The Classical Tibetan Language by Stephan V. Beyer - 1993

Sri Satguru Publications, 1993. First edition. Softcover. New. Among Asian languages, Tibetan is second only to Chinese in the depth of its historical record, with Texts dating back as far as the eighth and ninth centuries, written in an alphabetic Script that Preserves the contemporaneous phonological features of the language. The Classical Tibetan Language is the first comprehensive description of the Tibetan language and is distinctive in that it treats the classical Tibetan language on its own terms rather than by means of descriptive categories appropriate to other languages, as has traditionally been the case. Beyer presents the language as a medium of literary expression with great range, power, subtlety, and humor, not as n abstract object. He also deals comprehensively with a wide variety of linguistic phenomena as they are actually encountered in the classical texts, with numerous examples of idioms, common locutions, translation devices, neologisms, and dialectal variations. ""Beyer`s work is the first grammar of classical literary Tibetan that adopts a genuinely fresh approach to the language, abandoning the tired and often inaccurate) conventions of Indo-European grammar that dominate the available textbooks. Though some of his conclusions and assertions may be controversial, Beyer Forces us to think about the distinctive features of Tibetan in a challenging and animated fashion. His many examples, drawn from all branches of the literature, are superb. Contents: Rootsation Foreword/Matthew Kapstein Preface I. INTRODUCTION : II. TRANSLITERATION : 1. Phonemic symbols 2. Digraphs and diacritics 3. Other symbols 4. Other languages III. Tibetan IN Context : 1. Defining Tibetan 2. Tibetan and related languages i. Tibetan and Chinese ii. Tibetan and Burmese iii. Tibetan and the Himalayan languages iv. Tibetan and the Western Barbarians 3. Variation in Tibetan i. Variation in New Tibetan A. The palatalization of labials B. Some Southern isoglosses C. Elegant breathiness ii. Variation in Old Tibetan A. Sources B. Manuscript variations C. Reconstructed variations D. The problem of the preinitials 4. Defining Classical Tibetan IV. THE Writing SYSTEM 1. Graph and sound 2. The Invention of writing 3. The writing system 4. The script V. SOUNDS 1. Articulatory descriptions i. Vowels ii. Consonants A. Place B. Closure C. Voice onset time D. Nasality 2. Acoustic descriptions i. Gravity ii. Sonorance 3. The phonemic inventory VI. SYLLABLES : 1 Length constraints 2. Slot-filler constraints? i. Are -l- and -w- postinitials? 3. Co-occurrence constraints i. Constraints on postinitials A. Postinitial -y- B. Postinitial -r- ii. Constraints on preinitials iii. Stacking constraints 4. Disyllabic stress groups i. Clips A. Word clips B. Nominal clips C. Phrase clips a. Coordinate clips b. Adnominal clips c. Relative clips d. Verb clips d. Syllabic cycles VII. WORDS : 1. Preliminaries i. The scope of morphology ii. The ""parts of speech"" 2. Lexical morphology i. Constructions A. Compounds a. Native compounds NOUN + NOUN - NOUN ADJECTRVE + NOUN - NOUN NOUN + ADJECTIVE - NOUN ADJECTIVE + ADJECTIVE - NOUN NOUN + VERB - VERB B. Translation compounds a. ADJECTIVE + ADJECTIVE - NOUN Noun + Verb - Noun Intensifier + Verb -Verb ii. Derivations A. Inner derivation a. Change of lexical category b. Voicing and transitivity c. The formative m- ""Honorific"" d. The formative m- ""Human Body Part e. The formative s- ""Animal"" f. The formative s- ""Transitive"" g. The formative -d ""Nominal"" h. The formative -n ""Nominal"" i. The formative -s ""Nominal"" j. The formative s-d-s-n ""KINSHIP COLLECTIVE"" B. Outer derivation a. Syllabic formatives The formative -nid ""-Ness"" The formative -pa ""Person Having to do With The formative -mkhan ""Skilled In"" The formative -PHO-tshe ""Big Kind of"" The formative -tsan ""Possessing"" The formative -yas ""-Less"" The formative -bu-U ""Diminutive"" Sex formatives Printed Pages: 529.