[Tibeto-burman-linguistics] Culture in language

[Randy John LaPolla]

Hi Mark,
One thing that is similar to Becker’s work on classifiers and the lexical aspects you mentioned is the differentiation of copulas/locatives based on semantic classes. I discuss this briefly in my paper on parallel grammaticalizations in TB languages (1994: https://randylapolla.info/Papers/LaPolla_1994_Parallel_Grammaticalizations_in_Tibeto-Burman_-_Evidence_of_Sapirs_Drift.pdf)

Hope this helps!

Best always,
Randy

On 23 Jun 2025, at 12:45 PM, Mark W. Post <markwpost at protonmail.com> wrote:


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Hi folks -

Could anyone point me to any papers, or sections of larger descriptions, specifically discussing cultural/environmental/contextual shaping of aspects of TH/TB languages? By which I mean the sorts of things found in Language Structure and Environment: Social, Cultural, and Natural Factors (eds. De Busser & LaPolla, 2015). Some clear-ish examples are topographical deixis and (arguably I suppose, but whatever) evidential/egophoricity systems, and Becker's work on Burmese classifiers (and some similar things from other languages). I'm also aware of some relevant aspects of lexicon, e.g. prefix types (higher/lower/wild/domestic animal, kin prefixes, masculine/feminine prefixes/suffixes) and studies of kinship terminology/systems, but I'm sure there are lots of other relevant things out there... Any/all assistance will be gratefully acknowledged!

Thanks much
Mark

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