Re: A new Indo-European subfamily in China

E-Ching Ng wrote:

>Swedish, Lithuanian and classical Greek are definitely pitch-accent, and I
>suspect Serbo-Croatian is too.  Punjabi just might be tonal.  It's almost
>close enough to the Himalayas for that to have caught on, but that's still
>a little far off.
According to Comrie's "The World's Major Languages":

Serbo-Croat has phonemic falling and rising tone in stressed syllables
only. There is apparently only opposition between the two in initial
position. So this would be a marginal tone system.

 >I'm curious as to how Sino-Tibetan tones developed from Sino-Caucasian,
> >since North Caucasian languages are usually non-tonal (but much more
> >complex in consonant phonologies).
>
>I am in the dark about Sino-Caucasian ... what are the Caucasian
>languages, and how certain is it that they're related to Sino-Tibetan?
Caucasian languages are spoken in the Caucus Mountains, in the area of the
Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Turkey, and Iran. They include the famous language
Georgian, which is the most commonly mentioned language from the family.

As for the connection between Caucasian langauges and Sino-Tibetan, it is
debated whether the Caucasian languages form a valid group, much less be
connected with Sino-Tibetan.  The only firm concencus at this point is that
the North Caucasian languages are related, and the South Caucasian
languages are related. Some people claim the Northern and Southern families
are related, but that is an unresolved issue at this point. So, unless
Sino-Caucasian refers to a connection with only one of these two families
(which I suppose it could), there is no certainty to the proposal at all.



===============================
Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
===============================