Publikationen Bettina Zeisler

Submitted publications, publications in print:

  • Zeisler, Bettina (to appear): Ethnic diversity, language contact, and the old Tibetan lingua franca: early Tibetan history and the development of the modern Tibetan languages.
  • Combinatory sound alternations in proto- pre- and real Tibetan: The case of the word family *mra(o) ‘speak’, ‘speaker’, ‘human’, ‘lord’. See draft version.

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.

2010

  • "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. View full pdf [9,69 MB].

2009

  • Skaddi ḥgyurcanaŋ  rdobaḥi mentogtsogsla luskanni sŋonḥjug baḥi rdzessiskorla – 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. See also an earlier version
    (2005) here

  • "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.
    online version (pdf)
  • "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.

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.
  • "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

  • 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.
  • "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. ZAS 31: 169-216.

Works under preparation:

  • Zeisler, Bettina: "mindra mindra (incomparably different): Property ascription and expressions for difference (and comparison) in Ladakhi Tibetan)"


  • Zeisler, Bettina: West Tibetan verbal morphology and the reconstruction of the proto-language: the Shafer hypothesis revisited.