Comparative Tibeto-Burman Verb Morphology

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Abstract Narrative This is a project in historical linguistics, an effort to reconstruct a key portion of the grammar of Proto-Tibeto- Burman, the ancestral language of a family of several hundred present-day languages spoken in Asia. The investigator is also attempting to reconstruct comparable grammatical systems for a number of the intermediate languages between the parent language and the present languages, and to delineate the historical development of the family and the proper sub- grouping of the present-day languages. The results of the project will constitute a significant contribution to our understanding of the early history of that part of the world, and also to our general understanding of the processes of linguistic change. The Principal Investigator is an internationally renowned authority on the languages of the Tibeto-Burman family, as well as on some of the languages of native North America. He has been enormously productive, and his work is recognized as thorough, rigorous, and insightful. He is entirely well qualified to undertake the proposed research and carry it through to a successful conclusion.