# When Language Maintenance Means Language Shift: Tibetan as an Heritage Language in Amdo Families in France

Vladislava Warditz, Bernd Heine, Paul Widmer, Camille Simon

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Vladislava Warditz, Bernd Heine, Paul Widmer, Camille Simon. When Language Maintenance Means Language Shift: Tibetan as an Heritage Language in Amdo Families in France. Languages, 2025, From Migrant to Heritage Languages: Transgenerational Language Change in Diasporic Communities, 10 (11), 10.3390/languages10110271. doi:10.3390/languages10110271

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Article

# When Language Maintenance Means Language Shift: Tibetan as an Heritage Language in Amdo Families in France

Camille Simon <fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />

## Abstract

This paper explores the initial steps of transgenerational language change in exile by comparing the varieties of “Common” Tibetan as spoken by parents born in Amdo, Tibet, and by their teenager children, born in Tibet or in South Asia, who arrived in France at an early age and who have spent all or most of their schooling in France. In these families, the parents speak a variety of Amdo Tibetan as their first language, which does not allow for inter-comprehension with “Common” Tibetan. They have acquired “Common” Tibetan during their stay in South Asia before they moved to France. The paper follows a descriptive approach to analyze the structural (dis)similarities between the parents’ and the children’s varieties of “Common” Tibetan. It also documents intra-generational variation (1) within the parents’ generation, where we can observe a variable extent of retention for Amdo Tibetan features, and (2) within the children’s generation, where variation is usually due more to the (often contact-induced) linguistic changes than to the retention of some of their parents’ linguistic features.

**Keywords:** diaspora; dialect levelling; heritage language; language maintenance; language change; language shift; contrastive linguistics; Tibetan languages

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Academic Editors: Vladislava Warditz, Bernd Heine and Paul Widmer

Received: 20 July 2025

Revised: 5 October 2025

Accepted: 10 October 2025

Published: 26 October 2025

**Citation:** Simon, C. (2025). When Language Maintenance Means Language Shift: Tibetan as an Heritage Language in Amdo Families in France. *Languages, 10*(11), 271. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10110271

**Copyright:** © 2025 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## 1. Introduction

The Tibetan diaspora in the world represents a population of circa 120,000 people. Originally resettled in South Asia after the Chinese invasion and the flight of the Dalai-Lama into exile in 1959, a worldwide diaspora has gradually emerged from the 1990s onward, with the departure of a number of Tibetans to certain Western countries (Robin, 2024). In France, the Tibetan population has grown rapidly over the last twenty years, from circa 100 people in 2000 to around 15,000 people now. Both in South Asia (India, Nepal, and Bhutan) and in the West (Northern America, Western European countries, and Australia), efforts have been and are still made to foster the transmission of the Tibetan language in the diaspora (Phuntsog, 2018; Robin & Simon, forthcoming in 2026).

The question of language maintenance outside Tibet and in the West raises the question of the language variety to be transmitted. “Tibetan” is, indeed, a cover term for more than 200 languages, not always mutually intelligible, directly derived from Old Tibetan (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023, p. 57). In the face of such diversity, a variety of “Common” Tibetan has emerged as a *lingua franca* in South Asia, mainly based on Central Tibetic (Vokurková, 2022; Schmidt, 2022). The emergence of this *lingua franca* in exile is thus closely linked to the question of dialect contact (Trudgill, 1986) and wider language contact situations in the diaspora, but remains largely unexplored (Ward, 2015).

<footnote n="1">¹ Lacito—Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale (CNRS), 94800 Villejuif, France; camille.simon2@gmail.com</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Université de Picardie Jules Verne, 80000 Amiens, France</footnote>
This paper explores the initial steps of transgenerational language change in exile by comparing the varieties of “Common” Tibetan as spoken by parents born in Amdo, Tibet, and by their teenager children, born in Tibet or in South Asia, who arrived in France at an early age and who have spent most or part of their schooling in France. In these families, the parents speak a variety of Amdo Tibetan as their first language, which does not allow for inter-comprehension with “Common” Tibetan. They have acquired “Common” Tibetan during their stay in South Asia before they moved to France. Their idiolectal variety of “Common” Tibetan is now the language they use on a daily basis in the nuclear family and with other members of the diaspora, whereas Amdo Tibetic is used in more limited contexts (e.g., with fellows from the same village or micro-area). Preliminary research has shown that, in such families, “while parents retain (to a highly variable extent) phonological, morphosyntactic, and/or lexical features of their native Tibetic language when they speak ‘Common’ Tibetan, only very few or no such features can be found in the variety of ‘Common’ Tibetan spoken by their children. Tibetan as a ‘heritage language’ is thus inherited less from the parents than from the wider community within which they grow up” (Simon, 2023). As we will see from the linguistic biographies below, the members of the interviewed families are or have been in regular contact with the Tibetan community around Paris, both with people from Amdo and from other regions.

Building on these preliminary findings, the paper follows a descriptive approach to document and analyze the structural (dis)similarities between the parents' and the children's varieties of "Common" Tibetan.

## 2. Languages, Methodology, and Corpus

### 2.1. Amdo and "Common" Tibetan

Amdo and “Common” Tibetan are two Tibetic languages, i.e., languages directly derived from Old Tibetan, the language of the Tibetan Empire (8th–9th century A.D.) (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023, p. 44). Both languages belong to two different groups within the Tibetic languages (resp. the Northeastern and the Central group¹). While the Amdo Tibetan varieties belong to the Northeastern section of Tibetic, “Common” Tibetan is a variety of Central Tibetan, i.e., the varieties spoken in the Lhasa region, some 2000 km away from Amdo, as shown in Figure 1 below. Despite being genetically related, and although the speakers share one and the same written language norm, Amdo and “Common” Tibetan are not mutually intelligible.

In this paper, “Common” Tibetan refers to the variety of Central Tibetan used as the vehicular language outside Tibet. This language emerged in the 1960s within the first communities of Tibetan refugees in South Asia, and more recently spread to North America, Europe, or Australia with the movement of “onward-migration” (Frilund, 2019) and the constitution of a worldwide Tibetan diaspora. Given its present worldwide spread and the various sociolinguistic background of its speakers, it is likely that structural linguistic and, at the very least, lexical differences exist or are developing in the different parts of the diaspora—hence, the quotation marks for “Common” Tibetan: it is the common language of members of the Tibetan diaspora, but, as this paper shows, structural dissimilarities exist, even within one family. Thus, we use “Common” Tibetan as a loose term, defined by its function as *lingua franca* in exile rather than by specific structural features. To date, Vokurková (2022) is the only attempt to provide a linguistic description of “Common” or “Diaspora” Tibetan in a contrastive perspective with Lhasa Tibetan.

This paper focuses on “Common” Tibetan as spoken by people with an Amdo Tibetic background to document contrastively the extent of adoption of Central Tibetic linguistic features in the first and the second generation of exiles.
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** The Tibetan cultural and linguistic area, the contemporary administrative division, and the traditional provinces. Map by Technob105, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carte_de_la_zone_culturelle_tib%C3%A9taine.png#metadata (accessed 9 October 2025).</figcaption></figure>

## 2.2. Data Collection

The analysis is based on parallel mini-corpora recorded in 2024–2025, from parents and teenager (14–17 y. o.) children in four families living nearby Paris.

In Family 1, both parents are from Amdo. They arrived in South Asia as young adults. While Father-1 had completed a bilingual (Chinese–Tibetan) curriculum in Amdo, Mother-1 was illiterate upon arrival. Thus, she was enrolled in a programme of the Central Tibetan Administration to learn the basics of reading and writing, together with a bit of English. The people who follow this programme are brought together in a boarding school for a few months, and this stay thus constitutes the first daily contact between Tibetans recently arrived from different areas of Tibet and teachers born in exile or living there for a long time. Mother-1 and Father-1 had lived about one decade in India and Nepal. Their two children are born there, and they began their very first years of schooling in the network of Tibetan schools in South Asia. They moved to France when the two children were 6 and 9, respectively. At the time of the interview, the family had lived in France for ten years. Both children attend French school, and Child-1A, the elder, is also enrolled in a community school once a week.

Family 2 is a linguistically “mixed” family: the father has a Kham, i.e., Southeastern Tibetan, variety as his mother language, even though he also learned Amdo Tibetan from a young age. Both parents have completed a bilingual (Chinese–Tibetan) curriculum in Tibet. They have spent 5 and 7 years, respectively, in South Asia, before moving to France with Child-2A and Child-2B in 2013. Both children were of pre-school age at that time. After their arrival, they have lived some time relatively isolated from the wider Tibetan community because they have been granted accommodation in a fairly distant suburb. For a time, this location prevented them from enrolling their children in the Sunday community school. At that time, both parents being fully literate in Tibetan and particularly committed to the transmission of Tibetan, used to teach themselves written Tibetan and to read children literature with them. At the time of the interview, Child-2A and Child-2B attended a community school every week. Mother-2 is a stay-at-home mother and has deliberately
decided not to put their youngest child (born in France) in daycare, to ensure a maximal
exposure to the Tibetan language before entering the compulsory nursery school.

In Family 3, both parents are from Amdo, and Mother-3 was illiterate upon her arrival
in exile, while Father-3 had completed a full curriculum in Amdo. They arrived in South
Asia in the early 2000s, when they were in their twenties. Father-3 arrived in France some
twelve years before the interview took place, but Mother-3 and Child-3 could come to
France nine years later only, when Child-3 was 14. Thus, Father-3 has spent more than
ten years, and Mother-3 more than twenty years, in South Asia. Child-3 has completed
most of her schooling in a school run by the Central Tibetan Administration. Among our
interviewees, she is the one who has been the most intensively exposed to the South Asian
“Common” Tibetan variety, and the one who arrived most recently in France. During
their stay in South Asia, both parents used to work in a “Common” Tibetan speaking
environment. After the birth of Child-3, they also had the opportunity to visit their family
in Tibet for two months. At the time of interview, Child-3 was enrolled in a French public
school and attended a community school once a week: as there are no Tibetans in her
neighbourhood, it is the main opportunity for her to meet young Tibetan speakers.

Family 4, like Family 2, is a linguistically “mixed” family where the father has a Kham
Tibetic variety as his mother language. Mother-4 had left Tibet in her early twenties, and
spent ten years in South Asia. She did not attend school in Tibet, and, like Mother-1, was
enrolled in the Central Tibetan Administration programme for illiterate adults upon arrival.
She settled in France ten years before the data collection, and Child-4 could join her in
France four years later, at the age of 7. Child-4 thus completed her first year of schooling in
the network of Tibetan schools in South Asia. At the time of the interview, Child-4 attended
an online community school, run by a monastery based in South India, which offers a 1–2 h
class once a week.

In these four families, a variety of “Common” Tibetan is the children’s first language
and the language of daily communication with their parents (children speak both French
and Tibetan with each other). The precise characterization of the variety spoken with the
different interlocutors remains somehow fuzzy. Indeed, despite the significant structural
differences between Amdo and “Common” Tibetan, neither the parents nor the children
conceive of them as two distinct languages. Nevertheless, all parents clearly indicate that
they do not speak to each other or their children in the same way as they would speak to
members of their family back home: they tend to speak to them using a form of “Common”
Tibetan more or less strongly influenced by an Amdo Tibetan substrate.

