue[ej]-[j] None[]-[] 9. snnl sand

152. ilkil to be hungry[]-[a] C.A.E. 140. tikl spoon

142. hal to burn something[]-[a] C.I.E. 150. n to eat

41. na to bark[a]-[a] C.A.E. 28. umamka betel nut

29. pkan soy bean[a]-[] C.A.E. 130. ako roof

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60. lj crocodile[a]-[] C.A.E. 83. nuza back

38b. monkey[]-[] C.A.E. 187. ln to throw

155. dn to drink[]-[o] C.A.E. 212. l to be easy

99. kolsa sweat[]-[o] C.A.E. 171. ajm to hate

144. mejko smoke[o]-[o] C.A.E. 130. ako roof

159. buko to cough[o]-[] None[o]-[] None[o]-[] None[]-[] None[u]-[] C.A.E. 56. ul snake

52. ml featherC.D. /u/ []/C__

V1

[u]/__[u]-[] None[u]-[u] C.A.E. 115. upa elder brother

28. umamka betel nut[]-[] C.A.E. 48. v.tm bird

79. km mouth[]-[] 26. mttej bamboo shoot

87. kt arm

1Although this rule is mostly consistent, there are some instances where it does not occur, which raises some questions as to its true environments. However, without acoustic analysis, there is no certain conclusion which can be reached at this time.

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[]-[] C.A.E. 196. smmt to cut hair164. sn to tell about

[]-[a] F.V. 196. smmt to cut hair71. sam hair

There are also several issues with the vowels in these data, and I will once again start with the F.V. The two sets that Ive marked as displaying F.V. are [i]-[i] and []-[a]. The reason for claiming that [I]-[i] is in F.V. when the glosses are different,is that to give and to pay have the same morphological root that is used in two different semantic situations. Therefore, it is the same word and the length does notactually distinguish the meaning. This particular instance of F.V. shows that the informant sometimes lengthened his vowels in some instances, but not in others. In the F.V. of []-[a] also, both instances contained the root word /sam/ hair, but 196. smmt to cut hair has [] instead of [a]. Because there is evidence in the data for the root word /sam/ hair to have the vowel [a], it can be argued that there is free variation between [a]~[]. Also, regarding the lack of distinction between [o]-[], as they are the closest phonologically-similar segments (PSS), it is questionable as to why the [] phone is even present in the data at all. Length is present in certain lax vowels (i.e. [] and []2) but there are no instances of [] in these data. There is also no long instance of [e] except in 104. numej woman, so the lengthening is possibly a result of it preceding [j]. The phone [e] also rarely occurs without [j] except in one instance: 7. lejwe dust. One possible explanationfor this appearance is the raising of the velum caused by [w]. A final issue is that inthese data [o] is mostly followed by [w] except in one instance: 130. ako roof. While CV is supported in these data, the fact that [o#] only appears once is strange and needs further investigation. Repeating the word list elicitation with a second informant should clear up most of these aforementioned issues.

4.3 TonesAttesting for the tonemes in Sizang Chin has proved to be a huge challenge, because in Kuki-Chin languages, Tone Sandhi is quite prevalent. In Tedim Chin, a related variety of Northern-Kuki-Chin, tonal changes occur based on whether a noun is in itsoblique form or direct form (Henderson 1965:70) or whether a verb is classified as regular (Stem I) or irregular (Stem II) (1965:72). Because the scope of this paper is not specific enough to go into as deep of a tonal analysis as Henderson did, the tone system of Sizang will only be briefly described here.

