Verb inflection in Muklom Tangsa (original) (raw)

Hierarchical indexing and the inverse in Muklom Tangsa

North East Indian Linguistics, 2018

Muklom Tangsa is a Tibeto-Burman language variety spoken in Northeast India. This article discusses verb inflection in this variety, in specific person-number indexing and inverse marking. So far, very little data had been available for Muklom, but based on newly collected data we can obtain a better understanding of its complex verb system. I propose that Muklom exhibits the following two features in the domain of the verbː 1) hierarchical person-number indexing, and 2) inverse, or non-A speech act participant marking. The first, hierarchical person indexing, specifically for Muklom entails that indexing of a first or second person argument is preferred over third person indexing in the mixed domain, regardless of the syntactical function of that first or second person argument. P and R arguments in the mixed domain may trigger indexing on the verb when they are higher on the so-called person hierarchy than the A argument. The second feature, the inverse, consists of an invariable suffix on the verb. In Muklom, the inverse signals the presence of a non-A speech act participant. The inverse is not restricted to the core arguments P and R. Non-arguments, at least possessors but perhaps including others, may also trigger non-A speech act participant marking on the verb. The two features have in common that they show how NP and verb marking in Muklom are not neatly aligned, but disintegrated, as is not uncommon for a Tibeto-Burman language.

Second Person Verb Forms in Tibeto-Burman

Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 37.1: 3-33. (2014)

Since the beginning of research on the PTB verb agreement, 2nd person marking has posed a persistent problem. Every scholar who has dealt with the problem reconstructs a set of person/number suffixes including 2sg #-n(a). But there is also strong evidence for a #t-prefix which also indexes 2nd person. My purpose in this paper is to summarize the results of a number of descriptions and analyses which have appeared over the last decade or so, which provide new evidence concerning the #t-prefix, and resolve some of the problems which had previously impeded our understanding of this form. I will show that there were two distinct verb forms used for 2nd person reference in PTB. In the final section of the paper I will speculate about the implications of this fact.

A descriptive grammar of Muklom Tangsa

2020

Dissertation, La Trobe University. This dissertation is the first published descriptive grammar of Muklom, a Tangsa language variety which belongs to the Northern Naga branch of the Tibeto-Burman family and is spoken in the state Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. This grammar is based on primary data collected in several Muklom villages near Kharsang Town. The core of the dissertation consists of a linguistic description of the Muklom language which focuses on phonology, the noun complex, and the verb complex, but also includes notes on clause structure and discourse structure. The dissertation further contains a selection of three fully annotated texts and a glossary of approximately 2,500 lexical entries.

Non-singular pronouns in Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan)

Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 42.1, 2019

This paper surveys the forms of dual and plural pronouns across Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan), and offers a reconstruction of the non-singular pronouns, and a general account of how various branches and languages have diverged from this original system. We can certainly reconstruct two, perhaps three, person-number portmanteaus: #i 1PL, or perhaps 1PL.INC, #ni 2PL, and, less certainly, #ka 1PL.EXC. We also reconstruct #tsi DUAL which combined with singular pronouns to make dual forms. This construction was the model on which most daughter languages have innovated a analytic system of person and number marking, with distinct person and dual and/or plural morphemes combining to make the morphologically complex but semantically transparent compositional forms found in the majority of languages. Abstract: This paper surveys the forms of dual and plural pronouns across Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan), and offers a reconstruction of the non-singular pronouns, and a general account of how various branches and languages have diverged from this original system. We can certainly reconstruct two, perhaps three, person-number portmanteaus: #i 1PL, or perhaps 1PL.INC, #ni 2PL, and, less certainly, #ka 1PL.EXC. We also reconstruct #tsi DUAL which combined with singular pronouns to make dual forms. This construction was the model on which most daughter languages have innovated a analytic system of person and number marking, with distinct person and dual and/or plural morphemes combining to make the morphologically complex but semantically transparent compositional forms found in the majority of languages.

The subject inflections of the Mek languages: a comparative reconstruction

The Mek languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the eastern highlands of the Indonesian province Papua. They have a rich verb morphology with subject and object indexation and numerous temporal, modal, and aspectual categories. In this paper, I focus on the subject inflections, which are combined with tense or mood. Six paradigms of subject person-number endings are reconstructed. In addition, I reconstruct the personal pronouns. Shared innovations that emerge from the reconstructions are used to subgroup the Mek languages.

Notes on Verb Agreement Prefixes in Tibeto-Burman

2011

Research on comparative Tibeto-Burman verbal morphology has achieved preliminary reconstructions of the hierchical patterns and position classes of the agreement system. The status of the prefixes which are part of the system in some branches remains problematic. Only one true personal agreement prefix, 2 nd person #te-, appears to be as ancient as the suffixal agreement series. Others are language-specific innovations more recent than PTB. One clue to the origin of these secondary prefixes, as David Watters and Sun Hongkai have suggested, is their resemblance to possessive pronominal prefixes. The 2 nd person k-prefix which several scholars reconstruct is a secondary intrusion of a 2 nd person possessive prefix into the verb paradigm. The "marked scenario" prefix found in some Nung and Kiranti languages is likewise a secondary innovation in which original #te-was replaced by 2 nd person #na-or #i-, the latter originally a 1pl Inclusive index.

A Note on Voicing Alternation in the Tibetan Verbal System

Transactions of the Philological Society, 2014

A recent paper on the prehistory of the Tibetan verbal system by Guillaume Jacques (2012), in keeping with many previous authorities, presents Tibetan verbs as occurring in pairs, with a voiced intransitive and a voice-alternating transitive member. However, as noticed by Uray, Tibetan verbs occur in triplets with no relationship between voicing and transitivity.

Old Tibetan verb morphology and semantics: An attempt at a reconstruction

Himalayan Linguistics, 2020

The paper presents the first complete reconstruction of the Old Tibetan (OT) verb morphology and semantics. Old Tibetan had a productive verb inflection with meaningful inflectional affixes b-, g-, ɣ-, d-, -d, and -s. The distribution of the prefixes was asymmetric and closely related to transitivity of a verb. Verbs of highest transitivity formed four distinct stems, whereas intransitive verbs inflected for one or two stems only. Grammatical voice is the only category that can explain the disproportion in the markings of transitive and intransitive verbs. Because the basic opposition was that between active and passive voice, intransitive verbs could only form active forms, whereas both active and passive forms were available for the majority of transitive verbs. In addition, both groups of verbs inflected for aspect, distinguishing between perfective and imperfective aspect. The OT inflectional system seems to have been a local innovation, only marginally related to verb morphology of other Trans-Himalayan languages.

Further Exploration on Tangut Person Pronominal Suffixes

This paper explores three issues in the past studies on Tangut agreement system. First, I discuss the relationship between the verbal morphology and the person pronominal suffixes. I point out some of the incompatible assumptions in the past literature to show that the verbal morphology and the person pronominal suffixes in Tangut are two independent mechanisms and that they should not be considered part of to a single inflectional rule. I then move to the claim that "the person pronominal suffix influences the verb that precedes an auxiliary, causing it to change from the base form to the derived form (Gong 2001: 47)". By presenting data from different texts, I will discuss why this statement is problematic, and propose an alternative analysis. Third, I will discuss some implications from this observation. I argue that Tangut 毗 jij¹ is not an auxiliary indicating future tense or imperfective event. Instead, it is suggested that 毗 jij¹ is a typical modal marker denoting an irrealis event and expresses with the speaker's attitude (judgement) towards how an event (/action) ought to be performed. key words: Tangut language, verbal agreement, person pronominal suffixes, modality, 毗 jij¹