The data have been collected mainly through face-to-face interviews, and via Zoom
with the members of Family 4. The interviews were conducted by speaking exclusively my
own variety of “Common” Tibetan,² in order to encourage them to replicate the way they
speak to their children. The data include the following:

1. A word list targeting specific phonological features and lexical items, repeated two or three times with each speaker (collected with help of a set of pictures to avoid interferences from Written Tibetan (WT), and because some speakers have limited reading skills in Tibetan);

2. A narrative based on an excerpt of Shaun Tan's graphic novel *The Arrival* (Tan, 2006, hereinafter referred to as “Arrival”): this parallel corpus is the source for grammatical analyses;

3. Semi-structured, collective interviews about the family members' linguistic biography and daily life have also been conducted in order to obtain a more precise overview of the linguistic profile of each family and provide the context to analyze the data. For Family 1 and 2, the linguistic biography had been recorded earlier, in 2022.
The corpus will be archived and made available as part of the Pangloss Collection, within the subcollection devoted to “Common” Tibetan. Table 1 below indicates which members of the family were recorded and summarizes the data collected.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Data collected for the research.</caption><thead><tr><th>Family</th><th>Family Member</th><th>Recorded Data and Duration</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="4">1</td><td>Mother-1 (Mo1)</td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (14 min. 11 s., with Fa1)</td></tr><tr><td>Father-1 (Fa1)</td><td>Linguistic biography of the family (62 min. 8 s., with Fa1)</td></tr><tr><td>Child-1A (Ch1A)</td><td>Word list</td></tr><tr><td>Child-1B (Ch1B)</td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (8 min. 1 s.)</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">2</td><td>Mother-2 (Mo2)</td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (7 min. 13 s.)</td></tr><tr><td>Child-2A (Ch2A) and</td><td>Linguistic biography of the family (58 min. 20 s.)</td></tr><tr><td>Child-2B (Ch2B)</td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (8 min. 20 s.)</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">3</td><td>Father-3 (Fa3)</td><td>Linguistic biography of the family (50 min. 32 s.)</td></tr><tr><td>Mother-3 (Mo3)</td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (21 min. 52 s.)</td></tr><tr><td>Child-3 (Ch3)</td><td>Linguistic biography of the family (44 min. 16 s., with Mo3)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (12 min. 27 s.)</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">4</td><td>Mother-4 (Mo4)</td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (26 min. 26 s.)</td></tr><tr><td>Child-4 (Ch4)</td><td>Linguistic biography of the family (54 min. 26 s.)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Word list; “Arrival” (14 min. 47 s.)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Linguistic biography (21 min. 37 s.)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Based on this corpus, the next sections present a selection of linguistic features chosen to form a sample of different subdomains of the linguistic system, which differ significantly in form and/or function from Amdo and Central Tibetan, thus facilitating the contrastive approach adopted here. It should be noted that this paper is only a first step in the description: other linguistic features could have been analyzed and future research should extend the descriptive work to other features. These features are analyzed contrastively in the parents' and children speech in order to document how “Common” Tibetan emerges in just one generation. Thus, this paper aims at illustrating how different domains of the grammar differ in being prone or resilient to dialect contact-induced linguistic changes, as well as documenting new dynamics of linguistic innovations and language inheritance, influenced by the new setting in the wider diasporic context, in this case, in France (Blackledge & Creese, 2008). By doing so, we also want to illustrate the extent of phonological and morphosyntactic variation among the first generation adopting “Common” Tibetan as their daily lingua franca, and, by contrast, the relative homogenisation attested in the children's speech.

## 3. Phonological Features

As mentioned *supra*, the Tibetan languages are all derived from Old Tibetan, the language of the Tibetan Empire (7th–9th century A.D), and “Old Literary Tibetan orthography rather faithfully reflects the pronunciation of a historical Central Tibetan dialect at the time of the script invention.” (Bialek, 2022, p. 10). The orthography of written Tibetan has largely remained unchanged since the 10th century (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023, pp. 194–196); thus, “Classical Tibetan is closely related to modern Tibetan languages and its orthography allows us to reconstruct many ancient forms and understand the evolution of these modern languages” (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023, p. 137).

Several phonological features would deserve a thorough examination as part of the analysis of the development of Common Tibetan in Amdo families. Due to the limited
scope of this paper, we will limit the analysis to one specific phonological feature, i.e., the distribution of word-initial aspirated stops.

### 3.1. Reflexes of Old Tibetan Initial Voiced Stops

Amdo and Central Tibetan varieties oppose the same three series of word-initial stops, which can be traced to Old Tibetan (Hill, 2007, p. 489): voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and voiced initial stops. However, following the development of tones in the Central Tibetic varieties, their distribution differs in the two language groups. The reflexes under examination are highlighted with a grey background. Table 2 summarizes the stops in Written Tibetan and their reflexes in Amdo and Central Tibetic.

<table><caption>**Table 2.** Reflexes of WT initial stops in Central and Amdo Tibetic <fnref n="1" />,².</caption><thead><tr><th>Written Tibetan</th><th>WT Transliteration <sup>3</sup></th><th>Central Tibetic</th><th>Amdo Tibetic</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ག</td><td>&lt;k&gt;</td><td>/k/</td><td>/k/</td></tr><tr><td>ཤ</td><td>&lt;kh&gt;</td><td>/kʰ/ (high tone)</td><td>/kʰ/</td></tr><tr><td>ག̄</td><td>&lt;g&gt;</td><td>/kʰ/ (low tone)</td><td>/k/</td></tr><tr><td>ཧ</td><td>&lt;t&gt;</td><td>/t/</td><td>/t/</td></tr><tr><td>ཨ</td><td>&lt;th&gt;</td><td>/tʰ/ (high tone)</td><td>/tʰ/</td></tr><tr><td>ད</td><td>&lt;d&gt;</td><td>/tʰ/ (low tone)</td><td>/t/</td></tr><tr><td>ས</td><td>&lt;p&gt;</td><td>/p/</td><td>/p/</td></tr><tr><td>ས̄</td><td>&lt;ph&gt;</td><td>/pʰ/ (high tone)</td><td>/pʰ/ (rare), or /h/ <sup>4</sup></td></tr><tr><td>བ</td><td>&lt;b&gt;</td><td>/pʰ/ (low tone)</td><td>/p/ (rare), or /w/ <sup>4</sup></td></tr><tr><td>མ or མ་<sup>+ོ</sup></td><td>&lt;k&gt; or &lt;p&gt; + &lt;r&gt;</td><td>/t/</td><td>/t/ (rare)<br>or other realizations <sup>4</sup></td></tr><tr><td>ཎ or མ་<sup>+ོ</sup></td><td>&lt;kh&gt; or &lt;ph&gt; + &lt;r&gt;</td><td>tʰ (high tone)</td><td>/tʰ/ (rare)<br>or other realizations <sup>4</sup></td></tr><tr><td>ཕ or བ་<sup>+ོ</sup></td><td>&lt;g&gt; or &lt;b&gt; + &lt;r&gt;</td><td>tʰ (low tone)</td><td>/t/ (rare)<br>or other realizations <sup>4</sup></td></tr></tbody></table>

Thus, as we can see from Table 2, the Written Tibetan voiced initial stops are realized as unvoiced, aspirated, low-tone stops in Central Tibetic, while in Amdo Tibetan they are realized as unvoiced unaspirated stops. The measurement and comparison of the Voice Onset Time (VOT) of these consonant types for each speaker can be used to know whether they have aligned their pronunciation with the Central Tibetic one, or whether they retain the unaspirated Amdo Tibetan pronunciation. For the labial and the retroflex series, Amdo Tibetan presents more than one regular reflex: only the pronunciations as labial stops and retroflexes (respectively) have been taken into account is this study.³

### 3.2. Transgenerational Contrast and Intra-Generational Variation

For each speaker, a selection of words starting with each type of WT stop described in Table 2 was extracted from the corpus,⁴ and the VOT was measured.⁵ The measurements were initially carried out separately in isolated words (from the word list) and in words included in natural speech (from the corpus “Arrival”). As no significant difference was found between the data from these two elicitation methods, the measurements are combined with the results summarized in Tables 3 and 4:

<footnote n="1">¹ Central and Amdo Tibetic also have voiced stops, but these are reflexes of initial consonant clusters and are not considered in this analysis. ² The WT labial stops are not always realized as stops in Amdo Tibetan: here, only the occurrences realized as labial stops were taken into account. ³ We use the “Wylie” transliteration system (Hill, 2012). ⁴ Not taken into account in this analysis.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 3.** Average VOT in the reflex of the three stop types in the parents' generation.</caption><thead><tr><th>Speaker</th><th>Type of Stop</th><th>Number of Items</th><th>Average VOT (in Rounded s.)</th><th>Average Deviation (in Rounded s.)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Mo1</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>14</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.008</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>24</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.015</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>31</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.005</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Fa1</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>23</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.007</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>25</td><td>0.08 [+ASP]</td><td>0.016</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>25</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.009</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Mo2</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>17</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.012</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>24</td><td>0.06 [+ASP]</td><td>0.021</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>45</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.017</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Fa3</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>49</td><td>0.025 [−ASP]</td><td>0.01</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>37</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.02</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>52</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.01</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Mo3</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>29</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.005</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>10</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.01</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>26</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.01</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Mo4</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>21</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.006</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>24</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.020</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>34</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.011</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>**Table 4.** Average VOT in the reflex of the three stop types in the children's generation.</caption><thead><tr><th>Speaker</th><th>Type of Stop</th><th>Number of Items</th><th>Average VOT (in Rounded s.)</th><th>Average Deviation (in Rounded s.)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Ch1A</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>25</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.006</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>29</td><td>0.06 [+ASP]</td><td>0.017</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>20</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.014</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Ch1B</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>17</td><td>0.02 [−ASP]</td><td>0.007</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>21</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.016</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>21</td><td>0.06 [+ASP]</td><td>0.011</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Ch2A</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>25</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.011</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>29</td><td>0.09 [+ASP]</td><td>0.017</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>29</td><td>0.04 [−ASP]</td><td>0.013</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Ch2B</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>23</td><td>0.05 [−ASP?]<sup>1</sup></td><td>0.026</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>9</td><td>0.08 [+ASP]</td><td>0.012</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>26</td><td>0.04 [−ASP]</td><td>0.01</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Ch3</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>56</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.001</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>40</td><td>0.07 [+ASP]</td><td>0.012</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>65</td><td>0.09 [+ASP]</td><td>0.022</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Ch4</td><td>&lt;k, t, p, (retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>21</td><td>0.03 [−ASP]</td><td>0.011</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;kh, th, (ph, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>25</td><td>0.08 [+ASP]</td><td>0.02</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;g, d, (b, retrofl.)&gt;</td><td>27</td><td>0.06 [+ASP]</td><td>0.02</td></tr></tbody></table>

The data show a clear contrast between the parents' and the children's generation for this phonological feature: while all the parents in our sample were consistent in not aspirating the reflexes of <g, d, (b, retrofl.)>, the children of three of the four families implied in the study presented an aspirated reflex of this consonant type. It can be noted that the change from an Amdo to a Central Tibetan type of pronunciation for this sound type is not correlated to the parents' pronunciation, nor to the fact that both parents (Families 1 and 3) or only one (Families 2 and 4) parent is a native speaker of an Amdo Tibetan variety.

<footnote n="1">¹ The data for Ch2B gives uncertain results due to a smaller corpus and a generally unclear pronunciation, probably due to the teenager's brace.</footnote>
In his study of tone, voicing, and aspiration of stops and affricates by speakers of “Common” Tibetan in Kathmandu, Geissler (2021, p. 148) observes that the aspiration feature interacts with the two other above-mentioned features, and shows that the VOT length for this series of stops varies: some speakers consistently present an aspiration, others “only produce aspiration in historically high-tone words”, and a third category “only produce variable prevoicing and aspiration in the appropriate low-tone words”. The present paper does not address the question of tones or voicing. Thus, one may wonder whether combining these parameters of tone and voicing with VOT length might explain why the children in Family 2 do not produce an aspiration for this consonant series. In other words, is the lack of aspiration for these consonants in Family 2 a retention of an Amdo Tibetic feature or the alignment with another subtype of the “Common” Tibetan phonological system? More research is needed to answer this question with certainty, but my hypothesis is rather that this peculiarity can be explained by the linguistic biography of the family. First, Fa2 and Mo2 have spent relatively less time in South Asia than the other parents involved in this study, and, having a high level of education upon arrival, they also have spent less time in adult education centres run by the Central Tibetan Administration, where refugees from different areas of Tibet are mixed. Second, neither Ch2A nor Ch2B had started schooling in the Tibetan school system before arriving in France: they had not been in intensive contact with exile-born Tibetan children. In France, the family location was in relative isolation from other members of the Tibetan community (at least during certain periods of their childhood). Third, their mother has a high level of instruction and is a stay-at-home mother. Thus, she was very present during their early childhood and involved in storytelling and written language teaching; being more directly involved in her children’s formal learning, she might have influenced their pronunciation when correcting them in reading exercises. All these factors could explain the retention of an Amdo Tibetic phonological feature by these teenagers. Nevertheless, as the next sections will show, they do not seem to retain significantly more Amdo Tibetan morphosyntactic features than the other children.

Lexicon should also be mentioned as a factor influencing this phonological feature, this time in the parents' generation. Words starting with <g, d, (b, retrofl.)> and copied from Central Tibetan are often pronounced as aspirated stops, like in Central Tibetic, even by parents. For example, while the word for “snow” is <khaba> /kʰawa/ in Amdo Tibetic and <gangs> /kʰaŋl/ in Central Tibetic, Mo3 pronounces /kʰaŋ/. Similarly, Fa3 copies the words <bu> /pʰu:l/ “son, boy”, <bu.mo> / pʰu:l.mo / “daughter, girl”, and <deb> /tʰep:l/ “book” from Central Tibetic (comp. to Amdo <zhi.lu> /ʃələ/, <zhi.mo> /ʃəmo/, and <dpecha> /xweťʃʰa/, respectively), and constantly pronounces these words with an aspirated initial stop. Other speakers present a type of “partial” copy (Johanson, 1992) of the phonological form of such lexical items: for instance, Fa1 or Mo4 use the Central Tibetan word <deb> “book”, but with an unaspirated initial consonant /tep/.

Thus, this analysis of the distribution of aspirated vs. non-aspirated stops in 4 Tibetan families shows that most speakers settled in France tends to align with the Central Tibetic system from the children’s generation onward, even though some children retain the Amdo Tibetan pronunciation.

