2.1 Summary Points

The chapters of this book describe some of the important structural features of MSEA languages, defining an array of features found in the area. In this overview chapter, we begin with a summary list of some of the typological features that are found in the MSEA area.Footnote ¹

Some of the most noteworthy commonalities among MSEA languages have to do with their lack of marking of certain semantico-grammatical categories. Most notably, as remarked upon in the list above, the languages lack inflectional morphology in the usual sense of that term (i.e., including agreement, case, gender/number/definiteness on noun phrases, tense-marking on verbs). It may be said that a lack of a feature should not be treated as a feature; for example, that we would not group English with Swahili on the basis that they both lack a category of dual pronouns, or verbal marking of evidentiality. True, but categories like dual pronouns and evidentiality, while common in the world’s languages, are in a sense marked categories, while the things that MSEA languages happen to lack are much more general and unmarked types of language structure, in particular the absence of any form of inflectional morphology. We can proceed with caution.

2.2 Morphological Profile

Morphological typology is concerned with how languages put words together (see Payne Reference Payne, Aikhenvald and Dixon2017). Every language has an ‘index of synthesis’, defined as the average number of morphemes per word in that language (Sapir Reference Sapir1921: 128, Payne Reference Payne, Aikhenvald and Dixon2017). At the far end of the scale of morphological synthesis are polysynthetic languages such as those of the Inuit-Aleut family, which have a morpheme-to-word ratio of ‘well over 3’ (Payne Reference Payne, Aikhenvald and Dixon2017: 87). English has a synthesis index of ‘approximately 1.7’ morphemes per word (Payne Reference Payne, Aikhenvald and Dixon2017: 86). At the low end of the scale is the logical extreme: a morpheme-to-word ratio of exactly 1, in other words, where all morphemes are stand-alone words. Languages that are positioned toward this end of the scale are referred to as isolating in type, and languages of mainland Southeast Asia are usually put forward as classic examples of languages with this low index of synthesis.

We shall see in later chapters that MSEA languages do not, in fact, quite show the logical extreme low ratio of one morpheme per word. One reason for this is that the MSEA languages that are typically cited in this regard include Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese, and these languages are in a minority in MSEA in this respect; Austroasiatic languages, which make up nearly half of the languages in core MSEA, clearly show a higher index of synthesis, with their widespread use of derivational morphology (see Chapter 4). And even in oft-cited extreme isolating languages such as Vietnamese and Thai, certain rich and productive morphological processes are often overlooked in typological work.

When typologists think of complex morphology, they tend to think of markings for categories such as case (e.g., accusative versus nominative), person (e.g., first, second, or third person), or number (e.g., plural versus singular). MSEA languages notably lack morphological marking for these categories, but they make up for it with marking of meanings in other domains, such as the compounding and elaborate forms of reduplication described in Chapter 4.

In his famous characterization of morphological type, Sapir (Reference Sapir1921) used Vietnamese (which he termed Annamese) as the paradigm case of a language in which words are not morphologically complex. Many people still think this (but see Chapter 4 below for a case study of a complex derivational morphological system in Vietnamese). It is probably true that these languages are as far as you get on that scale, but they do not approach the logical extreme – i.e., the situation in which there are no words in the language with more than one morpheme. No language shows a pure isolating profile.

Some scholars acknowledge that there is significant morphological complexity in MSEA, along the same lines as Chinese compounding (Kratochvíl Reference Kratochvíl1968), but there is a domain of morphological complexity that is unappreciated in MSEA. This is what we may call elaborative reduplication. It is found in Tai languages like Lao, as well as in Austroasiatic languages like Vietnamese and Semelai. Another type of morphological complexity is the derivation morphology found in languages like Khmer (though unproductive) and Semelai and Khmu (fairly productive) and Kri (somewhere in between). The real generalization that can be made is that there is no obligatory inflectional morphology in MSEA languages, specifically no case-marking, no agreement marking, and no grammatically obligatory tense or aspect marking.

