Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale

Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.) to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists by 3000 years ago, considerably earlier than the dates in the land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by more than 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked for 2000 yr B.P. and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of Earth's transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon.

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Significance Given its size and geographical extension, Sino-Tibetan is of the highest importance for understanding the prehistory of East Asia, and of neighboring language families. Based on a dataset of 50 Sino-Tibetan languages, we infer phylogenies that date the origin of the language family to around 7200 B.P., linking the origin of the language family with the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures.

Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 116, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1996)

ABSTRACT Samples of babbling productions of 6-, 8- and 10-month-old infants from different language backgrounds were presented to adult judges whose task was to identify the infants from their own linguistic community. The results show that certain language-specific metaphonological cues render this identification possible when the samples exhibit long and coherent intonation patterns. The segmental indications that are present in the fully syllabic productions of canonical babbling do not allow the judges to identify the infants correctly from their own linguistic community. These results seem to support the hypothesis of an early influence on babbling of the metaphonological characteristics of the target language.

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Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1989), pp. 24-36

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Abstract Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan ( ) claim that clause‐final particles are categorially deficient. This move is motivated by the fact that a number of VO languages ‐ among them Mandarin Chinese ‐ display sentence‐final particles ( SFP s), which, when analysed as complementisers, violate the purportedly universal Final‐over‐Final Constraint ( FOFC ). The FOFC excludes structures where a head‐final projection dominates a head‐initial one. In contrast, the present article argues that SFP s in Chinese instantiate C in a three‐layered split CP à la Rizzi ( , ) and hence are “visible” for the FOFC . Furthermore, to equate The World Atlas of Language Structures ' ( WALS ) label adverbial subordinator with complementiser as Biberauer et al. ( , ) do is shown to be problematic, given that it turns out to be a cover term for different categories. Accordingly, WALS ' results for the distribution of adverbial subordinator cannot be mechanically used as testing ground for the predictions made by the FOFC for the category C.

This paper presents a new higher phylogeny for the Austronesian family, based on three independent lines of evidence: the observation of a hierarchy of implications among the numerals from 5 to 10 in the languages of Formosa and in PMP; the finding that the numerals *pitu '7', *walu '8', and *Siwa '9' can be derived from longer additive expressions meaning 5+2, 5+3, and 5+4, preserved in Pazeh, using only six sound changes; and the observation that the phylogeny that can be extracted from these and other innovations—mostly changes in the basic vocabulary—evinces a coherent spatial pattern, whereby an initial Austronesian settlement in NW Taiwan expanded unidirectionally counterclockwise along the coastal plain, circling the island in a millennium or so. In the proposed phylogeny, Malayo-Polynesian is a branch of Muic, a taxon that also includes NE Formosan (Kavalan plus Ketagalan). The ancestor language, Muish, is deemed to have been spoken in or near NE Formosa. Further evidence that the Tai-Kadai languages, contrary to common sense, are a subgroup of Austronesian (specifically: a branch of Muic, coordinate with PMP and NE Formosan) is presented.

L’hypothèse de Belletti (2003), selon laquelle l’architecture fonctionnelle à l’intérieur d’IP reflète celle au-dessus d’IP, est examinée pour le mandarin. Tandis que le parallélisme entre CP et la partie basse d’IP se trouve confirmé, la hiérarchie obtenue pour le mandarin, ‘CP (force) > TopP > FocusP ‘même’ > IP > TopP interne > FocusP ‘même’ > vP’, ne correspond que partiellement à celle proposée par Rizzi (1997, 2002) et Belletti (2003), surtout en ce qui concerne l’ordre relatif entre topique et focus. En effet, en mandarin un TopP au-dessous de FocusP est exclu aussi bien dans CP que dans IP et il n’y a pas non plus de ModP dans la périphérie gauche, projection introduite par Rizzi (2002) pour abriter des adverbes déplacés. Ces différences s’expliquent partiellement par l’idée reçue que le topique véhicule toujours de l’ancienne information, idée clairement infirmée par le mandarin.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world's languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world's most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

