The 48th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan

Languages and Linguistics,

UC Santa Barbara
August 2123, 2015

Tibetan dialects: a case study

inareal phonology
Dmitry Nikolaev
Russian State University for the Humanities
dsnikolaev@gmail.com

Tibetan dialects/Tibetic languages: a dialect continuum

Data used for this study

Themchen Tibetan

Balti (Kharkoo)

Labrang Tibetan

Purki

Nyinpa Cone

Tod Tibetan
Spiti Tibetan

Nangchenpa Tibetan

Ladakhi (Leh)

Baima
Zhongu Tibetan
Khalong Tibetan
gSerpa
Kham Tibetan

Bragg.yab Tibetan

Humla Bhotia
Drokpa Tibetan (Zhongba)

Lhasa Tibetan
Shigatse Tibetan
gLo Tibetan
Kyirong
Tibetan
South Mustang Tibetan
(Jharkhot)
Dingri Tibetan
Yolmo
Southern Cuona
Walungge
Solu
SoluSherpa
Sherpa(Lukla)
(Hile)
Dzongkha
Denjongka

Sogpho Tibetan

Northern Cuona
Dongwang Tibetan
Kami Tibetan
Rgyalthang Tibetan

Traditional classification 1: presence of initial clusters

Up to 3 elements

Traditional classification 2: geographical areas

st
We
ern
le
dia
cts
Southern dialects

Nishi 1986:
Central (U-Tsang)
Western Archaic
Western Innovative
Southern
Khams
Amdo

Bradley
1997:

Tournadre
2014:

Western
Central
Khams
Amdo

North-Western
Western
Central
South-Western
Southern
South-Eastern
Eastern
North-Eastern

Two traditional methods of classification are

incompatible.
Since we are dealing with a dialect continuum
hopefully there must be a way to carve it up.
Better find a new isogloss.

A promising candidate
phonological inventories

Phonological inventories are more stable than

binary features, even complex ones (initial clusters,
lexical tone).

Phonological inventories of neighbouring

languages/dialects tend to converge => areal
structure of Tibetan varieties should be manifest in
these data.

How can one compare inventories?

A widespread approach: construct a binary matrix for
presence/absence of all phonemes found in all
inventories with languages as row vectors and calculate
pairwise Jaccard dissimilariy coefficient (1 # of shared
segments / total # of different segments in two
inventories) or Hamming distance (number of positions
where inventories as binary strings are different).

k/
g/
x/

A bad idea
Table 1: Binary matrix for three small inventories
/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

p
1
0
0

t
1
0
0

k
1
0
0

b
0
1
0

d
0
1
0

g
0
1
0

f
0
0
1

0
0
1

x
0
0
1

Table 2: Binary table for features

plosiveA simple
fricative
voiceless
bilabialsetdenti-alveolar
systemic
shift voiced
in a phoneme
1
0
1
0
1
1
can make it look as though it has nothing in
1
0
0
1
1
1
common with its closest relatives.
0
1
1
0
1
1

9
an inventory consisting of /p, t, k/ will
be analysed as having absolutely

An alternative
Instead of whole phonemes use their
component features (IPA, Hayess, etc.) or
subsets of features found in the phonemes
of the inventories.
More fine-grained analyses are possible
(size of feature subsets can be controlled,
weights can be used).

10

Table 1: Binary matrix for three small inventories

t kfeatures
b d g (no
f weights)
x
Binary matrixp for
/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

1
0
0

1
0
0

1
0
0

0
1
0

0
1
0

0
1
0

0
0
1

0
0
1

0
0
1

Table 2: Binary table for features

/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

plosive
1
1
0

fricative
0
0
1

voiceless
1
0
1

voiced
0
1
0

bilabial
1
1
1

denti-alveolar
1
1
1

velar
1
1
0

nstance, an inventory consisting of /p, t, k/ will be analysed as having absolutely nothing in

common with /b, d, g/ or /f, , x/, which is clearly erroneus (cf. table 1). To overcome thi
problem, instead of using whole phonemes one can use features and bundles of features which
characterise them, for instance, IPA features or features proposed by Bruce Hayes [Hayes, 2008]
There are several possibilities to this.
(1) The first one is to use binary matrix of features for the whole inventory. In this case, these
hree mini-inventories will be represented as in table 2.
(2) The second way is still to use individual11
features, but include their counts in the inventory

Feature matrix with weights (counts)

Table 3: Individual features with weights
/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

plosive
3
3
0

fricative
0
0
3

voiceless
3
0
3

voiced
0
3
0

bilabial
1
1
1

denti-alveolar
1
1
1

velar
1
1
1

Table 4: 2-tuples of features with weights

/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

plosive, voiceles
3
0
0

plosive, voiced
0
3
0

Khalong Tibetan [Sun, 2007]