## 4. The Noun Phrase: Definiteness and Number

Several morphosyntactic features can be examined to assess the transgenerational linguistic changes in Amdo Tibetan families in France. In this section, we will focus on the noun phrase and examine the marking of indefiniteness, number categories, and spatial cases.
4.1. *The Marking of Indefinite Noun Phrases*

As shown in Table 5, the indefinite marker has a distinct phonological form in Central and Amdo Tibetan varieties and is thus easily recognizable in the corpus.

<table><caption>**Table 5.** Indefinite markers in Amdo and Central Tibetan varieties.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Central Tibetan</th><th>Amdo Tibetan</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Indefinite marker</td><td>-ཅིག -tʃiʔ</td><td>-ཐིག -zək(a), -sək(a), -tsək(a) <sup>1</sup></td></tr></tbody></table>

The indefinite marker in Central and Amdo Tibetan varieties has the same, cross-linguistically classic etymology (Heine & Kuteva, 2002, pp. 219–222): it is grammaticalized from the number གཅིག <gcig> “one” (Bialek, forthcoming, p. 426).⁶ The pronunciation evolved differently, but its clitic position in the nominal phrase is identical in the two language groups: they occur at the end of the NP and can only be followed by the case marker and the focus marker (<yang> in “Common” Tibetan and <ra> in Amdo Tibetan). Their range of functions is slightly different: in Central Tibetan, tʃiʔ can also occur as an independent unit with the function of an indefinite pronoun, as a filler when the speaker hesitates, or as an attenuating particle meaning “once” or “a bit”. Such uses were not taken into account here.

The five children recorded for this study all exclusively use the morpheme -tʃiʔ to mark indefinite noun phrases, as illustrated for instance by examples in (1).⁷

<table><tbody><tr><td>(1)</td><td>a.</td><td>མི་ཅིག</td><td>མེའི</td><td>ས་ཆ</td><td>Ch2B</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>mi-tʃiʔ</td><td>ཐཱཱ</td><td>satʃa</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>person-INDF</td><td>HES</td><td>place</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>ཧ་གོ་མེད་བ་ཅིག་ལ</td><td></td><td>སླེབས་བསྔད་ཡོད་རེད་ནྡ</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>hako-me-wa-tʃiʔ-la</td><td></td><td>lep-de-jore-wa</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>know-NEG-NMLZ-INDF-DAT/LOC</td><td></td><td>arrive-AUX:DUR-PERF-PHAT</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td colspan="4">“A man, er, has arrived to an unknown place.”</td></tr><tr><td>b.</td><td></td><td>ཁོ་གིས</td><td>ཁྲ་མ</td><td>ཁང་ལ</td><td>ཨནི</td><td>Ch3</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>kʰo-ki</td><td>dama</td><td>tʃʰe-tʃiʔ-ki</td><td>naŋ-la</td><td>ani</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>3SG-ERG/INSTR</td><td>pottery</td><td>big-INDF-GEN</td><td>inside-DAT/LOC</td><td>then</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>སྐད་ཅིག</td><td>གོ་ནས</td><td></td><td>ཨནི</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>ke-tʃiʔ</td><td>kʰo-ne</td><td></td><td>ani</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>voice-INDF</td><td>hear-CONN</td><td></td><td>then</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td colspan="4">“He hears a noise in a big pottery, and...”</td></tr></tbody></table>

As we can see from Table 6 while the children exclusively use the Common Tibetan morpheme to mark indefinite noun phrases, the parents' variety of “Common” Tibetan can be divided into three groups for this morphosyntactic feature. Hence, Mo1 and Mo4 mostly use the Amdo Tibetan morphemes and the Amdo Tibetan morphemes are 2.3 times more frequent than their Central Tibetan counterpart for Mo1, and 6.15 times more frequent for Mo4. On the contrary, Mo2 uses almost exclusively the Central Tibetan form. Finally, Fa3's system of indefinite marking mirrors Mo1's: he uses the Central Tibetan morphemes twice more than the Amdo Tibetan ones.

<footnote n="1">¹ The three allomorphs are in free variation; /a/ is added when the indefinite marker is followed by a numeral or a quantifier (Simon, 2016, p. 245).</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 6.** Form of the indefinite morphemes found in the corpus “Arrival”.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Central Tibetic</th><th>Amdo Tibetic</th><th>Double Marking</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Mo1</th><td>11</td><td>25</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Mo2</th><td>31</td><td>1</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Fa3</th><td>60</td><td>30</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><th>Mo4</th><td>9</td><td>59</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th>Ch1</th><td>33</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch2A + Ch2B</th><td>16 + 27</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch3</th><td>47</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch4</th><td>46</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>

On top of that, the corpus contains five occurrences of a double-marking of the indefinite, where the Amdo Tibetic morpheme is immediately followed by the Central Tibetic one as illustrated in (2) (in this example, the phonological form -fək instead of the expected -tfiʔ corresponds to the regular reflex pronunciation of the Central Tibetic morpheme in the Amdo Tibetic phonology).

(2) a. འདི་-རྣ་ ད་ ཉལ་-ས་-ཐིག་-ིག་ འདུག་-ཟྭ་ Fa3
də-na ta na-sa-zək-tfək du-ga:
DEM-LOC well lay.down-NMLZ-INDF-INDF EXIST.SENS-PHAT

"Here, well, there is a bed (lit. place to lay down), right?"

b. རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ གཞན་དག་-ཐིག་ག་-ིག་-འ་ འགྲོ་-དགོས་-ཡོད་ས་རེད། Mo4
dzk̂e fenta-səka-tfək-a ndo-go-osare
country other-INDF-INDF-DAT go-AUX:must-EXIST.EPIST

"[He] probably has to go to another country."

## 4.2. Number: Plural and Dual Markers

The grammatical category of number (cf. Corbett, 2000) is grammaticalized in a more complex way in the Amdo Tibetic varieties compared to Central Tibetic, both in terms of subcategories and in terms of allomorphs, as illustrated in Table 7. (Skal bzang 'gyur med & Skal bzang dbyang can, 2002; Simon & Noûs, 2021).

<table><caption>**Table 7.** Markers of number categories in Central and Central Tibetic varieties.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Central Tibetic</th><th>Amdo Tibetic</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Definite plural</th><td>-ཚོ -tso</td><td>-ཚོ -zo, -so<sup>1</sup>, -ཆོ་ -tfʰo, -tfʰao<sup>1,2</sup></td></tr><tr><th>Dual</th><td>-གཉིས་ -ni, -གཉིས་ཀ་ -nika<sup>1</sup></td><td>-གཉིས་ -ni, -གཉིས་ཀ་ -nika<sup>1</sup></td></tr><tr><th>Collective</th><td>[not grammaticalized]</td><td>-ཅན་གོ fɛ̈nko, -རིགས་འ་-rəka<sup>1</sup></td></tr><tr><th>Associative</th><td>[not grammaticalized]</td><td>-ཚང་ -tsʰaŋ, -saŋ, -zaŋ<sup>1</sup></td></tr></tbody></table>

### 4.2.1. Plural Markers

Just like the indefinite marker, children in the sample almost only use the Central Tibetic definite plural form in the corpus “Arrival”, whether in pronouns or noun phrases, as illustrated in (3).

<footnote n="1">¹ Allomorphs in free variation. ² The use of -zo/-so vs. -tfʰo/-tfʰao is probably at least partly due to dialectal variation.</footnote>
(3) a. ད་ ཁོ་ཚོ ཡར་ ད་ གྲུ་གཟིངས་ འདི་ལ་ བཏགས། Ch1
tʰa kʰo-tso ja: tʰa tʰusing di-la taʔ
DISC 3-PL up well boat DEM-DAT/LOC tie

“Well, they, up there, well, [they] tie up the boat, and...”

b. ཁོ་གིས་ ཡིག་གཟུགས་ མཐོང་འགྲོག་ དེ་ཚོ མཐོང་ནས་ Ch1
kʰo-ki jiksuʔ tʰoŋ-joʔ te-tso tʰoŋ-ne
3-ERG/INSTR writing.sign see-NMLZ DEM-PL see-CONN

“He has seen the writing signs [he] saw, and...”

Within the parents' generation too, the Central Tibetic morpheme -tso is the one most commonly found in the corpus "Arrival". A closer look, however, reveals a grouping of the speakers similar to that observed for the indefinite marker: Mo2 and Fa3 have switched completely or almost completely to the Central Tibetic morpheme, while the data for Mo1 and Mo4 are more varied, as shown in Table 8.

<table><caption>**Table 8.** Plural morphemes found in the corpus “Arrival”.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th colspan="2">Central Tibetic</th><th colspan="3">Amdo Tibetic</th></tr><tr><th></th><th>-tso</th><th>-zo, -so</th><th>ŋfʰo, -ŋfʰao</th><th>-tʃeɪŋko</th><th>-rəka</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Mo1</th><td>6</td><td>-</td><td>5</td><td>-</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th>Mo2</th><td>17</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Fa3</th><td>36</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Mo4</th><td>5</td><td>1</td><td>6</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch1</th><td>10</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch2A + Ch2B</th><td>12 + 18</td><td>-</td><td>0 + 1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch3</th><td>34</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><th>Ch4</th><td>17</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>

Examples in (4) and (5) illustrate this variability of the plural markers in Mo1 and Mo4, respectively.

(4) a. སེམས་ཅན་ དེ་ཚོ་ལ་ ལངས་བསྡད་འདུག་གླུ། Mo1
semſen te-tso-la laŋ-de-du

animal DEM-PL-too stand.up-AUX:DUR-PERF.SENS/INFER-PHAT
“The animals too have stood up.”

b. ཁུ་ཚོ་གིས་ ད་ ཁ་ལག་ ཁ་ལག་ ཚང་མ་ཐིག་ བཟས། Mo1
kʰo-tso-ki ta kʰala kʰala tʰaŋma ze
3-PL-ERG/INSTR well food food all-INDF eat

“They, well, the food, [they] eat all the food, and...”

c. ད་ ཁུ་ཆོས་ བྱ་ཤ། བཟས་ ཆང་ ལུང་། Mo1
ta kʰo-tʃe̮ faxʰa se tʰaŋ tʰuŋ
DISC 3-PL.ERG/INSTR chicken eat beer drink

“Well, they eat chicken, [they] drink beer, and...”

d. ཆོད་མ་ འདི་རིགས་ལ་ ད་ འདི་ རེད། Mo1
tʃʰoma nʰdə-rəka ta nʰdə re
vegetable DEM-COLL well DEM EQU.FACT

ད། འདིའ་ ཁྱེར་འས། ཡོང་།
ta nʰde: tʃʰer-e jɔŋ
well DEM.DAT take-CONN come
“All the vegetables, well, it's that, well, [they] bring [them] here.”
(5) a. ཁུར་གེའི་ lག་འཁྱེར་ དེ་ཚོ བར་འ་ སྟོན་གི་ཡོད་གི་ Mo4
kʰərgi lakteher te-tso har-a ton-kogə
3.GEN identity.papers DEM-PL forth-DAT show-UNCMP.SENS
"[He] is showing his identity papers."

b. ད་ ཁུ་ཚོ་གི་ དེ་ ནང་ནས་ ད་ད་ འེལེ། Mo4
ta kʰə-tso-gə te naŋ-ne ta əəə
DISC 3-PL-GEN DEM inside-ABL/LOC well HES
"Well, their... in [their] home, well, er [they prepare food]."

c. དེ་ནས་ ཁུར་གེས་ དེ་རྒྱོ་ ཚང་མ་ ལག་བ་ འཆང་འས། Mo4
tene kʰərgi te-zo tsʰaŋma lakwa ɣfʰaŋ-e
then 3.ERG/INSTR DEM-PL all hand touch-CONN
"Then, he touches them all."

d. ཁུ་ཚོ་ ཚང་མ་ ཁྱིམ་ཚང་ ནང་འ་ ཐོན་བཏང༌། Mo4
kʰə-ɣfʰo tsʰaŋma teʰimtsʰaŋ naŋ-a tʰøn-taŋ
3-PL all home inside-DAT arrive-AUX:CMP
"They all arrive home, and..."

Finally, Mo4 also has six occurrences of the associative plural category, i.e., a plural marker used to refer to one (main) entity together with the other entities frequently associated with this main entity (cf. Corbett, 2000, p. 101; Creissels, 2006, p. 123), and which has the distinctive feature of being able to be used with proper nouns. This specific plural category is marked with -tsʰaŋ, -saŋ, or -zan in Amdo Tibetic varieties. In our corpus, all the occurrences of this associative plural mark the third-person pronoun, as illustrated in (6).

(6) a. ཁུ་ཚོ་གི་ ཁྱིམ་ཚང་ དེ་ ངོ་སྤྲོད་ བྱས། Mo4
kʰə-tsʰaŋ-gə teʰimtsʰaŋ te ŋoρlə tʃe
3-ASSOC-GEN home DEM introduction LIGHTV
"[He] shows [him] their home, and..."

b. ཁུ་ཚོ་གི་ སེམས་ཅན་ དེ་གཉིས་ཀ་ ཟ་མ་ འདྲ་བོ་ བྱིན་འས། Mo4
kʰə-saŋ-gə semtʃen te-ŋiga sama ŋdawo fin-e
3-ASSOC-GEN animal DEM-DU food similar give-CONN
"[He] gives some kind of food to their animals."

