This volume contains 18 articles from SEALS 34 (the 34th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society).
Javanese has lost the Malayo-Polynesian voicing contrast in obstruents and replaced it with a contrast between a high and a low register that are differentiated by a bundle of phonetic properties such as VOT, f0, F1 and voice quality after the closure release. Although the acoustic properties of this register contrast are well understood, there is still some debate about its articulatory realization. In this paper, we conducted laryngeal and lingual ultrasound studies to investigate the production of Javanese registers. Results suggest that the low register is produced with a lowering of the larynx, but there is little evidence of consistent differences in tongue root or tongue body position between registers.
An investigative interview constitutes a setting of high-risk interactions between institutional participants, who act as questioners, and lay participants who provide information. This distinct asymmetry in power relations and control within the interaction leads to an interest in the examination of the strategies investigative officers use to achieve their institutional goals during investigative interviews. This study draws on the IO-Det corpus, which comprises 8,635 words from 11 written statements based on investigative interviews conducted within the Malaysian Immigration Department. Taking an inductive approach, a corpus-based forensic discourse analysis was applied to analyze the formal characteristics of yes/no questions in the IO-Det corpus. Tsui’s (2002) framework for eliciting functions of questions was used to examine the sociopragmatic functions of yes/no questions in written statements. The collocation analysis identified the do you know interrogative as the most frequent pattern of yes/no questions in the IO-Det corpus. The results indicated that, through the eliciting functions of informing, confirming, and establishing agreements, do you know interrogatives performed actions, such as seeking information, checking knowledge, confirming, gaining admissions, and establishing an offense. This study sheds light on the variation in questions used in recording written statements, which serve as a significant piece of evidence representing witnesses in the legal system.
Bunun is an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan. Previous research on two of its dialects, Takivatan and Isbukun, indicates complex paradigms of demonstrative pronouns, locative verbs, and adverbial elements. All demonstrate two-way or three-way distance contrasts, sometimes alongside underspecified forms and a distinction in visibility. However, in the Takbanuaz dialect, a four-way distinction has been observed in certain demonstrative paradigms, which, in addition to the typical proximal-medial-distal contrast, encodes vague distance. This article describes this atypical demonstrative system and discusses how its complex distance distinction aligns with our general understanding of the properties of deixis in Austronesian languages and beyond. After providing a typological outline of demonstrative distance distinctions and a summary of research on demonstrative distance in Formosan languages in Section 2, Section 3 offers an overview of previous research on Bunun demonstratives and describes the Takbanuaz demonstrative system, with a special focus on the expression of vague and indeterminate distance. Section 4 compares distance contrasts across Bunun dialects and suggests accessibility as an explanation for the semantics of vague forms in Takbanuaz.
The voicing of voiceless sonorants (VVS) and the devoicing of voiced obstruents (DVO) in Tai languages not only reduced the number of consonants but also increased tonal distinctions . While DVO in Siamese has been dated to the 1440s–1480s (Tangsiriwattanakul 2020), VVS in Siamese and both VVS and DVO in other Tai languages have received comparatively little attention. This research aims to date the mergers between voiced and voiceless consonants by examining correspondences between graphs and sounds of Siamese, Lanna, and Lao, and analyzing whether graphs attested in inscriptions represented the same or different phonemes. The findings reveal that confusion between graphs representing voiced and voiceless sonorants emerged around the 1370s, while voiced and voiceless obstruents emerged around the 1390s in Siamese. In Lanna, VVS and DVO were evident by the 1410s CE, supported by a 1411 inscription, whereas Lao shows confusions in voiced and voiceless graphs by 1444 CE. Considering that these observed time gaps may stem from limited earlier inscriptions in Lanna and Lao, this study proposes that VVS and DVO likely occurred at approximately the same time across the three languages due to their geographical proximity. These findings align with existing hypotheses (Li 1977; Gedney 1989b; Bickner 1992; Tangsiriwattanakul 2020), which argue that the mergers of voiced and voiceless consonants occurred after the foundation of the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya Tai polities in north-central Thailand.
