Publikationen Bettina Zeisler

on academia.edu

→books →articles →online dictionary →drafts and handouts

(1. linguistics, 2. history of Ladakh and Western Tibet and studies in ancient geography, and 3. other topics):

1. Linguistics

Questionnaire & example set: evidentiality, inferentiality, and speaker’s attitude. Draft version (June 2016)

Presentations & handouts

• From speaking to doing – the case of Tibetan bya and Kurtöp ŋak. Presentation at the 26th Himalayan Languages Symposium Paris, September 4-6.
• Quand les paroles ne suivent pas l’ORDRE de la LANGUE: the case of ‘evidentiality’ in Ladakhi (a Tibetic language of northwestern-most India). Handout for the Linguistics and Asian Languages Conference Poznań, March 24-25.
• Integrating egophoricity into evidentiality or rather: Integrating evidentiality into speaker attitude? The Ladakhi dialects. Extended handout for the International workshop: 'Evidentiality 2.0: Integrating egophoricity' 5.-6. September 2021 Universität Bern.
• Beyond evidentiality, the case of inok & Cie. Extended handout for the 25th Himalayan Languages Symposium, Sydney, 2019.
• Introduction to the International workshop: 'Evidentiality’ in Tibetic languages and beyond – a closer look. 16.-17. February 2019 Schloß Hohentübingen (presentation).
• Vive la parole! ‘Evidential freaks’ in Ladakhi. Handout for the International workshop: 'Evidentiality’ in Tibetic languages and beyond – a closer look. 16.-17. February 2019 Schloß Hohentübingen.
• Rethinking evidentiality: ‘evidentiality’, epistemic modality, and speaker attitude in Ladakhi. Presentation at the Societas Linguistica Europaea, 50th Annual Meeting, 10.–13.9.2017, Universität Zürich.
• Towards a Valency Dictionary of Ladakhi Verbs: challenges in analysing a ‘non-configurational’ language. Handout and presentation for SALA 32, Universidade de Lisboa, April 27-29 2016.
• Evidence for the development of ‘evidentiality’ as a grammatical category in Tibetan. Handout for the Workshop on Empirical Evidence for Evidentiality. Radboud University, Nijmegen, January 9th and 10th, 2014.
• Verb-verb sequences in Tibetan and Ladakhi (1200 years of stable transition). Handout and presentation for the Ninjal International Symposium ‘Mysteries Of Verb-Verb Complexes In Asian Languages’, Tachikawa, Japan, December 14th and 15th, 2013.
• The Ngari group of Western Tibetan dialects. Full version of the presentation for the 18th Himalayan Languages Symposium, Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, September 10th – 12th, 2012.
• Evidentiality and inferentiality: Overlapping and contradictory functions of the so-called evidential markers in Ladakhi (West Tibetan). Presentation and detailed handout presented at the conference The Nature of Eviden­tiality, Universiteit Leiden June 14th – 16th, 2012.
• Combinatory sound alternations in proto- pre- and real Tibetan: The case of the word family *mra(o) ‘speak’, ‘speaker’, ‘human’, ‘lord’. Paper presented at the 44th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Central Insitute for Indian Languages, Mysore, October 7th – 9th, 2011. See draft version.
• Contrasting instead of comparison. Evidence from West Tibetan differentiating property ascriptions. Presentation for the 43rd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Lund University, October 15th – 18th, 2010.
• Possessors or actors? Ergative marking in Upper Ladakhi. Presentation for the Workshop on Ergative Markers, Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques Paris, November 9th, 2009.

2. History of Ladakh and Western Tibet and studies in ancient geography

• A whirling swastika of rivers and a mountain on the move – The transferred geography of Mt Meru-Kailash. Presentation as originally prepared for the 16th Conference of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Prague 3-9 July 2022.

• Faxian’s ‘journey through Ladakh’ or how (not) to do history or science. ཕ༹་ཤྱེན་“ལ་དྭགས་འི་ཕ༹་རིས་སྐྱོད་ཁན་”བེ་སྐོར་ལ་ཡང་ན་འགའ་ཟུག་འ་རྒྱལ་རབས་ཡང་ཚན་རིགས་འི་རྟགས་ཅད་འཛད་རྒོས་ཤ་མེན་ཙོག༎ Presentation for the 19th Conference of the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Choglamsar August 31–September 4, 2019.

