Yinchia Studies: Documentation and Analysis of a Language of Myanmar (Burma)

This study, based on extensive and pioneering fieldwork done by the author between 1999 and 2002, provides a first account of Yinchia, a hitherto undescribed language in the southern Shan State of Myanmar (Burma). Using data collected from native Yinchia speakers in the Nam-San community, the author presents a comprehensive analysis of Yinchia phonetics and phonology (including tonology) in a framework that is essentially structuralist. Chapters on morphology and syntax remain more sketchy and tentative but discuss important issues such as the tense and aspect system of Yinchia as well as questions of word structure and the identification of phonological words, using mainly Integrational Linguistics as a theoretical background. Moreover, the author develops an orthography for Yinchia which so far has no writing system.