2[ ] however, only has one instance: 175. da to be afraid

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There are three basic types of tone which occur in these data:Rising Level Falling[12]

(combined with [13])[11] [21]

[23] [33] [31][34] [44] [42]

One issue that arises, is that morphemes which carry the same meaning, often have different tonemes, even in the same position of the sentence. For example:137. nitnpansl clothing138. ajpansaw trousers [33]-[42] C.I.E. 145. nam to be smelly

146. nam to smell (sniff)[33]-[34] C.A.E. 124. mn name

128. un house[13]-[34] C.A.E. 107. nu mother

117. unu elder sister[23]-[34] 168. ma ul to forget

78. bl ear[12]-[34] C.A.E. 110. ta son

24. lowpa grass (field/jungle)[34]-[31] C.A.E. 40. uj dog

44. kuj cow[11]-[31] C.A.E. 49. ambku pigeon

74. mitku eyebrow[33]-[11] C.A.E. 176. t unu to be angry

117. unu elder sister[33]-[44] C.A.E. 108. hej to be old (person)

94. hejza thigh[42]-[21] C.A.E. 102. zn urine

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187. ln to throwAlthough much C.A.E. and even one instance of C.I.E. was found, there is still not enough data in this set to determine the exact tonemes of Sizang Chin. Therefore, it can only be assumed that there are possibly three distinct tonemes from this set of data: Level /33/ Rising /34/ and Falling /42/.

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5 Chart of Phonemes5.1 Consonant PhonemesBased on the analysis performed, the chart of consonant phonemes is as follows:

Bilabial Labio-Dental Alveolar Alveolo-Palatal Velar Glottal

Plosive/p/ /t/ /k/

///b/ /d//p/ /t/ /k/

Nasal /m/ /n/ //

Fricative /v//s/

/h//z/

Lateral /l/Approximate /w/ /j/

Table 3: Chart of Sizang Consonant Phonemes

5.2 Vowel PhonemesBased on the analysis performed, the chart of vowel phonemes is as follows:

Close /i/ /u/Near-Close // //

Mid /e/ // /o/Near-Open // //

Open /a/Table 4: Chart of Vowel Phonemes in Sizang

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6 Distribution ChartThe following Distribution Chart contains the syllable-initial consonants with their corresponding vowels (empty rows have been eliminated).

p t k b d p t k m n s h v z t t l ji x x x x x x x xi x x x x x x x x xe x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xa x x x x x x x x xa x x x x x x x xu x x x x x x x x xu x x x x x x x x x x x xo x x x x x x x x x x x x

7 ConclusionsSizang Chin has 10 vowel phonemes and 19 consonant phonemes with two semi-vowels: /w/ and /j/. There are three distinctions between tone: Level /33/ Rising /34/ and Falling /42/. However, more investigation must be done regarding vowel-length contrast and tonemes.

BIBLIOGRAPHYBo Sing Za Nang. 2010. Handbook of The Siyin Language (Sizang Kam Sinna). . Vol.

1. 2 vols. Yangon, Myanmar: Siyin Cultural & Literature Committee, Yangon Siyin Baptist Church.

Henderson, Eugnie JA. 1965. Tiddim Chin: A descriptive analysis of two texts. . Vol. 15. Oxford University Press.

Rundall, Frank Montague. 1891. Manual of The Siyin Dialect Spoken in The NorthernChin Hills. Rangoon: Superintendent, Govt. Print. and Stationery.

