The Phonological Configuration of Word-initial NC Sequences in Jinghpaw

Abstract

NC (nasal-consonant) sequences have been found to exhibit various phonological configurations in the world’s languages in terms of separability, syllabification, and segmenthood. In Southeast Asian languages, especially characteristic are word-initial NCs, which have been described under different NC types. Previous studies on word-initial NCs in the region have often suffered from a lack of diagnostics and/or explicit references to evidence in determining the phonological status of word-initial NCs. This study explores the phonological configuration of word-initial NCs in Jinghpaw, a Sino-Tibetan language of Myanmar and adjacent areas. This study shows that word-initial NCs in the language are heterosyllabic clusters based on about a dozen pieces of phonological and non-phonological phenomena that work together to characterize word-initial NCs as heterosyllabic clusters: speaker intuitions, sonority sequencing, voicing difference, tone assignment, morphological structure, monosyllable-targeting prefix, copying in partial reduplication, shorter first rule in co-compounds, insertion-type language game, numeric control in versification, and text-to-tune alignment in music. Arguments discussed for Jinghpaw, a language with a clear-cut case of heterosyllabic NC clusters, may be used as a reference when studying NC sequences in other languages that may exhibit different configurational types.