In the pre-modern period, Java and Javanese traders were at the center of a complex web of regional and long-distance trade networks extending from India and China to New Guinea. In particular, the Javanese were key players in the spice trade, transporting these from their native Moluccas to the world through the ports of Java. Despite the pivotal role of the Javanese in this trade for hundreds or possibly even a thousand years, the Javanese language has not been considered as a source for loanwords in the Moluccas. Rather, it has typically been assumed by linguists that Malay was the vehicle of transmission of loanwords in the Moluccas, including those with ultimately Javanese origins. This article challenges this prevailing narrative, showing that there is clear evidence for direct borrowing from Javanese. We show that many Javanese loanwords in the Moluccas have dispersed across the region under the influence of the powerful clove-trading sultanates, particularly Ternate and Tidore. Recognition of Javanese as an influential language in trade in the pre- and early-modern period represents an important reframing of eastern Indonesia’s linguistic history.
This paper presents a phonological sketch on Uruangnirin, an underdescribed Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia. A word list with more than 1400 entries is found in the appendix.
This study offers new insights into ablaut reduplication in Javanese (hereafter Javanese ablaut), such as these examples: /tʃorak-tʃorek/ ‘to draw line aimlessly; doodle’, /elar-elur/ ‘to march in a long procession’, /liwaŋ-liwuŋ/ ‘extensive and dense jungle’, /gonta-ganti/ ‘to take turns, by turns; to keep changing back and forth’, (Robson and Wibisono 2002). Using an expanded data set of over 600 examples of ablaut reduplication, the largest dataset of Javanese ablaut to date, this study broadens our understanding of both its semantic meanings and its phonological patterns. It expands the list of semantic categories of Javanese ablaut, which prior to the present work was defined as only ‘habitual repetitive’ (Dudas 1976, Kenstowicz 1986, and Yip 1995) and ‘negative feelings’ (Miyake 2011). Regarding phonological patterns, this data confirms that Javanese ablaut prefers an /a/ in the reduplicant if the base includes any other vowel; however, the data points to a preference for high vowels in the reduplicant if the base contains an /a/, while previous research suggested a preference for the mid vowel /e/ (Dudas 1976, Kenstowicz 1986, and Yip 1995). Finally, it suggests a connection between this preference for high vowels and a newly identified ‘back-and-forth’ semantic category.
This study aims to describe the tonal differences of Southern Thai as spoken in the 21st century across the entire region of Southern Thailand and to show their geographical distribution on maps. The study adopts a dialectological approach (Chambers and Trudgill 1998), focusing on how tones vary by geographical area. Tonal data were collected from 998 native Southern Thai speakers across Southern Thailand. Site selection was based on a geometric grid method using QGIS and Google Earth Pro software. A set of 80 monosyllabic words, adapted from Gedney’s (1972) checklist, was used to elicit tonal data. Tonal data were analyzed through auditory judgment, followed by acoustic verification and refinement using Praat software. The results revealed that tone patterns and characteristics varied by geographical area. Southern Thai can be divided into nine regional dialects based on the patterns of tone splits and mergers, and each of the nine dialects can be further divided into sub-dialects according to the phonetic characteristics of the tones. This study both confirms and extends previous findings: it supports earlier observations regarding the merger of tones A1 and B1 as a distinguishing feature of Southern Thai, while also revealing a more complex picture of tonal diversity and distribution than previously documented.
Bodo employs optional nominal reciprocals and obligatory reciprocal verbs to form reciprocal constructions. Usually, the nominal reciprocal that is derived from a pronoun is formed by fully reduplicating the reflexive pronoun [ɡao] ‘self’, and reduplicants are conjoined together with the associative case marker [-zɯŋ] as [ɡao-zɯŋ~ɡao] ‘each other; one another’. However, there are other forms of Bodo nominal reciprocals constructed using either numerals or nouns instead of pronouns. Reciprocal pronouns are common across Bodo-Garo languages (BG) of north-east India, whereas reciprocal nouns are very rare. On the other hand, reciprocal verbs employ the reciprocal suffix [-lai].
This is a review of the book "Syntax of Vietnamese Tense, Aspect, and Negation" by Trang Phan.