12

plosive, bilabial
1
1
0

fricative, voiceless
0
0
3

Table 3: Individual features with weights

/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

2-tuples
of
features
with
weights
plosive fricative voiceless voiced bilabial denti-alveolar
3
0 (first 3several0 columns)
1
1
3
0

0
3

0
3

3
0

1
1

1
1

velar
1
1
1

Table 4: 2-tuples of features with weights

/p, t, k/
/b, d, g/
/f, , x/

plosive, voiceles
3
0
0

plosive, voiced
0
3
0

Khalong Tibetan [Sun, 2007]

Labrang Tibetan [Makley et al., 1999]
Zhongu Tibetan [Sun, 2003]
gSerpa [Sun, 2006]
Sogpho Tibetan [Suzuki, 2011]

13

plosive, bilabial
1
1
0

fricative, voiceless
0
0
3

A continuum
Individual feature without weights
(inventory as a feature set).

The optimal representation?

Bundles with 4+ features (the usual wholephoneme approach).

14

Manhattan distance metric

Vector coordinates counts of feature

bundles in the phonemes of the inventory.
15

The procedure
1. Construct a matrix for consonant
inventories based on the IPA features.
2. Calculate pairwise Manhattan distances.
3. Clusterise the languages using the
Partitioning Around Medoids methods.
4. Investigate the geographical layout of
the resulting clusters.

16

Whole-phoneme binary, 2 clusters

17

Whole-phoneme binary, 3 clusters unstable

18

2-tuple counts, 2 clusters

19

2-tuple counts, 3 clusters stable!

20

2-tuple count, 4 clusters stable still

21

3-tuple count, 3 clusters a new version of east vs. west

23

3-tuple count, 4 clusters

25

Discussion

A clear east-west divide with several intermideary

varieties (Themchen, Nangchenpa, Kham).

The eastern group is more heterogeneous

No support for Amdo vs. Khams (cf. the robust

ZhonguNangchenpaKhalong axis).

Sogpho Tibetan is a clear outlier it is reported to

have 100 consonant phonemes; a re-evaluation is
needed.

28
So
uth

De
njo

iga
tse

Sh

ibe
tan

tan

Tib
e

ibe
tan

gri
T

Din

aT

gb
a)

Pu
rki
(Zh
on
Lh
as

tan

tan
eh
)
Dz
on
gk
ha
Wa
lun
gg
e

kh
i (L

La
da

kla

(Lu

e)

Hil

iti T
ibe

Sp

erp
a

on
a

Cu

tan

ibe

a(

Sh
erp
Sh

ibe

So
lu

lu

So

ern

No
r th

ark
oo
)

ark
ho
t)

(Jh

To
dT

eta
n

eta

Tib

Kh

lti (

Ba

gL
o

Yo
lm

ng
So
ka
uth
ern
Cu
on
a

Tib

aT

ok
p

Dr

ibe
tan

bT

Ba
im

ho
tia
on
gT
ibe
tan

Ky
ir

Bra
g
g.y
a

ng

sta

Mu

ibe
tan

aB

Hu
ml

eta
n

Tib

tan

eta

Tib

nT

he

Th
em
c

am

Kh

an
g

on
e

ibe

ng
T

La
bra

erp

gS
inp
aC

Ny

Rg
ya
lth

Na

gp
ho
Tib
ng
eta
ch
n
en
pa
Tib
eta
Zh
n
on
gu
Tib
eta
n
Ka
mi
Tib
eta
Kh
n
alo
ng
T
ibe
Do
tan
ng
wa
ng
Tib
eta
n

So

20

40

60

80

100

An eastern trend bigger inventories

(regardless of initial clusters)

Distribution of inventory sizes

43

35
31

44
46

uth

44

P
la
te
au (<30)
9

-w

41

2
35
35

es

ter
n

rim

40
36

(~

34

27
3344

32

37

32

35
)
29

10

40

27

27

37

49
44

+)

33

485

(4
0

61

st

So

33

5 9 40

Ea

35

56

A (sort of) subset hierarchy:

Plateau SW Rim East

30

Lhasa Tibetan

31

Shigatse Tibetan

32

Ladakhi

33

South Mustang Tibetan

34

Kami Tibetan

35

Zhongu Tibetan
36

Sogpho Tibetan
37

An eastern trend prenasalised phonemes

38

Another eastern trend aspirated fricatives

39

Vowels: no structure, wide oscillations

across the whole area

Lhasa

Shigatse

Ladakhi

South Mustang Tibetan

Kami Tibetan

Zhongu Tibetan

Sogpho Tibetan

A wider picture: western varieties pattern with TGMT and Tshangla; eastern ones
with Shixing, rGyalrongic, Lizu, and Ersu but not Qiang, Puxi, and Pumi

rGyalrongic

Qiangic

Shixing
TGMT

Tshangla
45

What to do next

More data is needed for better spatial resolution: if

the spatial clusters are real what are their shapes?

Historical investigation is in order: how exactly did

the eastern inventories grow? What was the
direction of areal influence?

Thank you for your attention!