Another important point to register is that MSEA languages do not rely in a straightforward way on a simple constituent-order rule to distinguish between basic grammatical functions A, S, and O. The widespread idea that they do is, I think, based on the presumption that it must be the case, since there is no head-marking or dependent-marking to rely on for distinguishing between who and whom. It is assumed that hearers of isolating/analytic languages have no choice but to rely on strict constituent order to maintain informational coherence in predicate–argument relations. This claim is, however, weak at best, as (1) a language may have an array of different argument-structure constructions, with variation in the mapping of functional role to syntactic position, (2) extensive ellipsis (including zero anaphora) and movement create widespread surface ambiguity, even within examples of a single construction, as to the mapping of functional role to syntactic position, and (3) this variation and ambiguity does not appear to compromise communication. Accordingly, for Mandarin, Li and Thompson (Reference Li and Thompson1981: 26) state that ‘no basic word order can be established’. On Riau Indonesian, Gil (Reference Gil, Carnie, Harley and Dooley2005) argues that observed word-order patterns in the language are epiphenomenal (cf. also LaPolla Reference LaPolla1993).

Writing about constituent order in Khmu clauses, Suwilai (Reference Suwilai1987: 60–61) writes that A-V-O is ‘the normal order of transitive clauses’. She adds, however, that ‘for emphasis’ the object can often occur clause initially, resulting in O-A-V order being ‘also common’. See the following examples:Footnote ³

Suwilai adds that the ‘reversed’ order of the unmarked A-V-O – i.e., O-V-A – may be used ‘for special emphasis’. Systematic analysis of corpus data is needed in order to understand what ‘special emphasis’ means. Here are two examples with O-V-A order:

See Enfield (Reference Enfield2007) for details of a similar situation in Lao.

Having said that there is no case-marking in MSEA languages, I will note here that Kruspe describes a system in Semelai in which transitive subject arguments are marked with a proclitic (Kruspe Reference Kruspe2004: 259). Here is an example:

It appears that no other MSEA system has this kind of marking. If it is a case system, it is a simple one. Note also that the relation between the proclitic and the A function in clausal syntax is not straightforward: ‘Not all post-verbal NPs marked with la= are coding the A; la= also expresses causation or reason’ (Kruspe Reference Kruspe2004: 259). This seems to suggest that la= marks the participant that is responsible for the occurrence of an event, regardless of whether it is core or peripheral.Footnote ⁴

The terminology of case-marking has also been used in LaPolla’s (Reference LaPolla, Thurgood and LaPolla2003) description of an ‘anti-ergative’ marker thàʔ in Lahu. The function of this marker is ‘to mark an animate argument that might otherwise be interpreted as an actor as being something other than an actor’ (LaPolla Reference LaPolla, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 34). Here are two examples:

The morpheme thàʔ marks ŋà as a patient in the first example, and as a recipient in the second.

And finally, in Chinese, the morpheme ba has sometimes been described as a special kind of case marker. Examples (2.8) and (2.9) have the same verbal and nominal elements. In example (2.8) the compound verb qi si serves as a high-effect transitive verb. Example (2.9) shows a rephrase of this using ba as a direct marker of the effected undergoer in a reshuffled constructional variant:

Li and Yip (Reference Li, Yip and Plank1979) argue that ba is an absolutive case marker, but Liu (Reference Liu2013) argues against this position, and treats it as an object marker. Many other things have been said about ba, including that it is not a case marker at all but a not-so-vestigial serial verb (see Chapter 6).

2.3 Basic Phrasal Constituent-Order Patterns

We will examine in later chapters many of the typological features listed above. The rest of this chapter presents a preliminary overview of some of the basic features of constituent order in the organization of phrases and clauses in MSEA languages. Austroasiatic and Tai languages are generally head-initial, while Chinese, Tibeto-Burman, and Hmong-Mien exhibit a mix of head-initial and head-final structures. Languages to the north and west of the core MSEA area are generally head-final (Japanese, Mongolian, Uralic, Indo-Iranian, Dravidian). Here we see that the area is firmly split in terms of the direction of headedness in phrases (Comrie Reference Comrie and Kullavanijaya2007: 23). Tibeto-Burman languages, like East Asian languages (e.g., Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, but not Sinitic) and Indic languages, tend to show object–verb order in main clauses, and are, accordingly, head-final in other areas of phrasal grammar, such as in various nominal constructions, including relative clause constructions and possessive constructions. By contrast, languages of core MSEA, such as Khmer, Brou, or Semelai, show verb–object order in main clauses, and are similarly head-initial in other areas of phrasal grammar. We shall see that not only does the MSEA region show a differential distribution of head-initial and head-final structures, but such a differential distribution is observed within languages as well, resulting in systems whose mixed appearance is often attributed to language contact effects.

