Martine Mazaudon

email: mazaudon@vjf.cnrs.fr

Martine Mazaudon went to the Himalayas for the first time in 1969 to study Tamang, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal , spoken in those days by half a million speakers. This language was the object of continued study over the years with the publication of a phonological analysis, and a grammatical sketch (Mazaudon M., 1973, 2003b) , aiming at a complete description of the language which will also include a dictionary.

Several collections of data in the field were undertaken in view of comparison and historical reconstruction in the valleys of the Thakkhola, Manang, and Nar-Phu where the population speaks languages which are closely related to Tamang, although quite distinct. (Mazaudon M., 1978, 1994) . She has devoted several studies to the history and development of tone systems in the Tibeto-Burman family (Mazaudon M., 1977, 1985b, 2005 ; Mazaudon M. & B. Michailovsky, 1988) , and documenting rare phonetic and phonological features (Mazaudon M., 1997).

In the domain of grammar and semantics, she has studied the grammaticalization of information-structure markers into subordination markers in Tamang (Mazaudon M., 2003a) .

The structure of number systems all over Tibeto-Burman languages is another recurring topic (Mazaudon M., 1985a, 2002) . With some colleagues she conducted a first very brief survey of this matter in Arunachal Pradesh in February 2007.

Selected works / Bibliographie sélective

Mazaudon, Martine. 1973. Phonologie du Tamang . (Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale). Paris: SELAF, 184 p.

—, 1977, Tibeto-Burman tonogenetics, LTBA 3 (2): 1-123.

—, 1978, Consonantal mutation and tonal split in the Tamang subfamily of Tibeto-Burman, Kailash 6 (3): 157-179.

—. 1985a. Dzongkha number systems. In Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies presented to André-G. Haudricourt, Ratanakul, Suriya, David Thomas & Suwilai Premsirat (eds). 124-157. Bangkok: Mahidol University.

—. 1985b. Proto-Tibeto-Burman as a Two-tone Language? Some Evidence from Proto-Tamang and Proto-Karen. In Linguistics of the Sino-Tibetan Area: the state of the art. Papers presented to Paul K. Benedict for his 71st birthday, Thurgood, Graham, James Matisoff & David Bradley (eds). Canberra, Australia: A.N.U. (Pacific Linguistics. Series C - 87).

—. 1994. Problèmes de comparatisme et de reconstruction dans quelques langues de la famille tibéto-birmane . Doctorat d'Etat ès-lettres. Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III.

—, 1997, /a/ glide in Sino-Tibetan (Actes du colloque «16th International Conference of Linguists», Paris).[http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/publi/aglide01.pdf].

—. 2002. Les principes de construction du nombre dans les langues tibéto-birmanes. In La Pluralité, François, Jacques (ed.). 91-119. Paris: SLP (Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. Nouvelle série tome 12). [ http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/publi/num_WEB.pdf]

—. 2003a. From discourse to grammar in Tamang: topic, focus, intensifiers, and subordination. In Language Variation: Papers on variation and change in the Sinosphere and in the Indosphere in honour of James A. Matisoff, Bradley, David et al. (eds). 145-157. Canberra: A.N.U. (Pacific Linguistics). [http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/publi/JAMFS_MMWeb.pdf]

—. 2003b. Tamang. In The Sino-Tibetan Languages, Thurgood, Graham & Randy LaPolla (eds). 291-314. London, New York: Routledge (Routledge Language Family Series). [http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/publi/Tamang_web.pdf]

—. 2005. On tone in Tamang and neighbouring languages: synchrony and diachrony. In Cross-linguistic Studies of Tonal Phenomena. Historical development, tone-syntax interface, and descriptive studies, Kaji, S. (ed.). 79-96. Tokyo, Japan: ILCAA, Tokyo University of foreign Studies. [http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00139489]

Mazaudon, Martine & Boyd Michailovsky. 1988. Lost syllables and tone contour in Dzongkha. In Prosodic Analysis and Asian linguistics : to honour R.K. Sprigg, Bradley, David, Eugénie Henderson & Martine Mazaudon (eds). 115-136. Canberra: The Australian National University (Pacific Linguistics. Series C - 104). [http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00009231]