<Phonology> Notes on the Phonological Development of Menglun Akeu

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the phonological development of Menglun Akeu, a lesser-known Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Mengla County of Yunnan Province of China. Using the author's firsthand data of Menglun Akeu and two related languages (Akha Buli and Youle Jino), both segments and suprasegments of the language are compared with those of written Burmese and the proto languages reconstructed by David Bradley and James A. Matisoff. The stop and affricate onsets in Menglun Akeu mostly preserve the VOT system of the Proto-Loloish or the Proto-Lolo-Burmese, whereas the fricative in Menglun Akeu corresponds to Lolo-Burmese languages in a complicated manner. The medial /-j-/ can be preceded by the velar onsets (/k-, g-/) in Menglun Akeu, which in some cases (‘to steal' and ‘nine') corresponds only to Youle Jino in the dataset of this paper. Syllabic nasal /n/ can be found in Menglun Akeu, which is the outcome of deleting the rime. The rime correspondence between Menglun Akeu and other Lolo-Burmese is complex, although there are a few corresponding rules [Menglun Akeu: Proto-Loloish = -i: *-ey/ *-i, -ɛ: -*am, -a: *-a, -u: *-u, etc.]. As a result of the tonal comparison between Menglun Akeu and Lolo-Burmese languages, it is arguable that the tonal correspondence between Menglun Akeu and Akha Buli is quite clear, which follows the general principles of tonal merge proposed by Bradley (1977) [Proto-Loloish > Menglun Akeu/ Akha Buli = *1> 55, *2/*L > 21, *3/*H >33].