The lack of associative plural markers in other speakers is difficult to interpret with certainty. Given the relative scarcity of this plural category, a longer corpus could reveal the maintenance of this category of plural in other speakers. Nevertheless, it does not occur in the linguistic biographies either. Thus, a such marker being absent in Central Tibetic and in the languages in contact with Tibetans in exile the lack of associative plural marker in our corpus could also correspond to the process of simplification and dialect levelling at work in the diasporic context, which is observed more clearly in the children's generation.

### 4.2.2. The Grammatical Category of Dual

Another transgenerational difference observed in these families concerns the grammaticalization of dual. In both Central and Amdo Tibetic varieties, it is an obligatory marker, grammaticalized from the numeral <gnyis> "two", which occupies the same morphosyntactic slot as the plural morphemes in the noun phrase (Simon & Noûs, 2021, pp. 60–61). The excerpt of the graphic novel used to elicit the corpus includes several situations featuring two characters and, as expected in the description of such situations, dual markers are frequent in the parents' recordings: depending on the narrative length, they are found 13 to 23 times in these documents.
Such a frequency is not found in the data elicited from the children. One still finds a few occurrences of markers that seem to correspond to dual, as exemplified in (7). However, it can be observed that they are almost only limited to the marking of coordinated noun phrases, such as in (7)b. and c.

(7) a. ཁོ་གཉིས་ཆ་ གྲོགས་པོ་ ཆགས་བཞག བོད་ཡིག བྱུང་གིས་ བཏོན་ཆོས་ ཁྱིམས་ ཁོ་གཉིས་ཆ་ བྱུང་གིས་ ཁྱིམས་ ཁོ་གཉིས་ཆ་ become-PERF.INFER

a. kʰo-ɲiṭʃa tɔkpo friend tʰa-ʃaʔ

"They (two) have become friends."

b. པཱ་ལགས་ འདི་དང་ བུ་གཉིས་ཀྱིས་ ཨ་ནི་ འེའི་ [...] Ch3
pa:la di-taŋ pʰu-ɲi-ki ani ཨཨཨ father.H DEM-and son-DU-ERG/INSTR then hes

མགྲོན་པོ་ འདྲ་པོ་ སྐད་ བཏང་ཡིན་ས་རེད།
donpo dapo ke tanj-insare
guest similar voice LIGHTV-CMP.PAST.EPIST

"This father and the son then, er, [them] probably invited [him]."

c. ད་ བསོད་ནམས་དང་ སྐྱེས་དམན་གཉིས་... ད་... གྲུ་གཟིངས་
tʰa sɒnam-taŋ cɛmen-ɲi tʰa tʰuṣiŋ
DISC PN-and woman-DU DISC boat

གནམ་ལ་ ཕྱུར་མཁན་ཅིག་ ནང་ལ་ བསྡད་བསྡད་ཡོད་རེད།
nam-la pʰu-ken naŋ-la de-de-jore

sky-DAT/LOC fly-NMLZ inside-DAT/LOC stay-AUX:DUR-PERF.FACT

"Well, Sönam and the woman, well, [they] are sitting in a flying boat."

The dual marker does not seem to be obligatory: in all children speakers, in such contexts, we find instances of the definite plural marker (like in (8)a. and b.), an alternation of dual and plural (in example (8)c.), or an alternation of dual and no number markers (like in (8)d.).

(8) a. ཁོང་ཚོ་ འགྲོ་ས་ ས་ཆ་ འདི་ སླེབས་གི་རེད་དྷ།
kʰoŋ-tso dɔ-sa saʃta di lep-gire-wa
3.H-PL go-NMLZ place DEM arrive-FUT.FACT-PHAT

"[They] will arrive [to] the place where they (two) were going to."

b. ཁོ་ཚོའི་ ནང་ལ་... ཤོག་ཡི་... ཟེར་ནས་ Ch2B
kʰo-tso: naŋ-la fo-je: ser-ne
3-PL.GEN inside-DAT/LOC come.IMP-and say-CONN

"[They] also tell [him] to come to their (two) home, and..."

c. ཁོ་ཚོ་... སེམས་ཅན་གཉིས་ཀྱ་ ཨ་ནི་... གྲོགས་པོ་ འདྲ་པོ་ ཆགས་འདུག
kʰo-tso semtʃen-ɲika ani tokpo dapo tʰa-duʔ
3-PL animal-DU then friend similar become-PERF.SENS

"They... the two animals have become friends."

d. ཨ་ནི་ པཱ་ལགས་དང་ བུ་ འདི་གཉིས་ བསོད་ནམས་ རོགས་པ་ བྱས་ནས་... བྱས་ནས་ བྱུང་གིས་ བཏོན་ཆོས་ ཁྱིམས་ ཁོ་གཉིས་ཆ་ བྱུང་གིས་ ཁྱིམས་ ཁོ་གཉིས་ཆ་ become-PERF.INFER

[...] Ch4
ani pa:la-taŋ pʰu di-ɲi sɒnam rokpa tʰe-ne
then father.H-and son DEM-DU PN help LIGHTV-CONN

ཨ་ནི་ པཱ་ལགས་དང་ བུ་ འདི་ བསོད་ནམས་ལ་ ལ་ལག་ ཨ་ནི་ མ་འདྲ་བ་
ani pa:la-taŋ pʰu di sɒnam-la kʰala ani mandawa
then father.H-and son DEM PN-DAT/LOC food then different

མང་པོ་ དཔེ་ བསྟོན་རེད།
maŋpo pe tɒn-re
many very show-CMP.PAST.FACT

"Then, the father and the son help Sönam, and [...] then, the father and the son show Sönam many different [kinds of] food."
Finally, in three of the five children, we find a double marking combining the definite plural and the numeral “two” in distinct morphosyntactic slots, as illustrated in (9).

(9) a.
ཁང་ཚོས་གཉིས་ཀ་ཡིའི་
kʰoŋ-tso-ṇika-je:
3-PL.ERG/INSTR-two-too
“The two of them will go their way!”
ཁག་ཁག་
kʰaka
separate
འགྲོ་གི་རེད་དྲ།
do-gire-ta
go-FUT-ASSERT
Ch1

b.
ཁོང་ཚོ་གཉིས་གིས་
kʰoŋ-tso-ṇi-ki
3-PL-DU-ERG/INSTR
“The two of them sort of discuss, and...”
ཕར་ཚུར་
pʰa:-tʃʰu:
forth-back
སྐད་ཆ་
keṭṭa
speech
འདྲ་རོ་
dapə
similar
བཤད་ནས་...།
fe-ne
tell-CONN
Ch3

c.
ཨ་ནི་
ani
3-PL-DU
བོད་པ་
དུ་
ta
well
སེམས་ཅན་དང་
semfən-taŋ
animal-and
བསྡད་ས་ཅིག་
de-sa-tʃɪk
stay-NMLZ-INDF
ཁོང་ཚོ་གཉིས་
kʰoŋ-tso-ṇi
3-PL-DU
ནང་ལ་
naŋ-la
inside-DAT/LOC
“Then, the two of them, the animal and Sönam, the two of them, er, stayed in a place.”
Ch4

As we can see by comparing (9)a. and (9)b., the morphosyntactic structure of this construction is not fixed, with a variation in the position of the ergative case marker.⁸

As a conclusion to this section, we can observe that the grammatical domain of the plural clearly undergoes a simplification in the process of dialect levelling or the switch to “Common” Tibetan: the amount of distinct plural markers is reduced to a single one, and the corresponding subcategories of numbers merge into a simplified system. Such a simplification in the domain of plural markers in “Common” Tibetan, compared to the Lhasa variety, was already observed by Vokurková (2022, pp. 158–159). This process is documented here for speakers of Amdo Tibetic: we can see it starting from the first generation of exiles on, with the replacement of the varied allomorphs in Amdo Tibetic by a single morpheme. More than that, we can see that some speakers have already abandoned some peripheral number categories such as associative and collective plural categories. In the children’s generation, the simplification goes one step further, with the loss of a fully grammaticalized category of dual.

## 5. The Noun Phrase: Case Markers

The function and morphology of case markers is also a domain where we may contrast Amdo and Central Tibetic and identify individual as well as transgenerational variations. We will first examine the system of spatial cases and dative, which illustrates the transition from the Amdo to the “Common” Tibetan system in the parents’ generation. In a second paragraph, we will look at the ergative, instrumental, and comitative functions to highlight some ongoing linguistic changes in the children’s generation.

### 5.1. Spatial Cases

Amdo and “Common” Tibetan have a system of case markers in the form of enclitics. The system follows an ergative alignment (split-ergative in “Common” Tibetan) and shares the following case markers: absolutive, ergative/instrumental, absolutive, genitive, comitative, ablative/translocative, and dative/directive. On top of that, “Common” Tibetan has preserved a specific comparative case marker (replaced by a periphrastic construction in Amdo Tibetic languages). Finally, as we will see in this section, Amdo Tibetan has preserved a specific locative case marker, while this function is assumed by the dative/directive case
in “Common” Tibetan. Like the category of number, the system of spatial cases (Creissels, 2009) is more complex in Amdo Tibetic than it is in Central Tibetic. Table 9 shows that Amdo Tibetic varieties have morphemes to specifically mark locative, as opposed to directive/allative and dative (one of the two allomorphs is homophonous with the ablative marker). Moreover, “Common” Tibetan has a simplified system compared to other Central Tibetic varieties, such as Lhasa Tibetan: the vowel lengthening used in open syllables in plurisyllabic words in Lhasa Tibetan is rarely attested in “Common” Tibetan (Vokurková, 2022, pp. 155–158).

<table><caption>**Table 9.** Spatial case markers in Amdo and Central Tibetan.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Central Tibetic</th><th>Amdo Tibetic</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Ablative/Translocative</th><td>-aŋr-<i>ne</i></td><td>-aŋr -ni</td></tr><tr><th>Locative</th><td>-aŋ -<i>la</i>, (rare: -aŋ -:) <sup>2</sup></td><td>-aŋ -na, -aŋr -ni <sup>1</sup></td></tr><tr><th>Dative/Directive</th><td>-aŋ -<i>la</i>, (rare: -aŋ -:) <sup>2</sup></td><td>-aŋ -a, , -:) <sup>3</sup></td></tr></tbody></table>

When we examine the proportion of dative–directive/allative markers of each form in the corpus, as shown in Table 10, we can observe the shift from the Amdo Tibetic morpheme, predominant in the parents’ variety, to Central Tibetic in the children’s variety: the most frequent morpheme for each speaker is highlighted in grey. Again, the parents can be divided into two subgroups. Mo1 and Mo4 have significantly more Amdo Tibetic forms in proportion: the Amdo Tibetic morpheme is 5.26 times more frequent than the Central Tibetic one in Mo1, and more than 13 times more frequent in Mo4, while it is only 1.48 and 1.38 times more frequent in Mo2 and Fa3, respectively.

<table><caption>**Table 10.** Number of occurrences of each type of dative–directive(locative) case marker in “Arrival”.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Central Tibetic</th><th>Amdo Tibetic</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Mo1</th><td>15</td><td>79</td></tr><tr><th>Mo2</th><td>29</td><td>43</td></tr><tr><th>Fa3</th><td>80</td><td>110</td></tr><tr><th>Mo4</th><td>13</td><td>173</td></tr><tr><th>Ch1</th><td>49</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><th>Ch2A + Ch2B</th><td>31 + 28</td><td>0 + 3</td></tr><tr><th>Ch3</th><td>67</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><th>Ch4</th><td>40</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>

A closer look at the morphemes used to mark the locative spatial relation can help to obtain a more precise picture of the shift from the Amdo to Central Tibetic spatial case system.

In the parents’ corpus, the locative marked by -na is found in Mo1, Fa3, and Mo4. Nevertheless, the linguistic change toward the functional simplification of spatial cases seems to be under way for these three speakers: to express locative, they not only use alternatively the Amdo Tibetic locative markers -na and -ni, as well as the Central Tibetic dative–directive–locative marker -la, but also the Amdo Tibetic dative–directive (and originally non-locative) marker -a, as illustrated in (10) to (12).