This paper describes the orthography development of the Sorsoganon language, spoken in the Bicol Region of the Philippines, using a facilitated participatory approach—a hybrid of autonomous and participatory orthography design—relevant to Southeast Asian hierarchical societies. A phonemic reanalysis of data confirmed the presence of contrastive stress and the absence of consonant-glide clusters in native Sorsoganon words, which informed the orthography's design. The influence of loanwords required the addition of eight graphemes to Sorsoganon so that it achieved a nearly one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Spelling issues were addressed through consultations between the academic and community members, resulting in a localized orthography that slightly diverges from standard Filipino and Bikol conventions. Notable deviations include preserving natural reduplication in loanwords with consonant clusters, changing word-final to in derived forms, and substituting the first to in derived words with two consecutive medial back vowels. As Sorsoganon shows signs of evolving into a distinct language from Bikol, this study has established a consistent and standardized writing system. The orthography is recommended for use in mother tongue-based multilingual education, especially in the production of educational and literary materials to facilitate learning and adoption in the Sorsoganon-speaking community.
This is the thirteenth JSEALS Special Publication. The goal of JSEALS Special Publications is to share collections of linguistics articles, such as select papers from conferences or other special academic events, as well as to offer a way for linguistic researchers in the greater Southeast Asian region to publish monograph-length works. This publication contains papers of talks given at the 33rd annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. SEALS 33 was hosted by Tsinghua University in Taipei, Taiwan under the guidance of Dr. Hsiu-chuan Liao from the 15th to the 17th of May in 2024. Dr. Liao also arranged a special workshop on the 18th after SEALS entitled “Workshop on Southeast Asian Linguistics: Language Contact and Historical Relationships of Languages in Southeast Asia”, at which several specialists in the field gave talks. This volume contains nineteen articles: ten on morpho-syntactic matters, three on phonology, five on historical linguistics, and one on sociolinguistics. The languages covered in this volume are spoken throughout the greater Southeast Asian region, including both Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia (and Taiwan), bordering areas of southern China, and the Indian Subcontinent. The studies cover the five main language families in the region: Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Hmong-Mien, Kra-Dai, and Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan. We are very pleased that JSEALS is able to support SEALS and to contribute to the sharing of quality linguistic research in Greater Southeast Asia. We look forward to being able to produce such works for SEALS in the future.
In the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum published by Alexandre de Rhodes in 1651, the graphemes bl-, ml-, tl-, pl-, mnh- of five initial clusters *ɓl-, *ml-, *tl-, *pl-, *mɲ- can be found. This dictionary often presents two graphemes for the same phoneme, thus indicating both its old and new forms. This article aims first to analyze the graphic variants appearing in the Dictionarium. While Đoàn (2008) focused on orthographic changes in 18th-century texts without addressing regional variation, Vũ (2019) explicitly noted that some consonant clusters evolved differently across regions, although without providing a precise chronology for these developments. Building on this previous work, this study seeks to trace the evolution of three clusters across different periods and regions—Tonkin, Upper Cochinchina (present-day Central Vietnam), and Lower Cochinchina—based on an analysis of around one hundred letters and reports written by priests in Tonkin and Cochinchina from the 17th to the 19th century. The results of this study show that in Tonkin, the *tl- group disappeared in the 17th century and the other two groups *ml-, *tl- in the 19th century. Whereas in Cochinchina (central and southern Vietnam today), the two groups *ɓl- and *ml- disappeared first, the group *tl remained there longer.
Pronouns are traditionally defined as a pro-form of an explicit antecedent. However, the pronoun mān in Thai sometimes occurs without any co-referring explicit nominal expression, leading previous studies to consider them as non-referential. This study argues that, despite the absence of an explicit antecedent, such instances of mān have implicit referents that are inferable from context. One thousand instances of mān functioning as subject or object from the Thai National Corpus were analyzed in a usage-based approach. They were categorized according to their referentiality using three criteria: explicitness of a nominal antecedent, concreteness of a antecedent, and inference of a referent. The analysis reveals that the referentiality of the pronoun mān is not dichotomous but instead lies on a continuum in which one end expresses semantic referentiality with an explicit antecedent with a higher level of referent concreteness, and the other expresses pragmatic referentiality with an implicit antecedent with a lower level of referent concreteness. Additionally, different types of referential expressions–verb phrases, clauses, and discourse–and ambiguous cases among them strongly support the notion of gradience of referentiality.
