A phonology of Stau

This thesis is a description of the phonology of Stau, a Rgyalrongic language of the Tibeto-Burman family, based on original field research. Stau is spoken by approximately 23,000 people in the west of Sichuan province, China. It is an almost unstudied language. Apart from a sketch of the phonology and grammar by Huang (1991), which provides a phonetic (rather than phonemic) analysis of Stau sounds, lists attested onsets and rhymes, and discusses tone, there has been virtually no systematic study of the phonology of language. This thesis provides a more extensive study of Stau phonology, covering segmental phonology, acoustic analysis of stops and of vowels, syllable structure, phonotactics, phonological processes, and pitch phenomena. Of particular interest in this phonology are Stau’s large phonemic inventory of forty-two consonants and eight vowels, its large syllable canon, phonotactic constraints among its consonant clusters, and vowel changes in reduplication.