Linguistics

This paper is an overview on the sound system of Monsang, an endangered Trans-Himalayan language of
Northeast India. This study shows that Monsang has 24 consonant phonemes, 11 vowel phonemes (including
the rare diphthong /au/ and the three long vowels) and two lexical tones. Maximally a syllable in Monsang is
CVC, and minimally a syllable is V or a syllabic nasal. The motivation of this work is the desire of the
community to develop a standard orthography.

This paper presents an ethnographic profile of the Monsang tribe, one of the lesser known
Naga tribes in the Chandel district of Manipur, a northeastern state of India. The objective of the
paper is to make a systematic ethnographic compilation of Monsang history, society, culture and
tradition and religious beliefs which are not much available yet. The rich oral traditions in the
form of folksongs and folklores serve as a rich source for understanding their history, culture and
tradition. The data were collected using an ethnographic technique, viz., observation, informal
interviews and in-depth interviews with select elders of one Monsang village (Monsang Pantha)
as key informants for the study. The study will certainly benefit younger generations to get a
better knowledge of their history, culture and traditional practices in a written form and also
serve as an account for those interested to know about the Monsang community in the region.

This paper investigates the morphological ergative marking in Monsang, an endangered Northwestern language of the South-Central branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family, spoken in Chandel district of Manipur, India. The paper shows that the A arguments of transitive verbs are obligatorily marked by the ergative marker-íŋ in some contexts and in others only optionally. Factors determining ergative marking include animacy hierarchy, discourse-pragmatic focus and high agency verbs. We also observed that S arguments of unergative verbs can take optional ergative marking when the subordinate clause has the adverbial marker lè 'while/when'. The ergative marker is used for various reasons, such as, to give a reading of agency to inanimate subjects, to place focus on the agent in a discourse, to emphasize the agency of the agent. The results of the study contribute to the description of optional ergative marking in Tibeto-Burman languages in general and South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages in particular.