• On the river Bautisos, the Baitai, and the Bod (a contribution to Old Tibetan history & geography). Presentation for the IATS 2019, 40th Anniversary Seminar, Paris 7-13 July 2019. -- Old Tibetan Studies in Honour of Rolf Alfred Stein.

• ཆུའི་ཐུར་ལ་ཡང་དེ་ངོས་ཤིག་ག་རྨུ་ཟེར་ཁན་ནི་མི་རྒྱུད་དི་ཚོད་ཚོད༎ Down the river and elsewhere: the Rmu, an ethno-historical conundrum- Presentation for the 17th Conference of the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Kargil, 26-29. July 2015.

• རི་རབ་ཡང་ན་། གངས་ཏི་སེ་། ཀཻ་ལཱ་སའི་ སྐྱལ་མཁན་ནི་དམ་པའི་གནས་བཤད་ལ་༎ The transferred sacral geography of Mt Meru (Kailash). Presentation for the 15th Conference of the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Leh, August 19th – 22nd, 2011.
• ཀྲོལ་ཅེས་ཡང་རྩིག་ཅེས། ལ་དྭགས་དང་བལ་ཏི་ཡུལ་ལི་རྙིང་པའི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་སི་མ་གདན། རིག་ཟིན་ཨང་མོ་(འཇར་གླིང་) deconstruction and reconstruction: foundations for the early history of Ladakh (and Baltistan). Handout and presentation for the 14th Conference of the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Leh, July 16th – 19th, 2009.

3. Other topics

• Did Gama ever reach the land of lama? Ladakh in a much wider perspective. Presentation at the 18th Seminar of the International Association of Ladakh Studies, Będlewo 2nd – 6th May 2017.
• ‘Ladakhi’ identities and language attitude. Handout for the conference Language, Power and Identity in Asia Creating and Crossing Language Boundaries, 14 – 16 March 2016, National Museum of Antiquities Leiden, the Netherlands.

The dictionary covers about 95 to 99% of the verbs available to individual speakers. Two quite different dialects are represented: Domkhar (Shamskat, Lower Ladakh) and Gya (Kenhat, Upper Ladakh). At present (autumn 2015), it contains about 950 main entries and more than 1,900 sub-entries for meanings or collocations that go with a different case assignment, yielding almost 2,400 meaning-to-frame sets for two quite different dialects. These sets are accompanied by more than 23,000 full example sentences that show all obligatory as well as the semantically licensed facultative constituents. The dictionary also contains comments of the informants concerning the reasons for the choice of certain constructions, the semantic implications, or also acceptability judgements. The dictionary further focuses on the possibility of pattern variation, similar to the spray-load verb alternations in English.

Due to technical problems, the official server may be offline. Please feel free to contact me, if this should be the case.

2024

• Facts and attitudes: on the so-called ‘factual’ markers of the modern Tibetic languages. Himalayan Linguistics Archive, 14: i-ii, 1-67. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qw4188m. [OA]

2023

• Beyond evidentiality, the case of Ladakhi inok & siblings. Himalayan Linguistics Archive, 13: i-ii, 1-152. https://doi.org/10.5070/H90051278. [OA]
• Evidential-perceptual transfer by a blind speaker? Or: what do the Ladakhi markers for “visual” and “non-visual” perceptual experience, ḥdug and rag, actually encode? Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1515/jsall-2023-1006. [OA]
• Combinatory sound alternations in Proto-, Pre-, and Real Tibetan: The case of the word family *mra(o) ‘speak,’ ‘speaker,’ ‘human,’ ‘lord’. Sino-Platonic Papers, 331: 1–165. http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp331_tibetan_sound_alternations.pdf. [OA]

2022

• To be or not to be: On the Modern Tibetan auxiliary verb red in classical texts. Himalayan Linguistics 21(3): 50–84. https://doi.org/10.5070/H921352173. [OA]
• Of gold, ants, and other fables concerning the ‘Dards’ of Ladakh (and Baltistan). In: Christoph Cüppers, Karl-Heinz Everding, Peter Schwieger (eds), A Life in Tibetan Studies. Festschrift for Dieter Schuh at the Occasion of his 80th Birthday. Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute.

