Kenneth Gregerson

SIL International

<ken_gregerson@sil.org>

Charles Keller

International Cooperation for Cambodia/SIL International

<charles_keller@sil.org>

Jacqueline Jordi

International Cooperation for Cambodia/SIL International

<jacqueline_jordi@sil.org>

Iambic Effects in Brao: cliticization, grammaticalization and stress

Certain Brao dialects exhibit iambic effects of cohesion (in the sense of Harris and Campbell, 1995) which have reduced free morphemes and merged them to the right in conformity with the classic Mon-Khmer sesquisyllabic template for phonological words. An examination of phrasal syntax shows, further, that the well-known Weak + Strong contour is in effect for phrase as well as word constituents as a part of a historical process of conflation that also implicates issues of cliticization and grammaticalization.