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‘Vocalic alternation’ in the Balti, the Lhasa, and the Sherpa verb, as a guide to alternations in Written Tibetan, and to Proto-Tibetan Reconstruction1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

R. K. Sprigg
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Extract

In Sino-Tibetan (1972) P. K. Benedict has offered two different accounts of the significance, for Tibeto-Burman (TB) and Sino-Tibetan (ST) reconstruction, of the three types of ‘vocalic alternation’ in the Written Tibetan (WT) verb, a/a/o, e/a/o and o/a/o. His original account (c. 1942–3) reads: ‘Tibetan, however, shows a puzzling type of vocalic alternation in its verbs, in which stems in a regularly take o in the imperative and often either o or e in the present… The e of the present stem is possibly to be interpreted as an effect of the prefixed element’- <*a- [ə-]. Similarly, the o of the imperative stem has perhaps been conditioned by an archaic imperative suffixc -o…' (pp. 126–7). His revised version (1972) reads: ‘The Chinese vowels cannot be explained without setting up a 7-vowel system for ST … and Tibetan verb forms reflect this early system as follows:

ST/TB *a = T aa (no alternation, except in the imperative)

ST/TB *â = T ao

ST/TB *ə = T ae

We can now, by way of illustration, reconstruct TB *g-sât (T gsod-pa, Pf.bsad) …; also TB*səm “breath, voice, spirit”: T sem(s)-pa. Pf. semsbsams “think” …' (p. 126, n. 344).

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 110 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1980

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References

Benedict, P. K. 1972. Sino-Tibetan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, sir B. J., and Richardson, H. E. 1949. Tibetan verb roots. Kalimpong: Tibet Mirror Press.Google Scholar
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