2021

• With Rainer Kimmig.  كیا گاما کبھی پہنچا لاما کے دیش؟  क्या गामा कभी पहुँचा लामा के देश? འགའ་མ་བླ་མའི་ཡུལ་ལ་བསླེབ་ཤེས་ས༎ Did Gama ever reach the land of Lama? (Ladakh in a much wider perspective) In: Rafał Beszterda, John Bray and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg (eds.), New Perspectives on Modern Ladakh. Fresh Discoveries and Continuing Conversations in the Indian Himalaya. Nicolaus Copernicus University Press, pp. 263-287.
• The call of the siren: Bod, Baútisos, Baîtai, and related names (Studies in Historical Geography II). Revue d'Etudes tibétaines, 60: 282-397. Please use this link for a better layouted offprint. [OA]
• Semantically related verb verb combinations in Tibetan and Ladakhi. In: Taro Kageyama, Peter E. Hook, and Prashant Pardeshi (eds.), Verb-verb complexes in Asian languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Review: Marius Zemp. A Grammar of Purik Tibetan. (Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library, 21; Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region.) Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2018. Linguistic Typology, aop: 1-12. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/lingty-2020-2067/pdf. [OA]

2020

• Ambiguous verb sequences in Ladakhi (a Tibetic language spoken in Ladakh, India, formerly part of the state Jammu and Kashmir). In: Éva Á. Csató, Lars Johanson, and Birsel Karakoç (eds), Ambiguous Verb Sequences in Transeurasian Languages and Beyond. (Turcologica, 120.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx1hw37.20)
• Reviews: Rob Linrothe and Heinrich Pöll. Visible Heritage. Essays on the Art and Architecture of Greater Ladakh. Berlin, Delhi: Studio Orientalia, 2016. & Rob Linrothe. Seeing into Stone. Pre-Buddhist Petroglyphs and Zanskar’s Early Inhabitants. Berlin, Delhi: Studio Orientalia, 2016. Acta Orientalia Hung. 73: 145-153. (Combined link for reviews by four authors.) [OA]

2018

• Contrast instead of comparison: Evidence from West Tibetan differentiating property ascriptions. In Yvonne Treis and Katarzyna I. Wojtylak (eds.), On the expression of comparison: Contributions to the typology of comparative constructions from lesser-known languages. Special issue of Linguistic Discovery 16.1. 10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.491
• Evidence for the development of ‘evidentiality’ as a grammatical category in Tibetan. In: Ad Foolen, Helen de Hoop, Gijs Mulder (eds.), Evidence for Evidentiality. Human Cognitive Processing (HCP) 61: 227–256. doi 10.1075/hcp61.10zei
• Don’t believe in a paradigm that you haven’t manipulated yourself! – Evidentiality, speaker attitude, and admirativity in Ladakhi (extended version). Himalayan Linguistics 17.1: 67–130. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8jq4t1ww. [OA]

2017

• Hypothetical sound laws and sound potential meaning. Once again on the uncommon Tibetan verb paradigm za, zos, zo ‘eat’. International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction 14: 77–117.
• Don’t believe in a paradigm that you haven’t manipulated yourself! Evidentiality, speaker attitude, and admirativity in Ladakhi. In: Agnès Celle and Anastasios Tsangalidis (Eds.), The Linguistic Expression of Mirativity. Special issue of Review of Cognitive Linguistics 15.2: 515–539. DOI: 10.1075/rcl.15.2.09zei
• The emergence of the Ladakhi inferential and experiential markers from a marker for admirativity (non-commitment): the case of ḥdug and snaŋ. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 4.2: 259-307. https://doi.org/10.1515/jsall-2017-0009.

2016

• las.stsogs etc. – On internal cues for dating Old Tibetan documents. Zentralasiatische Studien 45: 467-491.
• Review: Thomas Owen-Smith and Nathan W. Hill (eds.) Trans-Himalayan Linguistics. Historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area. Trends in Linguistics 226. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2014. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 3.2: 233–249. DOI 10.1515/jsall-2016-0013.
• Context! Or how to read thoughts in a foreign language. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 3.2:197–221. DOI 10.1515/jsall-2016-0010
• Reviev: John Bray and Elena de Rossi Filibeck (eds). 2009. Mountains, Monasteries and Mosques. Recent Research on Ladakh and the Western Himalaya. Proceedings of the 13th Colloquium of the International Association for Ladakh Studies. Supplemento N° 2 alla Rivista Degli StudiOrientali, Nuova Serie, Volume LXXX. Pisa, Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore. Asian Highlands Perspectives 40: 381-394. [OA]