Asur is an endangered North Munda language with fewer than ten thousand speakers which has remained largely unexplored by documentary linguists. This research draws on primary linguistic data of Asur to document and describe the connectives in the language. While the term connective is often treated as synonymous with conjunctions, it encompasses a broader range of grammatical elements, including pre-/post-positions, adverbs, and particles, all of which serve the semantic role of linking constituents within a sentence. The study explores the various constructions in the Asur language that fall under the umbrella term connectives. Within this broad category of connectives, Asur has postpositions, particles, and conjunctive particles that function to connect constituents in a sentence, either through coordination or subordination. The discussion highlights different semantic and syntactic types of connectives in Asur, including additive, adversative, alternative, and illative conjunctions, as well as quotatives, relativizers, and conjunctive participles. Particular attention is given to particles such as ci and hoʔ, which serve as connectives in Asur. In addition to native constructions, the discussion addresses borrowed connective structures and words from Hindi and highlights similarities of connective words and structures (syntactic and sematic) with related Munda languages.
This is a book review of "Nominal Classification in Asia and Oceania: Functional and Diachronic Perspectives".
This study investigates how Thai speakers of different ages use the passive sentences with positive and negative verbs in adversative and non-adversative situations and shows the tendency of language variation in passive markers among speakers of different ages. Online questionnaires were collected from four age groups, namely, youths, early and late middle-aged speakers, and elderly. One of the results of the study shows that thùuk is the most frequent passive marker in Thai for speakers of all ages and confirms Prasithrathsint (2001)’s claim that thùuk is the generic passive marker and that doon is the adversative passive marker in Thai. The passive marker dâyráp, on the other hand, is limited in its use to passive sentences with favorable meanings. While the elderly Thai speakers in the study tend to maintain dâyráp in positive situations, the youths prefer thùuk for positive verbs and doon for negative verbs. In negative verbs with adversative situations, speakers of all age groups in the study prefer thùuk, except for the youths. The data for this study also suggests that the degrees of positivity and adversity of verbs in passive constructions could affect the choice of passive markers. Verbs with a higher degree of positivity have a higher tendency to occur with dâyráp, while verbs with a higher degree of adversity have a higher tendency to appear with the passive marker doon. The use of dâyráp and thùuk in speakers of different ages could reflect tendencies of language change, while the use of doon could point to age-grading.
This paper presents a basic delineation of the Khamti Shan grammar and provides language data to support fundamental aspects of its morphosyntax. This Shan variety of Tai Khamti is a sub-group whose speakers live in Myanmar, distinguishing them from the more widely known and studied Tai Khamti group from Northeast India. I limit the scope of the descrip-tion to the Khamti variety found in Myanmar. The data used is collected from the Khamti people over the course of 15 years while working closely with them in language develop-ment endeavors, and it includes a small interlinearized natural text with audio recording. While certain attention is given to issues of grammaticalization where warranted, the overall goal is to provide a fundamental understanding of the language from which to do further in-depth research. As such, the topics covered are respective of breadth and less so with depth.
Digital technology enables new forms of textual communications, linguistic creativity, and cultural empowerment for many local language communities (Li, Brar, and Roihan 2021). This study uncovers how Nuosu people, a thriving minority ethnic group in southwest China, choose to use digital technologies for reading and writing their traditional script. The data, part of a larger qualitative study that revealed how Nuosu people conceptualize and practice literacy (Walters 2021), were collected utilizing semi-structured interviews with 22 Nuosu adults. Findings show that the Nuosu primarily use digital language technologies for Nuosu literary and artistic expressions, which carry knowledge crucial to their identity. They also use these technologies for teaching and learning their script, not for interpersonal communication or majority-language domains. The use of digital Nuosu in literary domains aligns with their centuries-old practice in which religious specialists (bimo) use Nuosu script for ritual writings and preserving traditional oral literature in the form of epic poems and proverbs. The Nousu case suggests that literacy patterns once established are deeply held and not easily influenced by changes in modality.