<footnote n="1">¹ The two allomorphs are conditioned by the stative/dynamic aspect of the verb (Sung & Rgyal, 2018, pp. 215–216).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Phonologically conditioned allomorphs: -la after consonants; vowel lengthening in open syllables. ³ Phonologically conditioned allomorphs: -a after consonants; vowel lengthening, sometimes with a change in vowel quality, in open syllables.</footnote>
(10) a. ཨ་ནི་ ནང་-ན་ ཆི་ཟིག་ ཡོད་ནི་ནཱ་ བསམས་-འས་ ཁུ་གིས་ Mo1
 ani naŋ- na fہəsək jonəna: sam-e kʰə-ki
 then inside- LOC what EXIST.WOND think-CONN 3-ERG/INSTR
 ནཱ་གིས་
 rna-ki jen-zək
 ear-ERG/INSTR listen-PERF.INFER
 “Then, thinking ‘what is inside?’, he has listened with his ear.”

b. འདི་-ལ་ཡང་ ཟ་-རྒྱུ་ཟིག་ འདུག་ Mo1
 "də-la-jang sa-dzə-sək
dem-DAT/LOC-too eat-NMLZ-INDF EXIST.SENS
 “Here too, there is something to eat.”

c. ད་ ཁོ་གཉིས་ མེ་འཁོར་ ནང་-འ་ བསྡད་-བཏང་-ཟུག་ Mo1
ta kʰo-ni menjkʰor naŋ-a de-taŋ-sək
DISC 3-DU train inside-DAT/LOC stay-AUX:CMP-PERF.INFER
 “Well, they sat on the train.”

(11) a. འདི་-ན་ ད་ ཉལ་ས་ཟིག་ཅིག་ འདུག་གཱ་ Fa3
də-na ta na-sa-zək-tʃək du-ga:
DEM-LOC DISC lay.down-NMLZ-INDF-INDF EXIST.SENS-PHAT
 “Here, well, there is a bed, right?”

b. དེ་རིང་ དགོང་དག་ ག་བ་ཟིག་ནས་ བསྡད་དགོས་-ན་ བསམ། Fa3
teraŋ goŋta kawa-sək-ne de-go-na sam
today evening where-indf-ABL/LOC stay-must-CONN think
 “Where should I stay tonight, [he] thought, and...”

c. ནང་-འ་ རྒྱབ་བཀྱག་ཅིག་ འདུག་
naŋ-la kəptəa-tʃik du?
inside-DAT/LOC chair-INDF EXIST.SENS
 “Inside, there is a chair.”

d ཁང་པ་ ནང་-འ་ བསྡད་ཀྱི་ཡིན་ Fa3
kʰaŋpa naŋ-a de-kijin
house inside-DAT/LOC stay-FUT.EGO
 “I will stay in the room.”

(12) a. འབྲ་ དི་ ཉལ་ཁྲི་ སྒང་-ན་ བསྡད་ཡོད་གི་ Mo4
 "bu tə paŋhə da-okə
bug DEM bed top-LOC stay-PERF.SENS
 “The bug is on the bed.”

b. ད་ འགྲོན་ཁང་ ནང་-འ་ བསྡད་རྒྱུས་ ཟེར་གི་ཡོད་-ནཱ། Mo4
ta "dɒŋkʰaŋ naŋ-a de-dzi se-ko-na
DISC hotel inside-DAT/LOC stay-FUT.EGO say-UNCMP-WOND
 “Well, does [he] say ‘I will stay in the hotel’, or...”

c. ད་ འབྲི་དེབ་ སྒང་-འ་ ཡིན་-ན་ Mo4
ta "dətep gaŋ-a jin-na
DISC notebook top-DAT/LOC EQU-WOND
དེའི་ སྒང་-ལ་ བྲིས་-བཏང་-འས།
te: gaŋ-la ti-taŋ-e
DEM.GEN top-DAT/LOC write-AUX:CMP-CONN
 “Well, [he] has written [something] on that, is it a notebook?”
Thus, these speakers illustrate the first step of linguistic change in the domain of spatial cases. The functional simplification, i.e., the loss of a distinct grammatical category of locative, goes together with a morphophonological complexification due to the multiplication of allomorphs.

Mo2's variety of "Common" Tibetan is one step further in the reconfiguration of spatial case markers: the Amdo Tibetan markers -na or -ni are not attested. As illustrated in examples (13), the locative noun-phrases in "Arrival" are all marked either with the Central Tibetan dative-directive-locative -la or with the Amdo Tibetan -a (which has gained a new function, compared to the original morpheme restricted to dative-directive/allative functions).

(13) a. རྫ་མ་ ནང་-ཨ་-ཡང་ ཉ་ འདྲ་པོ་ དེ་འདྲས་-གི་ Mo2
dama
pottery

nan-la-jan
inside-DAT/LOC-too

na
fish

dapo
tenqe-gi
similar
like.that-GEN

སེམས་ཅན་-ཅིག་
semfen-tfik
བསྡད་ནས།
de-ne
animal-INDF
stay-CONN
"An animal, similar to a fish, like that, was in the pottery, and..."

b. དེ་ནས་ ད་ ཁོ་-ཚོ་ གྲུའི་ ནང་-འ་ བསྡད་-ནས་ Mo2
tene
ta
kʰo-tso
ṭe:
nan-a
de-ne
then
DISC
3-PL
boat.GEN
inside-DAT/LOC
stay-CONN
"Then, well, they stay in the boat, and..."

The children's corpus represents the final stage of the linguistic reconfiguration of spatial relations. In fact, no example of the Amdo Tibetan locative marker -na is found in the children's corpus. Some occurrences of -ne, with the proximal demonstrative pronoun འདི་-ནས་ /di-ne/ "here" found in Ch3 or the noun "after" བརྗོད་-ནས་ /dže-ne/ "later, after that" found in Ch1, can be interpreted as lexicalized units. Besides these specific cases, only two occurrences of -ne, reproduced in (14), are ambiguous between a locative, and ablative or translocative interpretation. But, except for these two occurrences, the locative is always marked with the Central Tibetan morpheme -la in the children's corpus.

(14) a. ཆུ་ཁྲི་-ཅིག་ ནང་-ནས་ དེ་བ་-ཅིག་ མཐོང་། Ch3
tʰuṭi-tfik
desk-INDF

nan-ne
inside-ABL/LOC

t'ep-tfik
book-INDF

tʰoŋ
see
"[She] sees a book in / from inside the desk, and..."

b. train-གི་ འདི་ ནང་-ནས་ ཏྲོས་-སོང་-ད། Ch2A
tʰwem-gi
train-GEN
di
DEM

nan-ne
inside-ABL/LOC

ti-soŋ-a:
flee-CMP.PAST.SENS-PHAT
"[She] flew in / by this, the train, right?"

Thus, the shift from an Amdo Tibetan to a "Common" Tibetan spatial case system follows the steps summarized in Table 11, and the transgenerational shift occurs between Stage 1 and Stage 2.

<table><caption>**Table 11.** Schematic transition from Amdo to "Common" Tibetan system of spatial cases.</caption><thead><tr><th>Amdo</th><th>→</th><th>Stage 1</th><th>→</th><th>Stage 2</th><th>→</th><th>"Common"</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>DAT-DIR: -a</td><td></td><td>DAT-DIR: -a (and -la)</td><td></td><td>DAT-DIR-LOC: -la</td><td></td><td>DAT-DIR-LOC: -la</td></tr><tr><td>LOC: -na, -ni</td><td></td><td>LOC: -na, -ni, -a (and -la)</td><td></td><td>(and, marginally -a)</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>
## 5.2. Instrumental and Comitative

In the Tibetan languages, the associative case marker (Tournadre & Dorje, 2009, pp. 131–132; Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023) is a subtype of comitative, but with a more restricted function: it marks the role of a co-participant (co-agent of verbs such as “to talk/meet with sb.” or “to compete/fight with/against sb.” or co-patient of verbs such as “to exchange sth. with/against sth.”); the event must express some reciprocal meaning and the co-participant must have a similar degree of animacy and control over the event. The associative morpheme can also be used as a nominal coordinating conjunction.

Besides this case marker, we also find a comitative postposition with a broader function of accompaniment (Stolz et al., 2009), used to mark animated entities only. Contrary to most European languages including French (Stolz et al., 2013), the marking of instrumental and associative/comitative are strictly distinguished, as shown in Table 12.

<table><caption>**Table 12.** Ergative, instrumental, and comitative markers in Amdo and Central Tibetan.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>"Common" Tibetan</th><th>Amdo Tibetan</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Instrumental</strong></td><td>-gi</td><td>-gə</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Comitative</strong></td><td>Associative Case<br>Postposition<br>-taŋ (namtu)<br>namtu, nampo</td><td>-la, -ra, -ta<sup>1</sup><br>namgə, nampe, tʰaapka</td></tr></tbody></table>

The corpus contains two examples of the associative case marker, reproduced in (15). Thus, the associative case only occurs in two parents' speech, and only in its Amdo Tibetan form.

<table><tr><td>(15)</td><td>a.</td><td>དྷ་<br>ta</td><td>ཁྱ་གཉིས་ར་<br>kʰə-ŋi-ra</td><td>གྲོགས་པོ་<br>tokpo</td><td>ཆགས་འས་<br>tʰak-e</td><td>ཁྱ་གཉིས་གིས་<br>kʰə-ŋi-ki</td><td>Mo1</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>DISC</td><td>2-DU-COM:ASS</td><td>མང་བ་ཟིག་<br>maŋa-sək</td><td>friend</td><td>become-CONN</td><td>3-DU-ERG/INSTR</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>ཟླ་རྒྱུ་ཟིག་འ་<br>sa-dzə-səka</td><td>མང་བ་ཟིག་<br>maŋa-sək</td><td></td><td></td><td>ཉོས་ལས།<br>ŋe-le</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>eat-NMLZ-INDF</td><td>many-INDF</td><td></td><td></td><td>buy-CONN</td><td></td></tr></table>

"Well, after [he] became friend with them (two), they (two) buy a many things to eat, and..."

<table><tr><td>b.</td><td>མྲེབས་ནས་<br>lʰep-ne</td><td>དྷ་<br>ta</td><td>དྷ་ལྟ་གི་<br>tanda-gə</td><td>མི་<br>mə</td><td>དི་ར་<br>tə-ra</td><td>ཅུག་བཞག་<br>tʰək-fə</td><td>Fa3</td></tr></table>

come-CONN well now-GEN person DEM-COM:ASS meet-PERF.INFER

"Once [he] arrived, [he] met this present person"

Given the semantic restrictions on the use of associative, it is a relatively rare morpheme and its absence in the corpus recorded cannot be interpreted.

More common is the use of the postposition. As we can see in examples in (16), both the parents and children use the postposition to mark co-participants, and the postposition mostly has the expected form in “Common” Tibetan (Vokurková, 2022, p. 172). In example (16)b., the form *nampu*, instead of *namtu*, likely corresponds to a mix of the written Tibetan *མཉམ་པོ་*nampo* and the “Common” Tibetan form *མཉམ་དུ་*namtu*.

Example (17) shows a change in the semantics of this preposition in one of the children's varieties, here used to mark a noun referring to an inanimate entity, the book:

The ongoing linguistic change is also observed when we examine the marking of the instrumental function. First, in all parents' and in some children's corpora, we find the

<footnote n="1">¹ In several dialects, -la and -ra are free allomorphs, and -ta and -ra are phonologically conditioned allomorphs; -ta is not attested in the corpus recorded in France for this study.</footnote>
expected form: i.e., instruments are marked with the ergative-instrumental case, like in the examples in (18).

(16) a. ཕྱ་ དི་ **མཉམ་དུ་** ཕར་... གྲུ་གཟིངས་-ཟིག་ ནང་-འ་ བསྡད། Mo2

**npa** **tə** **pamtu** **pʰar** **təsaŋ-sək** **naŋ-a** **de**

fish DEM **together** forth boat-INDF inside-DAT stay

"He stays in the boat with the this fish, and..."

b. འགྲོ་དུས་སྒང་-འ་ **ད་** **ཁོ་རང་** **མཉམ་པུ་ཡང་** ཚིཙི Fa3

**do-tygaŋ-a** **ta** **kʰorɑŋ** **pampu-jaŋ** **tʃitsi**

**go-CONN** **DISC** **3** **together-too** **mouse**

**དི་** **མཉམ་དུ་**

**tə** **pamtu** **ཡོང་-བསྡད་ཀྱི་འདུག་**

**DEM** **together** **joŋ-de-kiduʔ**

**come-AUX:DUR-UNCOMPL.SENS**

"As [he] walks, with him, too... [He] is coming with the mouse."

c. འབྲུ་ དི་ **མཉམ་དུ་** **ད་** དེའི་ **མྱི་ལོགས་** དེའ་ ཡོང་། Mo4

**nʰbu** **tə** **pamtə** **ta** **te:** **filok** **te-a** **joŋ**

bug DEM **together** **DISC** DEM.GEN outside DEM-DAT come

"With this bug, well, [he] comes outside of that."

d. **ཁོ་** ཕུ་གུ་ **འདི་་་་** སེམས་ཅན་ **མཉམ་དུ་** **རྩེད་མོ་** **བརྩེས་-བསྡད་-འདུག་-ཟེར།** Ch1

**kʰo** **pugu** **di** **semſen** **pamtu** **tsemo** **tse-de-du-s**

**3** **child** DEM animal **together** game play-AUX:DUR-PERF.SENS-REP

"He, this child... [he] is playing with the animal."

e. **ཁོ་** **མཉམ་དུ་** **སྐད་ཆ་** **འདྲ་བོ་** **བཤད།** Ch3

**kʰo** **pamtu** **keŋfa** **qapo** **fe**

**3** **together** **speech** **similar** **say**

"[He] talks with him."