2015

• གནམ་གྱི་ཁྲི་བདུན་ The Seven Stars of Heaven. A gift for a reconvalescent. In: Ch. Ramble and U. Roesler (eds), Tibetan & Himalayan healing. An anthology for Anthony Aris: 747–754.
• Alexander Csoma de Kőrös’ contribution to Tibetan studies. Ladakh Review 1.1: 23–31.
• Eat and drink – if you can! A language internal explanation for the ‘irregular’ paradigm of Tibetan za, zos, zo ‘eat’. Himalayan Linguistics 14.1:34–62. [OA]
• Review: L’épopée tibétaine de Gesar. Une version inédite par dBang chen nyi ma. Manuscrit Alexandra David-Néel, Musée Guimet BG54805. Présentée par Anne-Marie Blondeau et Anne Chayet. Zentralasiatische Studien 44: 231–234.
• Review: Róna-Tas, András: Tibeto-Mongolica Revisited. With a New Introduction and Selected Papers on Tibetan Linguistics. Leiden/Boston: Brill 2014. XXVIII, 465 S. 8°. Hartbd. € 161,00. ISBN 978-90-04-25118-2. Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 110.4-5: 394–398. DOI 10.1515/olzg-2015-0140

2014

• Modal verbs and modal constructions in Ladakhi. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. 1.1: 31–57, DOI: 10.1515/jsall-2014-0003.
• Review: John Powers and David Tempelman. 2012. Historical dictionary of Tibet. Revue d’Études Tibétaines 30: 225–246. [OA]

2013

• Review: Blezer, Henk (ed.) 2011 Emerging Bon - The Formation of Bon Traditions in Tibet at the Turn of the First Millenium AD. PIATS 2006: Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Eleventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Königswinter 2006. (Beiträge zur Zentralasienforschung, 26). Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies. 368 pages, 98,50 Euro.) Asian Highlands Perspectives 28: 423-449. [OA]

2012

• Practical issues of pragmatic case marking variations in the Kenhat varieties of Ladakh. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area: 35.1: 75-106.

2011

• Kenhat, the dialects of Upper Ladakh and Zanskar. In: Mark Turin & Bettina Zeisler (eds.), Himalayan Languages and Linguistics. Studies in Phonology, Semantics, Morphology and Syntax. (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, 5/12.) Leiden etc.: Brill: 235-301.
• For love of the word: a new translation of Pt 1287, the Old Tibetan Chronicle, chapter I. In: Yoshiro Imaeda, Matthew T. Kapstein, and Tsuguhitu Takeuchi, eds., New studies of the Old Tibetan Documents: philology, history and religion. (Old Tibetan Documents Online Monograph Series, 3.) Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: 97-213. [OA]

2010

• [Review] Huber, Brigitte. 2005. The Tibetan dialect of Lende (Kyirong). Himalayan Linguistics Review 9.1. 2010. 124-132. [OA]
• East of the moon and west of the sun? Approaches to a land with many names, north of ancient India and south of Khotan. In: Roberto Vitali (ed.) The Earth Ox Papers. Proceedings of the International Seminar on Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, Held at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, September 2009 on the Occasion of the ‘Thankyou India’ Year. The Tibet Journal 34.3-4/35.1-2, Special Issue: 371-463.

2009

• སྐད་དི་འགྱུར་ཅ་ནང༌། རྡོ་བའི་མེན་ཏོག་ཙོགས་ལ་ལུས་ཀན་ནི་སྔོན་འཇུག་བའི་རྗེས་སི་སྐོར་ལ༎ Language change and the fossilization of the Old Tibetan b- prefix in Ladakhi and Balti. In Monisha Ahmed and John Bray, eds., Recent Research on Ladakh 2009. Papers from the 12th colloquium of the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Kargil. Kargil & Leh: International Association of Ladakh Studies, 81-96.
• Mainstream linguistics for minor(ity) languages? Or: What is it like to speak Ladakhi? In: Anju Saxena & Åke Viberg (eds.) Multilingualism. Proceedings of the 23rd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics Uppsala University 1 – 3 October 2008. (Acta Universtatis Upsaliensis, Studia Linguistica Upsaliensia, 8.) Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet: 305-319.
• Reducing phonetical complexity and grammatical opaqueness: Old Tibetan as a lingua franca and the development of the modern Tibetan dialects. In: Enoch O. Aboh and Norval Smith (eds.) Complex processes in new languages. (Creole Language Library, 35.) Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 75-95.

