Re: A new Indo-European subfamily in China

Danny Wier wrote:

>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).
Easy, they aren't related so the development never took place. ;-)

Proto-Sino-Tibetan is not reconstructed as being tonal. Development of tone
was a process that took place long after Sino-Cuacasian would have split
up, and it did not affect the entire ST language family. Probably it only
occurred in a one or two languages, but because of cultural influence, tone
spread to surrounding languages. That is why tone does not occur along
genetic lines in East Asia. That is, presence or lack of tone does not help
in the classification of which family you are a part of in East Asia.



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