But two of the five children in our corpus regularly use the comitative postposition as an instrumental marker, as illustrated in (19).

This use can be compared to the one illustrated in (17): in both cases, the postposition marks an inanimate entity. But it goes one step further, with a semantic change from accompaniment to instrument. It most probably corresponds to a copy (Johanson, 1992) of the semantic properties of the corresponding French preposition *avec*.

Thus, just like spatial cases, the distribution of instrumental and associative/comitative markers shows a grammatical reconfiguration both in the parents' and in the children's generation. The parents tend to adopt the "Common" Tibetan morphemes, while, at the same time, retaining their original morphemes to a variable extent. In the children's generation, the Amdo Tibetan morphemes are largely absent, and further semantic or functional changes can be observed, which can be interpreted as contact-induced linguistic changes.

(17) **མོ་** དེབ་ **འདི་** **ཁྱེར་-ནས་** **ཨ་ནི་** **མཉམ་དུ་** **མོ་...** འེའེ། Ch3

**mo** **tʰep** **di** **cʰer-не** **ani** **pamtu** **mo** **əəə**

**3F** **book** **dem** **take-conn** **then** **together** **3f** **hes**

**མེ་འཁོར།** **མེ་འཁོར་** **ནང་-ལ་** **འཛུལ་-ནས་** **འདྲ་་་་** **བྲོས་** **འདྲ་བོ་** **ཡིན་-ས་རེད།**

**menko: menko:** **naŋ-la** **dɣy:-ne** **da** **tʰo** **qapo** **jinsare**

train train inside-DAT/LOC enter-CONN sim flee similar COMPL.PAST-EPIST

"She took the book, and well, er, [she] got on the train, and probably ran off with [it]."
(18) a. དངོས་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ཡོད་པའི་ཚོགས་པ། Mo1
ta kʰo-ki go fok-kogə
DISC 3-ERG/INSTR door break-UNCMP.SENS
སྒྲགས་གིས་པ། ཁབསྟན།
fək-ki kʰa fə
iron-ERG/INSTR mouth open

“Here, she breaks the door. [She] opens with [a piece of] metal, and...”

b. སྨྱོ་ནི་ཁོ་རང་ཤོག་བུ་ཅིག་གིས་ཀྱི་ཤེས་པ། Mo2
ani kʰoərəŋ fəku-tʃik-ki ani ɛwamo di zɔ-ne
then 3 paper-INDF-ERG/INSTR then fox DEM make-CONN
“Then, he, with a sheet, then, [he] makes this fox, and...”

c. ཆོང་མ་སྐད་ཆ་གིས་པ། Fa3
tʰhaŋma keʃa-ki go qapə ripen
all speech-ERG/INSTR head similar ripen
“[They] understand everything with words, and...”

d. གཟག་བ་གིས་པ། Mo4
tʰoκwa-ki dem-ne
rope-ERG/INSTR tie.up-CONN
“After [they] have tied up [the boat] with the rope.”

e. སྒོ་འདི་... སྒྲགས་འདི་གིས་པ། Ch2A
go di fək di-ki fə̊hə-ne
door DEM iron dem-ERG/INSTR open-CONN
“[She] opens this door with this [piece of] metal, and...”

f. སྤྲོ་ནི་ཚོགས་པ། Ch3
kʰə: tʰhaŋma-ki ani əəə kʰala qapə sɔ
vegetable all-ERG/INSTR then HES food similar make
“[She] cooks a kind of food with all the vegetables.”

(19) a. sabji **མཉམ་དུ་** འེའི། [...] ཁ་ལག་ བཟོས་རེད་ཟེར། Ch1
sabdgi **namtu** əəə kʰala sɔ-re-s
vegetable **together** hes food make-ACPXX.FACT-REP
“With the vegetables, er, [they] made food.”

b. ཉི་མ་ཅིག་ཁོ་ལས་ཀ་བྱས་དང་བྱེད་ཡག་མཉམ་དུ་སྒོ་བཅག Ch1
jimafik kʰo leka fə̊hə-taŋ fə̊hə-ja **namtu** go ŋaʔ
day-INDF 3 work LIGHTV-and LIGHTV-NMLZ **together** door break
“One day, she broke the door with [something] to work again and again,
and...”

c. བསོད་ནམས་གིས་པ། Ch4
sɔnam-ki [...] ཤོག་བུ་ **namtu**
PN-ERG/INSTR paper **together**
ཞི་ཨི་ཆུ་རྩུང་ཅིག
fimi fʰuŋfʌn-tʃik sɔ-re
cat small-INDF make-CMP.PAST.FACT
“Sönam [...] made a small cat with paper.”

## 6. The Verb Phrase: TAME/E Categories

### 6.1. Verb Stem Distinctions

In the Tibetan languages, verbs have distinct stems, labelled “past”, “present”, “future”, and “imperative” stems in the traditional grammar, and used with different tense-aspectual and modal values. Typically, the “present” stem is used in the uncompleted⁹ aspect and
before the connecting particle <dus> “when, while”, and the “past” stem is used in the perfect and completed past, and before the connecting particles indicating conditional and succession (cf. Zeisler, 2004, for a detailed description). Like Vokurková (2022, p. 153), we observe a reduced use of distinctive verb stems in the corpus. This simplification is more advanced in children’s speech, but it is also present in the parents’ data. Examples in (20) show that both Fa3 and Mo4 only use the stem <lta> /ta/ for the verb to “look” instead of alternating between /ta/ in uncompleted and /te/ (Central Tibetic pronunciation) or /Fti/ (Amdo Tibetic pronunciation) in the completed past or perfect.

<table><tr><td>(20)</td><td>a.</td><td>ཁོ<br/>kʰo<br/>3</td><td>ས་བཀྲ་<br/>saptʰa<br/>map</td><td>དེ་ལྔ་<br/>te-la<br/>DEM-DAT/LOC</td><td>ལྷ་གི་འདུག<br/>ta-kiduʔ<br/>look-UNCMP.SENS<br/>"He looks at the map."</td><td>Fa3</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>b.</td><td>དོ<br/>ta<br/>well</td><td>བཀྲ་ཤིས་-གྱིས<br/>ta/i-gi<br/>PN-ERG</td><td>དེ་ལྔ་<br/>ta-kogə<br/>look-CMP.SENS.DYN<br/>"Now, Tashi looks [at it]."</td><td>ལྷ་གི་ཡོད་གི<br/>ta-kogə<br/>look-CMP.SENS.DYN<br/>"Now, Tashi looks [at it]."</td><td>Mo4</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>c.</td><td>ཡག་རོ་<br/>jakpo<br/>good</td><td>ཅིག<br/>tʃək<br/>INDF</td><td>ཉན་-ནས<br/>pen-ne<br/>listen-conn</td><td>ལྷ་བཞག<br/>ta-fa<br/>look-PERF.INFER<br/>"[He] has listened carefully and [he] has looked."</td><td>Fa3</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>d.</td><td>དོ<br/>ta<br/>DISC</td><td>དེ་གིས་<br/>tegi<br/>like.that</td><td>ལག་བ་<br/>lakwa<br/>hand</td><td>འཆང་-འས་<br/>tʃʰaŋ-e<br/>touch-CONN</td><td>ལྷ་ཟུག་<br/>ta-zək<br/>look-PERF.INFER<br/>"Well, [he] has touched, like that, and [he] has looked."</td></tr></table>

For the verb “to look”, we can see that the loss of distinct verb stems is attested both in Fa3, a speaker whose variety of “Common” Tibetan shows very few retentions of morphosyntactic features of Amdo Tibetic, and also in Mo4, who, on the contrary, has adopted only a few Central Tibetic morphosyntactic features. Thus, for instance, in (20)b. and d., we can see that her TAME/E markers correspond to Amdo Tibetic ones (see below). The simplification of stem numbers observed for the verb “to look” is not observed for all the verbs in the corpus, though. A systematic examination of every verb stem in the corpus would probably reveal some differences in terms of the frequency of verb stem distinctions between these two types of speakers. Nevertheless, it can be noted that, even for speakers who show few adoptions of Central Tibetic features, the loss of verb stem distinctions is attested.

## 6.2. TAME/E Systems in Central and Amdo Tibetic

As we can see from Tables 13 and 14, most copulas and Tense-Aspect-Modality-Evidentiality/Epistemicity (TAME/E) markers differ in Central and Amdo Tibetic varieties, either due to a different etymology, a distinct pronunciation, or because the forms result from another morphosyntactic construction. In Amdo Tibetic varieties, some evidential and epistemic categories, non-existent in Central Tibetic, are grammaticalized with specific morphemes. For the sake of clarity and because it is not the purpose of this paper to present a contrastive analysis of Central and Amdo Tibetic copula and the TAME/E system, we only mention the affirmative forms and restrict the analysis to the most commonly found copulas and TAME/E markers in our corpus “Arrival”.

In the corpus “Arrival”, as expected in 3rd-person narratives based on pictures, the egophoric forms are rare, while sensory is the most common evidential category used by the speakers. It is also the evidential category for which the Central and Amdo Tibetic
morphemes differ most in terms of morphophonology, thus making it easier to assign the morphemes in the corpus to one or the other of the two systems.

<table><caption>**Table 13.** Most frequent forms of the copulas in Central and Amdo Tibetan (affirmative).</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>Central Tibetic</th><th>Amdo Tibetan</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="4">Equative copula</td><td>Ego-participative</td><td>jin</td><td>jən</td></tr><tr><td>Ego-authoritative</td><td>-</td><td>jən.nə.re</td></tr><tr><td>Factual</td><td>re</td><td>re</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory inferential</td><td>re.fəʔ, re.duʔ</td><td>jən.taŋ.sək</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Existential copula</td><td>Egophoric</td><td>jøʔ</td><td>jo</td></tr><tr><td>Factual</td><td>jo.reʔ</td><td>jo.nə.re</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory</td><td>duʔ</td><td>jokə, jokʰə</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory inferential</td><td>-</td><td>jo.taŋ.sək</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>**Table 14.** Some TAME markers in Amdo and Central Tibetan (affirmative).</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>Central Tibetan</th><th>Amdo Tibetan</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5">Uncompleted</td><td>Egophoric [+dynamic]</td><td>V-gi.jøʔ</td><td>V-ko</td></tr><tr><td>Egophoric [-dynamic]</td><td>V-gi.jøʔ</td><td>V-nə.jən, -ni</td></tr><tr><td>Factual [+dynamic]</td><td>V-gi.jo.reʔ</td><td>V-ko.nə.re</td></tr><tr><td>Factual [-dynamic]</td><td>V-gi.jo.reʔ</td><td>V-ni.re</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory [+dynamic]</td><td>V-gi.duʔ, (V-giʔ)<fnref n="1" /></td><td>V-ko.gə</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory [-dynamic]</td><td>V-gi.duʔ, (V-giʔ)<fnref n="1" /></td><td>V-kə, V-kʰə</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Completed past</td><td>Egophoric</td><td>V-jin, (V-pa.jin)<fnref n="1" /></td><td>V-AUX:CMP-ni, V-AUX:CMP-nə.jən, V-AUX:CMP-a²</td></tr><tr><td>Factual</td><td>V-re, (V-pa.re)<fnref n="1" /></td><td>V-AUX:CMP-nə.re</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory</td><td>V-soŋ</td><td>V-AUX:CMP-tʰa</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Perfect</td><td>Egophoric</td><td>V-jø</td><td>V-AUX:CMP-jo</td></tr><tr><td>Factual</td><td>V-jo.re</td><td>V-AUX:CMP-jo.nə.re</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory</td><td>V-duʔ</td><td>V-AUX:CMP-jo.kə, V-AUX:CMP-jo.kʰə</td></tr><tr><td>Sensory Inferential</td><td>V-faʔ</td><td>V-AUX:CMP-sək, V-AUX:CMP-zək,</td></tr></tbody></table>

When we look at the relative proportion of Amdo vs. Central Tibetic TAME/E markers in the parents' corpus, they can be placed on a continuum, summarized in Figure 2.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Amdo vs. Central Tibetic TAME/E system in the parents' generation.</figcaption></figure>

Thus, Mo4 almost only uses Amdo Tibetan markers (there are only three occurrences of the Central Tibetan form in her 26 min. speech). Mo1 presents a mixed system of TAME/E markers, with a similar amount of Amdo and Central Tibetic TAME/E markers. Example (21) illustrates this mixed system and shows how Mo1 alternates between the Amdo and Central Tibetic markers: in the first part of the utterance, she uses the Central Tibetic uncompleted sensory marker -gidu, and in the next sentence she uses the Amdo Tibetan

<footnote n="1">¹ Morphemes in brackets are rarely used in exile “Common” Tibetan, as opposed to Lhasa Tibetan (see Vokurková, 2022, pp. 163–165). ² For hypotheses regarding the functional difference between V-AUX-ni, V-AUX-nə.jən, and V-AUX-a on the other hand, see Simon (2021, p. 312).</footnote>
inferential perfect construction -taŋ-zək. Thus, it results in the presence of doublets of morphemes for the different TAME/E categories, and it is not possible to establish whether these doublets share similar functions or whether the morphophonological differences are remotivated functionally. Fa3 mirrors Mo4's system, with only two occurrences of Amdo Tibetan aspectual auxiliary verbs and one Amdo Tibetan TAME/E morpheme in an aside with his wife. Finally, Mo2 shows no trace of her native Amdo Tibetan variety in this domain of grammar.

