Author Description

North East Indian Linguistics Volume 5 presents the latest research on the languages of North East India. This present volume both builds on earlier contributions made by established NEILS participants and introduces new work by scholars making their first mark in regional scholarship. Providing a rich database in the form of two appendices, Alexander Kondakov’s paper represents a solid sociolinguistic background against which future grammatical investigation of Koch dialects can be conducted. Mark W. Post’s paper continues Kondakov’s focus on the social and cultural dimensions of dialectology, in an attempt to resolve the vexing question of Galo’s genetic position in the Tani languages. Gwendolyn Hyslop presents the most comprehensive statement yet of the internal structure of this little-studied subgroup spanning Arunachal Pradesh and neighbouring Bhutan. Continuing investigation into nominalization and relational marking in North East Indian languages, Stephen Morey demonstrates that Latin-style grammatical ‘case’ labels are often inappropriate for the languages of North East India. The volume closes with an analysis of Wihu song poetry by Stephen Morey and Meenaxi Bhattacharjya – the latest of several ground-breaking contributions to ethno-musico-linguistic studies in North East India emerging from the Volkswagenstiftung-funded project led by Stephen Morey.