Northern and Southern Munya Dialects: Towards a Historical Perspective*

Munya, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in western Sichuan Province in China, is believed to have two dialects, an undescribed eastern dialect and a relatively better-known western dialect. Based on previous studies and data gathered from fieldwork, I found that the western dialect can be further divided into a northern and a southern dialect. This study will present linguistic evidence for such a dialectal distinction and will discuss some diachronic changes that have created it. The dialects have a different phonological inventory and lexical differences. Grammatically, the two dialects differ in directional prefixes, formation of certain types of negation and questions, and the system of copula verbs of existence