Comparative Tibeto-Burman Verb Morphology

这是历史语言学的一个项目，旨在重建原藏缅语语法的关键部分，原藏缅语是亚洲数百种现代语言的祖先语言。研究者还试图重建一些介于母语和现代语言之间的中间语言的可比较的语法系统，并描绘出这个语系的历史发展和现代语言的适当亚群。该项目的结果将对我们了解世界上这一地区的早期历史，以及我们对语言变化过程的总体理解做出重大贡献。首席研究员是国际知名的藏缅语系语言权威，以及北美本土的一些语言。他的工作非常多产，他的工作被认为是彻底、严谨和富有洞察力的。他完全有资格进行所提议的研究并取得圆满成功。

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.