(21)  
ད་  
ta  
DISC  
ཅིག་འ་  
tsək-a  
INDF-DAT  
འགྲོ་གི་འདུག  
do-gidu  
དི་གི  
tə-gə  
go-UNCMP.SENS[CENTRAL]  
zək-ne  
DEM-GEN  
back-ABL/LOC  
ta  
Mo1  
ama  
DISC mother  
ཐོན་འས་  
tʰən-e  
བྱད་བཏང་ཟླ་  
wə-taŋ-zək  
arrive-CONN  
go-AUX:CMP-PERF.INFER[AMDO]  
"Well, [they] go. After that, well, the woman has arrived somewhere and  
left."

As expected, in the children's generation, the systems of TAME/E markers closely correspond to the Central Tibetan forms. Some innovations can also be observed, and it is difficult to say whether they are transitory, idiolectal, or whether they will become widespread and characteristic of a Western or French variety of "Common" Tibetan.

First, in Ch1, we find several instances of a verb followed by the sequence /ja ciʔ duʔ/, where /ja/ is an irrealis nominalizer, /ciʔ/ is the indefinite article or an attenuative morpheme, and /duʔ/ is the sensory form of the existential copula. The construction is illustrated in (22) and seems to correspond to an uncompleted aspect.

(22) a.  
ད་  
tʰa  
ཁྱ་...  
kʰo  
བེད།  
ག་རེ་  
kʰare  
དགོས་  
go  
ལབ་ལག་ཅིག་  
lap-ja-tʃik  
འདུག  
duʔ  
Ch1  
say-NMLZ-INDF  
EXIST.SENS  
DISC  
3  
HES  
what  
need  
"Well, he, er, tells [the hotel owner] what [he] needs."

b.  
ཨ་ནི་  
ani  
རྗེས་ལ་  
dʒe-la  
ཁྱ་ཉི་  
kʰo-tso  
ནང་  
naŋ  
འགྲོ་ལག་ཅིག་  
do-ja-tʃik  
འདུག  
duʔ  
Ch1  
go-NMLZ-INDF  
EXIST.SENS  
then  
after-DAT/LOC  
3-PL  
inside  
"Then, later, they go home."

This construction is absent from the rest of the corpus, and thus is probably idiolectal. Conversely, an innovative use pattern of the existential copula is found in all children's data: ཡོད་བླ་ <jod-bA> /jə-wa/, the phatic form of the egophoric existential copula, is particularly frequent in the data. It occurs in contexts where the egophoric is not expected and apparently neutralized. As illustrated in (23), it is used with a discursive value and seems to be used to draw the hearer's attention or understanding aligned with one's own.

As we will see in the next section, innovations in the morphosyntactic constructions or in their uses are also found in the expression of epistemicity.

6.3. Epistemicity

Epistemicity is here considered in a restricted sense, following Nuyts (2000, p. 21):
> "Epistemic modality is defined here as the linguistic expression of an evaluation of the chances that a certain hypothetical state of affairs under consideration (or some aspect of it) will occur, is occurring, or has occurred in a possible world which serves as the universe of interpretation for the evaluation process, and which, in the default case, is the real world".
In the Tibetan languages, it is mainly expressed through specific (morphologically derived) forms of the copulas and specific TAME/E markers on the verb phrase.
(23) a. མི་ འདི་ ཞེད་རེད། དང་པོ་ འདི་མ་ ལྷ་དུས། Ch2A
mi di fe-re tanpo di-la ta-ty

person DEM fear-CMP.PAST.FACT first DEM-DAT/LOC look-CONN

མ་འདྲ་བ་ འདྲ་པོ་ ག་རེ་ རེད། བསམ་རེད། ཡོད་ལ།
mandawa dapo kare re sam-re jø-wa

different similar what EQU.FACT think-CMP.PAST.FACT EXIST-PHAT

"This person was afraid, first, when [he] looked at it. 'What is this kind of strange [thing]', [he] thought, right ?"

b. ཨ་ནི། མོ་ ཡོད་ལ། དེའི། ཆུ་ཁྲི་ཅིག་ ནང་་ནས་ དེབ་ཅིག་ མཐོང་། Ch3
ani mo jø-wa ཉཉཉེས་གྱི་ནི་གྱི་ཆོས་གྱི་དོན་གྱི་ཆོས་གྱི་དོན།

then 3F EXIST-PHAT HES desk-INDF inside-ABL book-INDF see

"Then, she (right?) er, sees a book in a desk, and..."

c. ཨ་ནི་ རྗེས་མ་ནས་ ཁོ་ ཁ་ སྐོམ་ནས་ ཡོད་ལ། Ch1
ani dzema-ne kʰo kʰa kom-ne jø-wa
then next-ABL 3 mouth dry-CONN EXIST-PHAT

ད་ ཅིག་ ཆུ་ འཐུང་་དགོས་རེད།
tʰa tʰi kʰi tʰu tʰu-gø-re
DISC INDF water drink-AUX:must-CMP.PAST.FACT

"Then, next, he is thirsty, and, (right?), now, [he] needs something, water."

Vokurková (2022, pp. 166–168) summarizes the main differences in the epistemic forms found in Lhasa and “Common” Tibetan. The epistemic forms are not frequent enough in our corpus to allow a precise analysis. However, two observations can be made in this respect. First, the speakers in the adults’ or children’s generations have an inventory of epistemic forms limited to those constructed with *sa.red* (and, to a lesser extent, with *gi.red*), illustrated in (24). Such a restriction is congruent with Vokurková (2022, p. 179) observation that “in the diaspora most of the time only one type of epistemic ending, different from those of Lhasa Tibetan, is employed”.

(24) a. ཉ་ ཡིན་ས་རེད་གྲོ། འདི། Mo1
na jin-sare-go "dø
fish EQU-EPIST-DISC DEM

"[It] must be a fish, this one."

b. ཚོང་ཁང་་ར་ འདི་འདྲ་་ར་ མང་པོ་ མཐོང་་ཡིན་ས་རེད། Fa3
tʰoŋkʰaŋ-ra dinqa-ra manpo tʰoŋ-jin-sare
shop-and like this-and many see-CMP.PAST-EPIST

"[He] has probably seen many shops and [things] like this."

c. ད་ སོ་སོའི་ ནང་ འཚལ་གི་ཡོད་ཀྱི་རེད་ལྡ། Ch1
ta sosø: naŋ tʰhe:-gijø-kire-wa
DISC oneself.GEN inside look.for-UNCMP-EPIST-PHAT

"Well, he must be looking for his home, right?"

d. གྲོགས་པོ་ ཆགས་ཡིན་ས་རེད། Ch2B
tokpo yʰa-jin-sare
friend become-CMP.PAST.EPIST

"They probably became friends."

In opposition to this general rule, we must mention the notable exception of Mo4, who, once again, retains several typical Amdo Tibetan epistemic forms, illustrated in (25)a. and b., together with several instances of “Common” Tibetan forms (e.g., in 25c.):
<table><tbody><tr><td>(25)</td><td>a.</td><td>མྱེ<br>mine<br>fire</td><td>བཏང་ས་ཟིག<br>tan-sha-sak<br>LIGHTV-NMLZ-INDF</td><td>ཡིན་ན་ཐང་གི<br>jin-natshaykə<br>EQU.EPIST</td><td>Mo4</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>"[It] seems to be a place where you make fire."</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>b.</td><td>ད་<br>ta<br>DISC</td><td>པལ་ཆེར་<br>pʰaʃʰer<br>probably</td><td>ཚོད་མ་ཟིག<br>tsʰoma-zək<br>vegetable-INDF</td><td>ད་<br>ta<br>DISC</td><td>ཡིན་ན་ཟིགརེད།<br>jin-khasəkre<br>EQU-EPIST</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>"Well, it's probably a vegetable."</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>c.</td><td>ད་<br>ta<br>DISC</td><td>འགྲོན་ཁང་གི་<br>nqonkʰay-gə<br>hotel-GEN</td><td>སྤྱིན་བདག<br>dzindak<br>owner</td><td>དོན་སརེད་པ།<br>jìn-sāre-ba<br>EQU-EPIST-PHAT</td><td>Mo4</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>"Well, this must be the owner of the hotel."</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

But, at the same time, the corpus also comprises several instances of semi-grammaticalized constructions with, according to the context, a likely epistemic function. Such constructions are found in Fa3 and the children in Family 2, and attest the dynamics of this grammatical domain: Aikhenvald (2004, p. 296) had already noted that, for cognitive and social reasons, evidentiality is a grammatical domain particularly prone to develop and change in language contact situations, and the connex domain of epistemicity shows the same propensity of language change.

In Fa3, we can find a construction based on the adjective <'drapo> "like, similar". The construction occurs in two forms: one with a nominalized clause followed by a main proposition with the adjective in a predicative position, illustrated in (26)a. and b. The full construction can be translated as "It is like [...]". In the second variant of the construction, illustrated in (26)c., the adjective predication is reduced to an epistemic ending <pa 'dra>, and the first clause is now the main clause. In (26)d., the construction can be analyzed as a fully grammaticalized completed past epistemic marker, or as a nominalization of the first clause, followed by the epistemic equative copula.

It is interesting to note that the grammaticalization of this construction has a parallel in Lhasa Tibetan (Vokurková, 2017, pp. 90–100), but the construction has not been maintained in "Common" Tibetan. Fa3 could have developed this epistemic marker in contact with Lhasa Tibetan speakers when he was still in Northern India. We can see here that he did not simply copy the grammaticalized structure, but replicated the grammaticalization process itself (Heine & Kuteva, 2005, pp. 79–122).

Similarly, in Ch2A and Ch2B, we can observe four variants of a construction with, apparently, an epistemic function, this time with the verb "to think". These constructions are described in Table 15, and ordered from the least to the most grammaticalized.

<table><caption>**Table 15.** An incipient epistemic construction in Ch2A and Ch2B.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Construction with an Epistemic Function</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Syntactic construction</td><td>[finite clause]བསམ་"think"-TAME/E<br>[subordinated clause V-TAME/E<sup>EGO</sup>]བསམ་"think"-TAME/E</td></tr><tr><td>Morphological construction</td><td>clause mainV-བསམ་"think"-TAME/E</td></tr></tbody></table>

The least grammaticalized form, illustrated in (27)a., is merely a copy of the French construction with an epistemic function *Je pense que [finite clause]* "I think, [finite clause]", but with the finite clause. In the second variant (27b.), the verb of the first clause has an obligatory egophoric TAME/E marker, a morphosyntactic restriction characteristic of an embedded clause in the Tibetic languages (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023, p. 418). The last variant, illustrated in (27)c., is either a serial or an auxiliary verb construction,¹⁰ in which
the verb "to think" is not the main verb anymore and has a grammaticalized function of marking epistemicity.

(26) a. འདི་ ཁྲོམ་ར་ཟིག་ ཡིན་པ་ འདྲ་སོ་ འདུག་གྱུ་ Fa3
    di tʰomra-sək jin-pa qabo du-ga:
    DEM market-INDF EQU-NMLZ similar EXIST.SENS-PHAT
    "[It] is like this is a market, right?"

b. རྩ་རྩ་ དི་གིས་ ཁོ་འ་ ད་ གངུས་ཡིན་ན་ ཅིག་ ཅིག་ Fa3
    tsitsi tə-ki kʰo: ta katijina fik
    mouse DEM-ERG/INSTR 3.DAT DISC whenever HES
    རྫོགས་པ་ འདྲ་སོ་ བྱེད་གི་ཡོད་བ་ འདྲ་སོ་ འདུག
    rokpa qapo tʃe-kijə-wa qapo du?
    help similar LIGHTV-UNCMP-NMLZ similar EXIST.SENS

"[It] is like this mouse kind of helps him all the time."

c. ད་ འདི་འདྲ་ ཡིན་པ་འདྲ་ Fa3
    ta dində
    DISC like.this EQU-EPIST
    "Well, it's probably like that."

d. ཕལ་ཆེར་ ཉོ་བ་ ཡིན་པ་འདྲ་ Fa3
    pʰafʰer jn-wa jin-paqa
    probably lie.down-NMLZ EQU-EPIST
    "It seems to be that [he] probably slept."
    pʰafʰer jn-wnajin-paqa
    probably lie.down-CMP.PAST-EPIST
    "[He] probably slept."