Abstract Even though Sinitic languages are spoken by more than one billion people, very little research has been carried out on the synchronic grammar of major languages and dialect groups of Chinese, apart from standard Mandarin or putonghuali, and Cantonese to a lesser extent. The same situation applies to the diachrony of Sinitic languages with respect to the exact relationship between Archaic and Medieval Chinese and contemporary dialects.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to investigate knowledge and use of wild food plants and fungi in a highland valley in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Region on the north-eastern edges of the Tibetan Plateau. METHODS: Field research was carried out in four neighbouring villages in a mountain valley of the Diebu (Tewo) county, surrounded by spruce forests. The study consisted of 30 interviews with single informants, or group interviews (altogether 63 informants). Apart from collecting voucher specimens, we also identified fungi using DNA barcoding. RESULTS: We recorded the use of 54 species of vascular plants. We also recorded the use of 22 mushroom taxa, which made up the largest category of wild foods. Fruits formed the largest category of food plants, with 21 species, larger than the wild greens category, which consisted of 20 species eaten after boiling or frying and 7 as raw snacks. We also recorded the alimentary use of 10 species of edible flowers and 3 species with underground edible organs. On average, 20.8 edible taxa were listed per interview (median - 21). The most listed category of wild foods was green vegetables (mean - 7.5 species, median - 8 species), but fruits and mushrooms were listed nearly as frequently (mean - 6.3, median - 6 and mean - 5.8, - median 6 respectively). Other category lists were very short, e.g., flowers (mean - 1.3, median - 1) and underground edible parts (mean - 0.7, median - 1). Wild vegetables are usually boiled and/or fried and served as side-dishes, or their green parts are eaten as snacks during mountain treks (e.g., peeled rhubarb shoots). Wild fruits are mainly collected by children and eaten raw, they are not stored for further use. The most widely used wild staple foods are Potetilla anserina roots, an important ceremonial food served on such occasions as New Year or at funerals. They are boiled and served with sugar and butter. The most important famine plants remembered by people are the aerial bulbils of Persicaria vivipara. Flowers are used as children's snacks - their nectar is sucked. CONCLUSIONS: The number of wild taxa eaten in the studied valley is similar to that of other Tibetan areas. The structure of wild food plant taxa is also very typical for Tibetan speaking areas (e.g., the use of rhubarb shoots, Potentilla anserina, Persicaria vivipara). The studied community show a high level of mycophilia.

"This book exemplifies the best sort of work being done on Chinese religions today. Christine Mollier expertly draws not only on published canonical sources but also on manuscript and visual material, as well as worldwide modern scholarship, to give us the most sophisticated book-length study yet produced on the textual relations between the Buddhist and Taoist traditions. She pushes past the tired, vague, and rather innocent-sounding trope of 'influence' to pinpoint much more complex-and fascinating-processes of textual repackaging, hybridization, adaptation, appropriation, reframing, pirating, remodeling, and transposing. Throughout, the urgent concerns of medieval Chinese people-life, health, protection, salvation-are sensitively and elegantly evoked.

Japhug, like other Rgyalrong languages, has an inverse marking system. Although it presents many similarities with the better-described direct/inverse systems of Algonquian languages, it also shows striking differences with them, such as the presence of an ergative case marking system instead of a proximate/obviative distinction. In this paper, we propose a detailed study of the forms and functions of the inverse prefix in Japhug. First, we give a general description of inverse marking in Japhug, including its place in the verbal person marking system and its structural differences with inverse systems in several other languages. Second, we apply Givón’s (1983) methodology of text counts to study the pragmatic, semantic and syntactic parameters that determine the use of the inverse marker in narratives and compare it to the result of Dryer’s (1994) study on obviation in Kutenai.

To exert their health effect, phytochemicals such as carotenoids and vitamin E have to be bioavailable. We investigated the digestive stability and intestinal absorption of lycopene and alpha-tocopherol from a whole food containing red tomatoes and sunflower oil using, for the first time, the dynamic gastrointestinal system TNO gastrointestinal tract model (TIM) coupled with Caco-2 cells. Digestive samples were added to Caco-2 cells after appropriate ultracentrifugation, filtration, and dilution. alpha-Tocopherol was stable during digestion in the TIM, whereas a 25% loss was observed for lycopene. The absorption of both compounds was curvilinear, bidirectional, and concentration-dependent. The percentages of alpha-tocopherol absorbed, but not that of lycopene, were lower with digestas compared to those with pure compounds, suggesting competition for absorption with other components of the test meal. According to in vivo data, a lower bioavailability was found for lycopene compared to that for alpha-tocopherol. These results support the usefulness of this in vitro approach for estimating the bioavailability of active compounds from food.

Cross-category harmony (correlations between basic word order and preference for suffixes or prefixes) has been proposed by several typologists and psycholinguists as a principle to explain some apparent crosslinguistic tendencies. This article attempts to test whether cross-category harmony has an observable influence on morphosyntactic change, and reviews cases of harmonization and disharmonization of affix order. The grammaticalization of associated motion prefixes in Japhug Rgyalrong, a verb-final language of southwest China, constitutes a solid case of development of a disharmonic construction out of a harmonic one, and runs counter to the idea that head ordering principles have a direct effect on language change.

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