For example, while Tibeto-Burman languages are almost exclusively verb final in main clauses, Karenic languages depart from this pattern, in having verb–object clausal constituent order. Here are examples from Sgaw Karen, Pwo Karen, and Eastern Kayah Li:

This distinct profile of Karenic languages is suggested to be an effect of language contact, given that these languages have long been in close contact with Mon and Tai languages (Matisoff Reference Matisoff1991b).

Another example of diversity in constituent ordering within a language family comes from the Tai-Kadai languages. There are differences in the basic organization of phrases in Tai-Kadai languages spoken in China versus those spoken further south. While Tai-Kadai languages are verb–object in clause structure, there is variation in headedness of other types of structure, including relative clause constructions and classifier constructions (see cases below). Again, language contact effects are often posited as the likely cause (though specific causal hypotheses are not put forward).

Now we turn to some examples illustrating the differences in direction of headedness in some basic grammatical structures.

2.3.2 Relative Position of Modifier and Head in Noun Phrases

In constructions that connect an adjective or equivalent property concept word to a head noun, again most languages show head-initial order. Notable exceptions are Sinitic languages, which show head-final order in many modifier–modified phrases; this is also the case in some non-Sinitic languages that are spoken in China.

N-A

The following examples show the predominant ordering of modifier and head in noun phrases:

(2.21)

khon2	suung3
person	be.tall
‘tall person’
Lao | TK

(2.22)

rapyā	kạriạ̄r
girl	beautiful
‘the beautiful girl’
Paluang | AA | Milne Reference Milne1921: 38

(2.23)

hɔe'	hnòk
house	large
‘a large house’
Mon | AA | Bauer Reference Bauer1982: 333

(2.24)

tsən1	ɣaːi3
hair	long
‘long hair’
Mulao | TK | Wang and Zheng Reference Wang and Zheng1993: 82

(2.25)

yei	eì
water	cold
‘cold water’
Burmese | TB | Okell Reference Okell1969: 43

A-N

Less common in MSEA is adjective–noun order in noun phrases. This pattern is standard in Sinitic languages, such as in this example from the Sinitic language Taiwanese, in which the adjectival modifier precedes its nominal head:

(2.26)

chit	tâi	sin	chhia
this	clf	new	car
‘this new car’
Taiwanese | SN | Lin Reference Lin2015: 150

This sort of structure is also found closer to the core MSEA area, often involving a particle that links the modifier and the head. In this example from Cantonese, the linking particle ge is used between the nominal head and its preposed modifier:

(2.27)

dākyi	ge	gáu-jái
cute	lp	puppy
‘cute puppy’
Cantonese | SN | Matthews and Yip Reference Matthews and Yip1994: 88

Similar structures are found in Kam-Tai languages that are spoken in contact with Sinitic languages. Here is an example from Mulao (a Kam-Sui language spoken in China):

(2.28)

səp8	at7	hən3	lo4	kɔ	ku3
ten	clf	very	big	pcl	drum
‘ten very big drums’
Mulao | TK | Wang and Zheng Reference Wang and Zheng1993: 87

There are cases in which speakers of a single language can be observed using both head-final and head-initial structures for the same type of grammatical function. See Section 5.1 for further discussion.

Among Tibeto-Burman languages, head-initial N-A order in noun phrases is the usual pattern in the MSEA area. Tibeto-Burman languages spoken to the west of Northern Myanmar (considered here as part of greater MSEA but outside of core MSEA), do show A-N order. Map 2.1 (reproduced from Dryer Reference Dryer, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 46) shows that A-N order in Tibeto-Burman languages is found only to the west of the Myanmar/India border (Dryer Reference Dryer, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 45).

