The Characteristics of the Burmic Family of Tibeto-Burman

Abstract

The history of the various names used for the Burmic branch of Tibeto-Burman (TB) and its components are outlined. Some salient phonological developments which differentiate Burmic from other TB subgroups and some further internal developments are briefly exemplified. The morphology reconstructible for Burmic, which is much less extensive than that found in many other TB branches, is discussed. The main syntactic characteristics of Burmic, typical of verb-final TB, are given, along with the reconstructed forms for various syntactic markers. Some examples of lexical differences providing evidence for Burmic as a separate group within TB and for subgrouping within Burmic are presented. The paper also provides the Burmic forms for the Swadesh 100-word list in an appendix, giving reconstructed etyma and forms from Burmese and from representative languages in the three main branches of Ngwi. Examples are cited below with reference to the numbers of the forms in this appendix.

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