Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 1981. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science. / Vita. / Includes bibliographies. / by Steven William Roecker. / Ph.D.

The Hindu Kush region stretches from Afghanistan over Pakistan to North India and is home to what is commonly known as the Dardic languages. The Dardic langagues are a group of Indo-Aryan languages that have in isolation and under contact developed or retained features that can not be found in Indo-Aryan languages outside the region. In the ongoing project ”Language contact and relatedness in the Hindu Kush region” data on over 50 languages has been collected including nine varieties of northwest Indo-Aryan Pashai spoken in west Afghanistan. A cognate analysis and an analysis of phonological, morphological, syntactical and lexical features were conducted. The cognate analysis shows that the Pashai varieties build two clusters, a western group consisting of the three western Pashai varieties and an eastern group consisting of six eastern varieties. The structural analysis shows a more diverse picture with three potential clusters, a group of the two most western varieties, a northeastern group and a central group consisting of one western variety and two southeastern varieties. Some features found to be shared by languages in the region are also found in all Pashai varieties like a subject-object-verb order and postpositions. / Hindukushregionen sträcker sig från Afghanistan över Pakistan till norra Indien och hyser de vanligtvis så kallade dardiska språken. De dardiska språken tillhör de indo-ariska språken vilka i isolation och genom kontakt utvecklade eller bevarade drag som inte längre finns i indo-ariska språk utanför regionen. I det pågående projekt “Språkkontakt och språksläktskap i Hindukushregionen” samlades data från mer än 50 språk inklusive nio varietéer av det nordvästra indo-ariska språket Pashai som talas i västra Afghanistan. En kognatanalys och en analys av fonologiska, morfologiska, syntaktiska och lexikala drag genomfördes. Kognatanalysen visar att Pashai varieteterna formar kluster, en västragrupp av de tre västra varieteterna och en östra grupp av de sex östra varieteterna. Struktruanalysen visar en mer skiftande bild av tre potentiella kluster, en grupp av de två mest västra varieteterna, en nordöstra grupp och en centergrupp bestående av en västra varietet och två sydöstra varieteter. Några drag som anses vara delad av språken i regionen kan också konstateras i alla Pashaivarieteter som ensubjekt-objekt-verb följd och postpositioner.

This dissertation aims to provide a grammatical description of Dameli (ISO-639-3: dml), an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 5 000 people in the Domel Valley in Chitral in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in the North-West of Pakistan. Dameli is a left-branching SOV language with considerable morphological complexity, particularly in the verb, and a complicated system of argument marking. The phonology is relatively rich, with 31 consonant and 16 vowel phonemes. This is the first extensive study of this language. The analysis presented here is based on original data collected primarily between 2003-2008 in cooperation with speakers of the language in Peshawar and Chitral, including the Domel Valley. The core of the data consists of recorded texts and word lists, but questionnaires and paradigms of word forms have also been used. The main emphasis is on describing the features of the language as they appear in texts and other material, rather than on conforming them to any theory, but the analysis is informed by functional analysis and linguistic typology, hypotheses on diachronical developments and comparisons with neighbouring and related languages. The description is divided into sections describing phonology, morphology and syntax, with chapters on a range of individual subjects such as particular word classes and phrase types, phonological and syntactical phenomena. This is not intended to be an exhaustive reference grammar; some topics are only touched upon briefly while others are treated in more detail and suggestions for further research are given at various points throughout the work.

Avhandlingens syfte är att ge en grammatisk beskrivning av det indoariska språket palula, ett språk med ca 10000 talare i Chitraldistriktet i Pakistans nordvästprovins. Ingen tidigare studie har presenterat detta hittills mycket litet kända språk i detalj och med den omfattning som detta arbete gör. Det är också en av ett fåtal ingående studier som finns tillgängliga vad gäller språk i hela den omgivande Hindukushregionen. Analysen är baserad på språkdata som företrädesvis insamlats av författaren själv under perioden 1998-2006, huvudsakligen i form av inspelade texter som kompletterats med enkäter, dokumenterad observation av språkanvändning samt elicitering av ordlistor och paradigm. Fältarbetet har utförts i nära samverkan med talare av språket. Beskrivningen omfattar delområdena fonologi, morfologi, syntax och ett antal centrala ämnen inom vart och ett av dessa större områden. Arbetet ska dock inte betraktas som en helt uttömmande referensgrammatik. Somliga ämnen har getts större utrymme, då de ses som speciellt centrala i språket, medan andra behandlas mer summariskt. Förslag till fördjupade studier ges genomgående i verkets olika kapitel och sektioner. Inriktningen som valts är teorimedveten utan att vara teoribunden. Terminologin och det bakomliggande resonemanget anknyter däremot i stora delar till lingvistisk typologi och icke-formell lingvistik. Den diakrona utvecklingen diskuteras i viss utsträckning, i synnerhet inom morfologin. Även jämförelser med andra språk samt referenser till areala företeelser förekommer i den mån de har varit tillgängliga och bedömts som välmotiverade. / This dissertation is intended to provide a grammatical description of the Indo-Aryan language Palula, spoken by approximately 10,000 people in Chitral District in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. No study with the scope and detail of the current work has been presented in the past for this little-known language, and it is one of only a few in-depth studies available for languages in the immediate surrounding of the Hindu Kush region. The analysis is based on original data primarily collected during the period 1998-2006, mainly in the form of recorded texts but supplemented by questionnaires, notes of observed language use and the elicitation of word lists and paradigms. The field work has been conducted in close cooperation with native speakers and their communities. The description covers phonology, morphology, syntax and a range of the most important topics within each of these sub-disciplines, but it is not meant to be an exhaustive reference grammar. Some topics have been given greater prominence in the work, as they have particular importance to the language, whereas others have been covered more summarily. Suggestions for further research that should be undertaken are given throughout the study. The approach chosen is theory-informed rather than theory-driven, but an underlying framework of linguistic typology and non-formalism is assumed. Diachronic development is taken into account, particularly in the area of morphology, and comparisons with other languages and references to areal phenomena are included insofar as they were motivated and available. / <p>För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se</p>

