Research Profile
My current research is focused on the Vaiphei language of Assam which belongs to the South Central (formerly known as “Kuki-Chin”) subgroup of the Trans-Himalayan family. On a more general level, I am especially interested in language documentation/description, morphosyntax and discourse patterns. Apart from my current focus on Trans-Himalayan languages, I am equally interested in the languages of the Papuan region, previously having contributed to research on a Trans-New Guinea language of Indonesia. Additionally, I also have a background in Semitic studies.
PhD Project
The goal of my doctoral research work is to produce a descriptive sketch grammar of the Vaiphei language as well as investigate person marking phenomena in the language, based on corpus data. Vaiphei is a South Central Trans-Himalayan language of Northeast India. It has some 42.000 speakers (2011 census) most of which reside in the states of Manipur and Assam. While a few studies on Vaiphei exist, among them a 2013 PhD thesis describing the phonetics, phonology and morphology of the language, those studies focus on Vaiphei as spoken in Manipur. In contrast, the Assam variety/ies have so far not been documented or described. My PhD work aims at filling that gap by documenting and describing Vaiphei as spoken in several villages in the Dima Hasao district of Assam. Documentation will be conducted in collaboration with the speech community and include collection of both audio and video data. Since many South Central languages to date remain under-researched, it is hoped that this PhD project will contribute to both our understanding of the family and be of interest to Trans-Himalayanists and non-Trans-Himalayanists alike.