Map 2.1 Order of adjective and noun in Tibeto-Burman languages

(Reproduced from Dryer Reference Dryer, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 46, Map 3.1)

In Idu, for example (spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India), ‘Adjectives generally precede the noun qualified’ (Pulu Reference Pulu1978: 16):

(2.29)

icia	mazi
small	goat
‘small goat’
Idu | TB | Pulu Reference Pulu1978: 16

In Tshangla (spoken in Eastern Bhutan), going just beyond the perimeter of MSEA, adjectives ‘may either precede or follow the head noun’. ‘Pre-nominal adjectives are restrictive; post-nominal adjectives are non-restrictive and descriptive of the head’ (Andvik Reference Andvik, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 441). Here are examples showing the two structures, respectively:

(2.30)

dukpu	waktsa	khepa
poor	child	top
‘the poor child’ (identification)
Tshangla | TB | Andvik Reference Andvik, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 441

(2.31)

waktsa	dukpu	khepa
child	poor	top
‘the child, who is poor’ (description)
Tshangla | TB | Andvik Reference Andvik, Thurgood and LaPolla2003: 442

2.4 Sentence-Type Distinctions

All languages need to distinguish between the basic speech acts of asserting, questioning, and commanding. These speech-act types correlate with the grammatical sentence types declarative, interrogative, and imperative (Sadock and Zwicky Reference Sadock, Zwicky and Shopen1985). The languages of MSEA are fairly uniform in terms of how they signal these basic distinctions in sentence type. Interrogatives tend to be marked by in situ question words (for content questions) and sentence-final particles (for polar questions). Both imperatives and declaratives tend to be marked by sentence-final particles.

Among interrogatives, there are two major types: polar questions (‘yes–no’ questions) and content questions (‘WH’ questions). Polar questions in MSEA tend to be formed using final particles (which are sometimes clearly related to forms such as negators and existential markers). Here are examples from all of the major language families, with the final particle highlighted:

There are other means of forming polar questions in these languages. For example, in a number of Hmongic languages, a polar question is formed by placing a question word after the subject and before the verb, as in this White Hmong example:

Another option found in Hmongic languages is a ‘V-not-V’ strategy, widely known from Sinitic languages (Clark Reference Clark and Bradley1989: 209). Here is an example from Miao:

We turn now to content questions. English has a typologically unusual pattern of forming content questions. This involves a construction in which question words such as ‘who’ or ‘what’ occupy a distinct syntactic position: We tend not to say ‘You ate what?’ but rather ‘What did you eat?’. In MSEA languages, by contrast, content questions are formed by means of in situ question words, that is, question words that appear in the same slot that their corresponding referring expressions would appear in. Here are some examples of MSEA languages content questions with in situ question words:

2.5 Sentence-Final Particles

All languages make use, to a greater or lesser extent, of sentence-final elements, including tag questions and particles of various kinds, to mark sentence types or to define the pragmatic meaning of utterances. Speakers of MSEA languages rely heavily on sets of sentence-final particles in language usage, especially in dialogue. The above examples of polar questions all illustrated the use of sentence-final particles for grammatical marking.

Inventories of sentence-final particles in MSEA languages are large and structured systems. In Lao, for example, more than twenty-five particles are divided into three main categories depending on the type of sentence function they are associated with – interrogative, factive, imperative – showing differences in meaning within those categories, invoking subtleties of aspect, evidentiality, and illocutionary force (Enfield Reference Enfield2007: ch. 4). In Cantonese, there are some thirty basic particles, with over seventy possible combinations of two or three of these (Kwok Reference Kwok1984, Luke Reference Luke1990). In their summary of the system, Matthews and Yip (Reference Matthews and Yip1994: 338–356) identify a set of features that are typical of these systems across MSEA:

• Features of Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs; Matthews and Yip Reference Matthews and Yip1994: 338)

• SFPs indicate speech-act type distinctions (interrogative, declarative, imperative), as well as distinctions in evidentiality, and affective and emotional colouring.

• SFPs convey the kind of information that is conveyed by intonation in other languages (such as English) (sometimes said to compensate for lack of freedom to intone, due to lexical tone).

• SFPs are very frequent and important in colloquial speech.

• Analysts find it difficult to agree on whether SFPs belong in semantics, pragmatics, or discourse.

• SFPs sometimes have a non-arbitrary relationship to tone (some have claimed that there are ‘tonal particles’ – this has been claimed for Mandarin which has only about seven particles, which can’t stack); many of the Cantonese particles have ‘tonal variants’; ‘Typically, the high-tone variants are more tentative, the low-tone ones assertive and the mid-tone ones neutral’.

Here are further examples, also including other sentence types such as declaratives and directives.

2.6 Expressive Language

All languages have words, structures, and other resources for expressing aspects of first-person experience, such as sensory and emotional experience. Here we survey the phenomena of (1) ideophones and (2) poetic idioms.