This is a study of the kinship terminology used for one’s parents and their siblings in the languages in the greater Hindu Kush area (GHK). GHK stretches over the mountainous borderlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, China and India and homes a range of various languages from six different genera, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, Turkic, Tibeto-Burman, and the language isolate Burushaski. The study is based on questionnaires from native speakers of 55 language varieties collected in 2015-2017. The main distinction is one between descriptive and merging systems. The descriptive system have separate terms for all six relations and are found in the outer areas of GHK. The merging systems have terms that refer to two or more relations, and these are found in the center of the area. Within this center-area the languages are then further divided into six different terminologies depending on which relations are merged with one term. Semantic clusters can be observed, based on systematic and lexico-semantic parallels, both within and across family lines. The distribution is discussed from a historical, geographical and social point of view. / Language contact and relatedness in the Hindukush region. Vetenskapsrådet (421-2014-631)

In this thesis, 9 Indo-Aryan languages which have previously been classified as Shina languages were analyzed. A cognate analysis of basic vocabulary was conducted, in order to explore the relatedness of the languages. Furthermore, a selection of phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features was analyzed, in order to explore areal patterns among the languages. The data mainly consisted of first-hand data, which has been collected for the project ”Language contact and relatedness in the Hindu Kush region”, but even previous descriptions of the languages were used. The results primarily confirmed hypotheses about the relatedness of the Shina languages, and showed interesting areal patterns.The data also suggested that the Shina languages share many typical features with other Hindu Kush Indo-Aryan languages, such as SOV word order, the use of postpositions, sex based grammatical gender, and moderately complex to complex syllable structures. Other features, such as aspiration, retroflexion, and case alignment in noun phrases showed more variation and could certainly be relevant for future studies on these languages. / I den här uppsatsen har 9 indoariska språk som tidigare har klassificerats som shinaspråk analyserats. För att undersöka hur språken är besläktade med varandra har en kognatanalys av det grundläggande ordförrådet genomförts. Dessutom har ett urval fonologiska, morfologiska, syntaktiska, och lexikaladrag analyserats, i syfte att undersöka areala mönster hos språken. Datan för undersökningen bestod huvudsakligen av förstahandsdata, som har samlats in för projektet “Språkkontakt och släktskap i Hindukushregionen”, men även tidigare beskrivningar av språken har används. Resultaten bekräftade mestadels hypoteser om hur shinaspråken är besläktade med varandra, och visade intressanta areala mönster. Det visade sig att shinaspråken delar många drag med andra indoariska språk i Hindukushregionen, såsom SOV ordföljd, användning av postpositioner, grammatisk genus baserat på biologisk kön, och medelkomplexa till komplexa stavelsestrukturer. Andra drag, exempelvis aspiration, retroflexion,och kasuskongruens i nominalfraser, visade större variation och skulle kunna vara relevanta för framtida studier av dessa språk. / Language Contact and Relatedness in the Hindu Kush Region, Swedish Research Council (VR 421-2014-631)

The current study investigates how locative clauses and existential constructions are realized and differentiated in the language of Khowar [ISO 693–3: khw] (Hindu Kush Indo-Aryan, HKIA). Khowar is one of several under-researched languages in the Hindu Kush, and as of yet there is no comprehensive description of its linguistic structure. The data for this study was provided by Afsar Ali Khan (local linguist and native speaker of Khowar), in the form of a collection of transcribed traditional Khowar stories, told by speakers in the community. Samples of locative clauses and existential constructions were collected from the corpus, mainly by use of the concordance tool of Toolbox, after which an analysis was carried out. The results show that word order is the main strategy for differentiating locational-existential constructions and locative clauses in Khowar, that semantically bleached posture verbs are not a present strategy for creating locative clauses nor existential constructions, and that there are certain story-opening sequences with existential constructions that are typical of the genre represented by the data. Future research is suggested to focus on negative existentials in Khowar, the full distributional pattern of the actual and inferential copula in other types of non-verbal predication, and the extended use of the 3rd person singular past tense form of the actual copula, ɔʃɔj, which is no longer sensitive to the animacy distinction otherwise present in the Khowar verbal system.

