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Brag-bar kinship system in synchronic and diachronic perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2020

Zhang Shuya  and
Fan Jingming
Zhang Shuya*
Affiliation:
INALCO-CRLAO
Fan Jingming*
Affiliation:
Université Paris-Nanterre
*
bragbarskad@gmail.com
jmfiav@gmail.com
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Abstract

The Rgyalrong languages are a group of unwritten non-Tibetic languages spoken in north-western Sichuan Province, China. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the Brag-bar (a dialect of Situ Rgyalrong) kinship terminology at the synchronic level, and then by using both internal reconstruction and comparative method, we attempt to explain the directionality of both formal and semantic changes in the Brag-bar terminology. Thus we demonstrate that the present kinship system of Brag-bar (Situ) originates from a system with Omaha skewing.

Keywords

KinshipBrag-barRgyalrong languagesOmaha skewingCross-parallel distinction
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , October 2020 , pp. 479 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2020

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Footnotes

We would like to express our gratitude to Guillaume Jacques, who has read every version of this paper and provided valuable suggestions. We would also like to thank Lai Yunfan, Philippe Ramirez, Stephen Morey, Jesse Gates, Gong Xun and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Finally, we would like to thank Thomas Pellard, who generously shared the LaTeX codes for the kinship diagrams.

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