(27) a. ཨ་མ་ འདི་གིས་ ཁ་ལག་ བོས་རེད་ Ch2A
    ama di-ki kʰala sɔ̈-re
    mother DEM-ERG/INSTR food make-CMP.PAST.FACT
    བསམ་གྱི་འདུག
    sam-gidu?
    think-UNCMP.SENS
    "I think, the mother prepared food"

b. བག་ལེབ་ཅིག་ བཙལ་གྱི་ཡོད་ བསམ་གྱི་འདུག་ Ch2B
    paklep-yik tʃe:-gijə sam-gidu?
    bread-INDF look.for-UNCMP think-UNCOMPLSENS
    "[I] think, [he] is looking for a bread."

c. ཅིག་ བཙལ་གྱི་ འགྲོ་བསམ་གྱི་འདུག་ Ch2B
    fik tʃe:-gi qo-sam-gidu?
    INDF look.for-CONN go-think-UNCMP.SENS
    "[He] presumably goes to look for something."

6.4. *Inner-Sensation Verbs and Endopathic Access*

Finally, the category of inner-sensation verbs, comprising verbs such as "to be hungry/thirsty", "to be afraid", "to feel pain", etc., must be mentioned to illustrate more subtle linguistic changes in the domain of TAME/E markers in the development of "Common" Tibetan in the diaspora. In the Tibetic languages, for such verbs, the sensory evidential markers can only be used in 1st-person utterances, but not in 2nd- and 3rd-person (Tour-
semantic principles, and such a change could have been induced by contact with English and/or French.

More research on the use of evidential and epistemic markers in different sub-varieties of “Common” Tibetan is needed to understand the system and its evolution, especially in the contact of languages without grammaticalized evidential–epistemic systems. An analysis focused on the use of the different evidential and epistemic markers in discourse would, for instance, enable us to examine whether these categories retain their fundamentally semantic–pragmatic functions, or if they evolve into syntactic categories.

## 7. Elements for Discussion and Future Research

The aim of this paper was to analyze contrastively the parents' and the children's varieties of "Common" Tibetan for a series of phonological and grammatical features in order to document the initial steps of the adoption of the diasporic *lingua franca*, and the extent of intra- and transgenerational variation that goes with it.

While the phonological feature examined in this paper shows homogeneity within the parents' generation, the morphosyntactic features show a significant variation: two speakers, Mo2 and Fa3, speak a variety of "Common" Tibetan much closer to the Central Tibetic languages than Mo1 and Mo4. Depending on the linguistic feature, this difference can be observed in absolute terms, with a complete switch from Amdo to Central Tibetic morphemes (e.g., for the indefinite or plural markers or the system of TAME/E markers), or in proportion (e.g., for the case markers or the use of distinct verb stems).

As mentioned in the introduction, all the adults recorded for this research have a comparable migration history, from Tibet to France through South Asia, with some slight differences in terms of stay duration in the different regions. But such intra-generational variation observed in our corpus might, in the parents' generation, be explained by a different sociolinguistic background of the speakers: while Mo2 and Fa3 have been to school as children and have a high level of formal education in Tibetan, Mo1 and Mo4 have been taught to read and write as adults, after they arrived in exile. We can thus assume that a good knowledge of written Tibetan makes it easier to establish links between the different Tibetic languages. It allows a better linguistic consciousness and makes the switch from one to the other variety easier. At the same time, a high level of education is also related to a shorter stay in the linguistically mixed environment of the adult education centres run by the Central Tibetan Administration. This experience, although important in the refugee's trajectory, seems to have significant consequences in the adoption of Central Tibetic linguistic features.

The corpus also indicates that children retain only a few characteristics of their parents' original Amdo Tibetic variety. The transition from Amdo to Central Tibetic in exile is rather abrupt, between the first and the second generation. The structural differences observed between the parents' and the children's generation confirm the attitude of the parents, who claim to favour and encourage the transmission of "Common" Tibetan to their children, rather than their native variety (Simon, 2023). Such a shift is also documented in Chinese-speaking families settled in Canada (Ward et al., 2022), who, more or less consciously, choose not to transmit their original variety or varieties of Sinitic, but favour a standard variety associated with an international environment. The regular contacts between the members of the growing—but still relatively modest—Tibetic diaspora in France, especially during the weekly community classes, certainly further encourages this dynamics towards the adoption of "Common" Tibetan in the families involved in this study.

Besides the overall structural similarities observed in the children's generation, some intra-generational differences are also observed. Certain differences, like the loss of a fully grammaticalized dual number category, the extension of comitative markers to mark
instrumental functions, or the development of a new epistemic construction with the verb "to think", can be attributed to language contact with French and/or English, while others, such as the grammaticalization of a new TAME/E construction by Ch1, seem to be language internal. Among the interviewees, Ch3 is the only representative of the children's generation who has attended a Tibetan school in South Asia until high school: the other four children arrived in France after 0-3 years of primary school, and thus have spent most of their school career in France. This important difference in their linguistic socialization explains why Ch3 retained some morphosyntactic features lost by the other children in the sample, such as the specific TAME/E marking system for verbs referring to inner sensation.

Future research should expand on these initial analyses both by studying contrastively other phonological and morphosyntactic features, and by including Tibetan families with various dialectal backgrounds. This second line of research can however be conducted only with native speakers of Tibetan languages for which good documentation and descriptions are available. In the domain of contrastive Amdo/Central Tibetan phonology, of particular interest would be the study of the emergence of a tone contrast (absent in Amdo Tibetan varieties). In the domain of morphosyntax, a complete analysis of the case marking system and syntactic alignment would also shed light on changes from a full ergative alignment (in Amdo Tibetan varieties) to a split ergative alignment (in Central Tibetan), and other possible changes caused by the contact with languages without case marking. A detailed analysis of the incipient TAME/E categories observed in Section 6 would also enrich our understanding of the development of “Common” Tibetan in the West.

Finally, the data presented in this paper show that, in at least two of the Amdo
Tibetan families included in this study (Families 1 and 4), the Tibetan language can be
described as a dual language: in terms of linguistic structure, parents and children speak a
significantly different variety of Tibetan, while having a passive knowledge of the other
generation's variety. Future research could try to precisely assess this passive knowledge
of the second Tibetan language in each generation in order to highlight the points of
continuity and discontinuity in the development of Tibetan as an heritage language in
France. Nevertheless, from a sociolinguistic point of view, this generational language
change is not conceived of as a language shift, but rather as a continuity and transmission
of the heritage language.

**Funding:** This research was conducted as part of the Diascotib (2024–2028) project (https://anr.fr/Project-ANR-23-CE41-0017, accessed on 16 September 2025).

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The work is carried out within a tried and tested method-
ological framework, in line with best practice and in compliance with the laws and regulations in
force in France (in particular the General Data Protection Regulation). Given that the data have been
collected as part of an ANR project, we have established a DMP, approved by the ANR board and
published here: https://hal.science/hal-04566967v1, accessed on 16 September 2025 (Section 3 of
this DMP is devoted to the ethic principles and regulations).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from every person involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The corpus on which this study is based will be archived and published in open access in the Pangloss Collection (CNRS, https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/, accessed 16 October 2025), as part of the “Common Tibetan” subcollection: https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Common_Tibetan (accessed 16 October 2025).

**Acknowledgments:** I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the participants who have accepted to be interviewed and recorded for this study. I am also extremely grateful to Berthilde Biard and Katja Biteeva, who have accepted to spend many hours measuring VOT values to sustain the analysis presented in Section 3. Any errors in interpretation or presentation of the data are my own.
**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

## Abbreviations

When a morpheme has two functions that correspond to two distinct morphemes in another variety of “Common” Tibetan, the two functions are separated by "/". The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:

<table><tr><td>3</td><td>3rd-person</td></tr><tr><td>ABL</td><td>ablative</td></tr><tr><td>ASS</td><td>associative</td></tr><tr><td>assert</td><td>assertive discourse particle</td></tr><tr><td>ASSOC</td><td>associative plural</td></tr><tr><td>AUX</td><td>auxiliary verb</td></tr><tr><td>CMP</td><td>completed aspect</td></tr><tr><td>COLL</td><td>collective plural</td></tr><tr><td>COM</td><td>comitative</td></tr><tr><td>CONN</td><td>connecting particle</td></tr><tr><td>DAT</td><td>dative-allative</td></tr><tr><td>DEM</td><td>demonstrative</td></tr><tr><td>DISC</td><td>discourse marker</td></tr><tr><td>DU</td><td>dual</td></tr><tr><td>DUR</td><td>durative</td></tr><tr><td>DYN</td><td>dynamic aspect</td></tr><tr><td>EGO</td><td>egophoric</td></tr><tr><td>EPIST</td><td>epistemic modality</td></tr><tr><td>EQU</td><td>equative copula</td></tr><tr><td>ERG</td><td>ergative</td></tr><tr><td>exist</td><td>existential copula</td></tr><tr><td>F</td><td>feminine</td></tr><tr><td>FACT</td><td>factual evidential</td></tr><tr><td>FUT</td><td>future</td></tr><tr><td>GEN</td><td>genitive</td></tr><tr><td>H</td><td>honorific</td></tr><tr><td>HES</td><td>hesitation</td></tr><tr><td>INDF</td><td>indefinite (article or pronoun)</td></tr><tr><td>INFER</td><td>inferential evidential</td></tr><tr><td>INSTR</td><td>instrumental</td></tr><tr><td>LIGHTV</td><td>light verb</td></tr><tr><td>LOC</td><td>locative</td></tr><tr><td>NEG</td><td>negative</td></tr><tr><td>NMLZ</td><td>nominalizer</td></tr><tr><td>PAST</td><td>past</td></tr><tr><td>PERF</td><td>perfect</td></tr><tr><td>PHAT</td><td>phatic</td></tr><tr><td>PL</td><td>plural</td></tr><tr><td>PN</td><td>proper name</td></tr><tr><td>REP</td><td>reportative</td></tr><tr><td>SENS</td><td>sensory evidential</td></tr><tr><td>TAME/E</td><td>tense, aspect, modality, evidentiality, and epistemicity</td></tr><tr><td>UNCMP</td><td>uncompleted aspect</td></tr><tr><td>WOND</td><td>auto-interrogative marker (wondering)</td></tr></table>
## Notes

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<footnote n="1">¹ For a detailed description of the classification of the Tibetic languages, see Bialek (2022, p. 9) and Tournadre and Suzuki (2023, pp. 469–637).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² This variety includes some morphosyntactic features characteristic of Lhasa Tibetan. Most of the interviewees also knew that I had spent time in Amdo, and thus that I have at least some knowledge of the Amdo Tibetic varieties.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ As for the labial stops, words from the literary or religious register may be pronounced with a stop, while in the daily-life lexicon it is generally realized as /h/ and /w/. The retroflex consonants in Central and Amdo Tibean are reflexes of different consonants clusters involving (at least) a stop and the consonant <r>. While such clusters are systematically pronounced as a retroflex consonant in Central Tibetan, the reflexes are more varied in Amdo Tibetan, depending both on the register and on the specific consonant cluster. In both cases, the speakers of the parents' generation in our sample often adapt to the Central Tibetan pronunciation in terms of consonant type (they pronounce the consonants, respectively, as a labial or retroflex stop), but they do not adapt to the Central Tibetan aspiration feature.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Given the scarcity of Tibetic words starting with the first type of stops (<k, t, p, (retrofl.)>), words starting with consonant clusters such as <sk>, <rk>, <rt>, <lt>, etc., in WT have been included. In Central Tibetic, the first consonant of the cluster is never pronounced; in Amdo Tibetic, they may generate a pre-voicing or a pre-fricative.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ I would like to express my deepest thanks to Berthilde Biard and Katja Biteeva for their help with the time-consuming VOT measurement process.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ Despite this same etymology, we adopt here the most usual spelling for the indefinite marker in Amdo Tibetan.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ Examples are presented in Tibetan orthography, followed by a phonetic-phonologic transcription and a gloss. The speakers, especially in the parents' generation, have a mixed phonological system. In this paper, the pronunciation indicated does not correspond to a phonological transcription *stricto sensu*, but rather to an approximate phonetic transcription. In fact, as mentioned in Section 3.2, the presence or absence of phonological tones is a feature that remains to be examined in the corpus under study and the transcription does not indicate tones, neither for the parents' nor for the children's data.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ This variation will be explained by a different morphosyntactic status of the two forms <gnyis> and <gnyis.ka> or <gnyis.cha>: more research, based on a more extensive corpus, is needed to characterize them precisely, both in the parents' and in the children's variety of "Common" Tibetan.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ We follow Tournadre and Suzuki (2023, pp. 362, 379–388) and use the terms “uncompleted” and “completed” to refer to the Tibetic aspectual distinctions.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ A detailed study, with more data, would be needed to precisely characterize this construction.</footnote>
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