Himalayan Linguistics

South Central (Kuki-Chin) languages often exhibit an alternation in the form of verbal stems based on their morphological or syntactic distribution. This paper surveys characteristics of this phenomenon in three languages (Lai, K’Cho, and Vaiphei) representing distinct branches of the South Central group in order to identify similarities and differences in the factors leading to use of one or another stem form. The study is meant to serve as an introduction to the phenomenon in South Central and hopes to provide a foundation for future investigations treating additional languages of the subgroup and in the surrounding Tibeto-Burman speaking area.