2008

• (with Helga Uebach): rJe-blas, pha-los and Other Compounds with Suffix -s in Old Tibetan Texts. In: Brigitte Huber, Marianne Volkart und Paul Widmer (Hrsg.) Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek. Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Band I: Chomolangma. Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies: 309-334.
• 'Wenn du deine Mühle gemahlen hast, womit mahlst du dann dein Mehl?' – Idiomatische Wendungen im Ladakischen. In: Brigitte Huber, Marianne Volkart und Paul Widmer (Hrsg.) Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek. Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Band I: Chomolangma. Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies: 359-388.

2007

• [Review] Haller, Felix. 2004. Dialekt und Erzählungen von Themchen. Sprachwissenschaftliche Beschreibung eines Nomadendialektes aus Nord-Amdo. Himalayan Linguistics Review 4. 2007. 1-10 [OA]
• Case patterns and pattern variation in Ladakhi: a field report. In: Bielmeier, Roland and Felix Haller (eds.), Linguistics of the Himalayas and beyond. (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs, 196.) Mouton de Gruyter: 399-425.
• On the position of Ladakhi and Balti in the Tibetan language family. In: John Bray and Nawang Tsering Shakspo (eds.) Recent research on Ladakh 2007. Leh: J & K Academy for Art, Culture & Science, International Association for Ladakh Studies: 27-33. [Abbreviated version of 2005a; containing an English summary of Róna-Tas (1985: 183-303) "On the development of the Tibetan script."]

2006

• The Tibetan understanding of karman: Some problems of Tibetan case marking. In: Christopher I. Beckwith (ed.), Medieval Tibeto-Burman languages II, PIATS 2003: Tibetan studies: Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Oxford 2003. Brills Tibetan Studies Library, 10. Leiden etc.: Brill: 57-101.
• Why Ladakhi must not be written - Being part of the Great Tradition: another kind of global thinking. In: Anju Saxena and Lars Borin (eds.), Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia. Status and Policies, Case Studies and Applications of Information Technology. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs, 175. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 175-191.

2005

• On the position of Ladakhi and Balti in the Tibetan language family. In: John Bray (ed.), Ladakhi histories: local and regional perspectives. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, 9. Brill, Leiden etc.: 41-64.
• [Review] Hacket, Paul G. 2003. A Tibetan Verb Lexicon: Verbs, Classes, and Syntactic Frames. On the utility of the Tibetan grammatical tradition. The Tibet Journal 30.2: 69-92.

2004

• (with Andreas Wagner): A syntactically annotated corpus of Tibetan. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, Lisboa, May 2004.
• An annotation of what is not there: Empty arguments and cross-clausal reference in spoken and written Tibetan texts. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Treebanks and Linguistic Theories, Tübingen, December 2004.

2002

• The development of temporal coding in Tibetan: some suggestions for a functional internal reconstruction. (1): Unexpected use of the 'imperative' stem in Old Tibetan and Themchen (Amdo Tibetan). In: Henk Blezer (ed.), Tibet, Past and Present. PIATS 2000: Tibetan studies: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000. (Brills Tibetan Studies Library, 2/1.) Leiden etc.: Brill: 441-453.

2001

• The development of temporal coding in Tibetan: some suggestions for a functional internal reconstruction. Part II: The original semantics of the 'past stem' of controlled action verbs and the re-organisation of the Proto-Tibetan verb system. Zentralasiatische Studien 31: 169-216.

• 2004 Relative Tense and aspectual values in Tibetan languages. A comparative study. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs, 150. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, xxi, 984 pp.
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• Turin, Mark and Bettina Zeisler (eds.). 2011. Himalayan Languages and Linguistics. Studies in Phonology, Semantics, Morphology and Syntax. (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, 5/12.) Leiden etc.: Brill: 235-301.
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