This is a corpus-based study about the light verb predicates (LVP) in Gawarbati, an Indo-Aryan language indigenous to the Hindu Kush region. This thesis aims to identify and analyse the frequency of light verbs, examine the borrowed elements within these constructions, and explore the semantic fields expressed through LVP. The data are speech events, gathered for the ongoing project “Gawarbati: Documenting a vulnerable linguistic community in the Hindu Kush”(2020-01500). The speech events were extracted from a corpus using Python and analysed manually. The results show that LVP represent 5.86% of all predicates in the data, with ‘to do’, ‘to give’, and ‘to say’ being the primary verbs, while a few others occur infrequently. Borrowed non-verbal elements in LVP, originating from Arabic, English, Persian, Pashto, and Urdu, constitute 68.92% of non-verbal elements within LVP. The main semanticfields expressed with LVP are basic actions and technology, speech and language, social andpolitical relations, cognition, and agriculture and vegetation. / Detta är en korpusbaserad studie om lättverbspredikat (LVP) i gawarbati, ett indoariskt språk som talas i Hindukush-området. Uppsatsens syfte är att identifiera lättverb i LVP i gawarbatioch analysera deras frekvens, undersöka låneord i LVP, samt utforska de semantiska fält som uttrycks genom sådana konstruktioner. Datan består av talhändelser som samlades ininför projektet “Gawarbati: Documenting a vulnerable linguistic community in the HinduKush”(2020-01500). Python användes för att exportera data från korpusen och vidare analys har gjorts manuellt. Resultatet visade att LVP representerar 5,86% av alla predikat i datan, med ‘att göra’, ‘att ge’ och ‘att säga’ som de primära lättverben och ett fåtal till som förekommer sällan. Inlånade icke-verbala element inom LVP härstammande från arabiska, engelska, persiska, pashto och urdu, och utgjorde 68,92% av alla hittade icke-verbala element inom LVP. De huvudsakliga semantiska fälten som uttrycktes med LVP var basala handlingar och teknologi, tal och språk, sociala och politiska relationer, kognition och jordbruk och vegetation. / Gawarbati: Documenting a vulnerable linguistic community in the Hindu Kush (VR 2020-01500)

The Greater Hindu Kush designates a mountainous area extending from Afghanistan over Pakistan, Tajikistan and India to the westernmost parts of China. It is home to over 50 lan- guages from six different phyla; Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, Turkic, Tibeto-Burman and the language isolate Burushaski. Due to its unique geographical setting, it is characterised by language contact and isolation, which lays the perfect ground for research on linguistic diversity, language convergence and genealogical relations. The present study relies on data from the entire region and attempts to identify structural similarities based on lexical items from core vocabulary, numerals and kinship terms. The study reexamines the genealogical affiliation through lexical similarity and investigates areal patterns of vergence, i.e. the branching out or mergence of these patterns. Results reconfirm the established classification of the languages and indicate a certain level of structural simi- larity across language families for some features such as numeral bases, numeral composition and the terms for ‘parents’ and ‘parents-in-law’, yet it also shows great diversity for other features such as ‘grandchildren’ and one’s siblings’ partner. / Language contact and relatedness in the Hindukush region (421-2014-631)

L'objet de notre travail est l'étude de la sismicité de la zone Pamir-Hindu-Kush. Dans cette zone, de type continental, on observe des séismes intermédiaires dont l'origine est encore très mal connue. Deux des éléments essentiels pour mieux comprendre la géodynamique de cette région sont la définition la plus précise possible de la géométrie de la zone sismique, et l'étude des mécanismes au foyer. Ce sont ces deux points que nous nous sommes proposés d'étudier, en utilisant un réseau de stations portables. Dans le premier chapitre, nous rappelons les études faites sur cette région par différents auteurs. Les expériences de terrain sont décrites sommairement dans le deuxième chapitre. Le chapitre III concerne le traitement des données. Nous y exposons notamment de nombreux tests et une méthode simple qui nous permettent de bien connaitre les domaines d'incertitude de nos localisations. Le chapitre IV est consacré à la description spatiale de la sismicité de la zone Pamir-Hindu-Kush à partir des localisations que nous avons obtenues. Enfin, dans le chapitre V, nous discutons les solutions focales antérieures et nous proposons 27 solutions nouvelles. En conclusion, tous ces résultats sont discutés et nous rappelons les éléments nouveaux apportés par ce travail. Nous présentons en annexe les résidus des téléséismes que nous avons enregistrés et la liste des séismes que nous avons localisés.