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Dr Mark Post
 CV and Publications
Mark W. Post joined the RCLT in March 2004 following completion of his MA in linguistics (Post 2003) at the University of Oregon, where he was supervised by Professors Talmy Givón and Scott DeLancey. His PhD A Grammar of Galo (supervised by Professor R. M. W. Dixon) was completed at the RCLT in September 2007.
Post’s primary area of ongoing research concerns documentation and description of the Tani (Tibeto-Burman) languages, which are spoken in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states in North East India, as well as in small numbers in Tibet. In addition to a comprehensive description of the Lare dialect of Galo, a Western (Transitional?) Tani language spoken in West Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh, past research has focused on Mising (spoken in Assam) and Minyong (spoken in East Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh). Future research in the area will focus on Galo dialects other than Lare, as well as Minyong and the highly unusual Eastern (?) Tani language Milang, spoken in the Upper Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh.
In addition to general documentation and description, Post’s ongoing research concerns (within Tani as well as elsewhere in Tibeto-Burman and beyond) include the diachronic dimension of morphosyntactic typology (e.g., how do isolating languages become more synthetic, and what happens to various areas of the grammar in the process), the origins, uses and fates of topographical deixis, the origins and functions of large systems of predicate derivations, and the nature and integration of prosodic systems (and their interaction with grammar) in Asian languages.
More about
the Tani languages
The Tani languages form a large and apparently independent branch of Tibeto-Burman (Sun 1993). They bear many similarities to the neighbouring Mishmi and Hrusish languages, however the precise nature of the Tani-Mishmi-Hrusish relationship (in terms of shared ancestry versus contact or substrate influence) is not yet understood. Due mainly to difficulty of access to most of the regions in which they are spoken (in the strictly restricted Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, as well as in Tibet and the Assam floodplain), the Tani languages are among the least well-described languages in all of Asia. No comprehensive survey of the Tani languages has ever been conducted, and we have no real idea, in fact, how many Tani languages there are (to say nothing of dialects and varieties), nor how many speakers there may be of those languages which have been identified. Only one comprehensive descriptive grammar of a Tani language has yet been produced. Several Tani languages or dialects appear to be spoken by small groups of 500-2,000 people, and are likely to be highly endangered.
Fieldwork |
Galo man above Dipa village |
More about
the Galo and their language
Galo is spoken in some variety by around 30-40,000 people, almost entirely within the West Siang district of central Arunachal Pradesh. The major Galo dialects are Pugo, spoken around the district capital Along, and Lare, spoken to the south of Along. Subdialects are numerous, and often correspond to regional or clan groupings. Karka may be a dialect of Galo, or may qualify as a distinct language. Neighbouring languages include Assamese, Nepali, Bodo, Mising, Minyong, Hill Miri, Tagin, Nishi, Bori, and Bokar. Jhum cultivation is traditionally practiced, although some wet rice cultivation has begun in foothill areas. Galo are socio-economically dominant in their area. 99% of Galo children learn Galo as a first language, although most are also bilingual and borrow frequently from Assamese, Hindi and English. Education is (unofficially, but in fact) mainly in Hindi. Traditional Dooñi-Poolo religious tradition persists to a degree in most areas, although Christianity is rapidly on the rise in all Assamese contact areas. Galo are often referred to by non-Galo as Gallong – an archaic pronunciation reflecting an earlier stage of the language prior to its loss of velar nasal codas – and also as Adi – a generic term for a loose grouping of several central and eastern Tani tribes speaking many distinct languages (and not, as is often and erroneously claimed, itself a “language”); in most Tani languages, Adi (Galo adìi) means simply ‘hill (people)’.
Galo houses, West Siang District |
Galo ñibo priest and boo assistant atop altar |
Galo man in hunting garb
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Galo bride
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Like most central and eastern Tani languages, Galo is largely synthetic and agglutinating. Two primary lexical tones are present – High and Low – which may reflect two Proto-Tani syllable tones; in modern Galo, the surface TBU is the usually polysyllabic phonological word. A robust finite/non-finite asymmetry underlies Galo grammar, and clause chaining and nominalization are both rampant. No synchronic verb-serialization appears to exist, although what seems to have been proto-verb-serialization has developed into a very large and productive system of derivational suffixes to bound verbal roots. Major (non-derived) lexical classes are noun, adjective and verb. Other grammatical features include postpositions, relator nouns, classifiers, an extremely large system of aspectual suffixes, and a rich set of constituent-final particles coding functions related to epistemological status (such as evidentiality), discourse/pragmatic status, modality, and other related functions. Case-marking is basically accusative; ergativity has not been found.
Galo man constructing wall |
Galo woman on jhum field |
Galo women preparing loom |
Mithun (Bos frontalis) being prepared for sacrifice |
Poonu, traditional Galo line dance
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Elder Galo women |
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