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APPENDIX ASIZANG WORD LIST

Number English Transcription Alternative1 to be hot (water) sa

2 to be hot (person) ul

3 to be warm (water) lum

4 to be cold (person) kuasit

5 to be cool (water) vt

6 mud bn

7 dust lejwe

8 stone sua

9 sand snnl

10 gold km

11 silver muun

12 iron ti

13 mountain mual

14 jungle/forest tujsu

15 tree tinku

16 branch (tree) tinbak

17 tree bark tinh

18 thorn li

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19 root (tree) tinju

20 leaf (tree) tint

21 flower pak

22 fruit (tree) tina

23 seed (tree) amuu

24 grass (field/jungle) lowpa

25 bamboo plant (large) muua

26 bamboo shoot (edible) mttej

27 mushroom ptpak

28 betel nut umamka

29 soy bean pkan

30 ginger ti

31 garlic kajska

32 corn vajmim

33 animal (tame/wild) nhi

34 tiger saha

35 pangolin sfuluk

36 bear vm

37 barking deer ski

38 monkey j

39 gibbon aw

40 dog uj

41 to bark na

42 to bite bt bt

43 cat iaw

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44 cow kuj

45 milk (cow) kujnaj

46 buffalo laj

47 horn (of buffalo) ki

48 bird v.tm

49 pigeon ambku

50 bird's nest v.tmbu

51 wing ta

52 feather (body hair) ml

53 to fly la

54 egg tuj

55 chicken ak

56 snake ul

57 poison (from snake) u

58 house lizard nhi unt

59 turtle sumkua

60 crocodile lj

61 ant miksa

62 cockroach unlaj

63 snail daktl

64 mosquito powka

65 bee hej

66 fly tow

67 butterfly piplab

68 head luta

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69 face maj

70 brain tuak

71 hair (head) sam

72 body hair mul

73 forehead talki

74 eyebrow mitku

75 eye mitta

76 nose nak nak

77 cheek bi

78 ear bl

79 mouth km

80 tongue lej

81 neck

82 shoulder bikow

83 back nuza

84 belly ilpi

85 navel laj

86 heart luta

87 arm kt

88 elbow juu

89 armpit l nej

90 palm kttak

91 finger ktm

92 fingernail ktt un

93 leg pa pia

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94 thigh hejza hejja

95 knee kp

96 fat/grease taw

97 skin vn

98 blood ti

99 sweat kolsa

100 pus naj

101 excrement ak

102 urine zn

103 man psal

104 woman numej

105 person mihi

106 father pa

107 mother nu

108 to be old (person) hej

109 child (young person) p.ta

110 son (ones own male child) ta

111 son-in-law mak

112 husband p.sal

113 wife zi

114 widow mej

115 brother (elder of f) upa

116 brother (elder of m) upa

117 sister (elder of f) unu

118 sister (elder of m) unu

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119 brother (younger of f) nawpa

120 brother (younger of m) nawpa

121 sister (younger of f) nawnu

122 sister (younger of m) nawnu

123 friend maltam

124 name mn

125 village ka

126 road/path lmpi

127 boat munkam

128 house un

129 door toka

130 roof ako

131 area under house unnej

132 wall of house pa

133 sleeping area lbnakan

134 mat tak

135 pillow lukam

136 blanket panvan

137 clothing nitnpansl

138 trousers ajpansaw

139 ring zubu

140 spoon tikl

141 plate p.kan

142 to burn something hal

143 ashes vt

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144 smoke mejko

145 to be smelly nam

146 to smell (sniff) nam

147 to see mu

148 to look at n

149 to weep kap

150 to eat n

151 to swallow lpval

152 to be hungry ilkil

153 to be full (after eating) lva

154 to be thirsty dakow

155 to drink dn

156 to be drunk (alcohol) km

157 to vomit la

158 to spit kl.sia

159 to cough buko

160 to sneeze htejlow

161 to yawn ham

162 to breathe husa

163 to speak paw

164 to tell about sn

165 to shout aw

166 to lie/fib tam

167 to know h

168 to forget ma ul

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169 to choose tal

170 to love it

171 to hate ajm

172 to be ashamed majjm

173 to wait ap

174 to count sm

175 to be afraid da

176 to be angry t unu

177 to dream maman

178 to get up (from bed) tow

179 to go paj

180 to return tiaki

181 to run taj

182 to ascend katow

183 to descend taksk

184 to enter (house) tm

185 to go out / exit (house) pusuak

186 to kick suj

187 to throw ln

188 to fall (from a hejght) tak

189 to swim tujk

190 to float lam

191 to give pi

192 to tie (something) sm

193 to wipe nl

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194 to bathe kibal

195 to split paltam

196 to cut (hair) smmt

197 to work nasam

198 to play kmaj

199 to dance lam

200 to shoot (gun) kap

201 to hunt tapaj

202 to kill tat

203 to fight (hand-to-hand) kihaw

204 to buy lej

205 to sell juak

206 to exchange kitak

207 to pay pi

208 to steal u

209 to hide oneself bu

210 don't do it hihak

211 to be difficult haksa

212 to be easy l

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1 Introduction2 Syllable Structure3 Chart of Phones4 Contrast5 Chart of Phonemes6 Distribution Chart7 Conclusions