Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T23:38:59.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The historical development of inverse marking in Khroskyabs: evidence from two modern varieties – Siyuewu and Wobzi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2020

Yunfan Lai Open the ORCID record for Yunfan Lai [Opens in a new window]
Yunfan Lai*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
*
khroskyabs@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper describes the inverse marking systems of two closely related Khroskyabs varieties, Siyuewu and Wobzi, and hypothesizes the historical development of the Khroskyabs inverse marking system. I propose that a hypothetical prefix, *Cə-, which is probably related to the second person markers attested in many Trans-Himalayan languages, existed in Proto-Khroskyabs, and that it has different reflexes in the two modern Khroskyabs varieties.

Keywords

KhroskyabsRgyalrongicArgument indexationInverse markingSecond person prefix
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 259 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I use the Wylie transliteration of Tibetan in this paper (Wylie 1959). I follow the Leipzig Glossing Rules, additional abbreviations are: dir: directional prefix; inv: inverse; orien: orientational prefix; nvis: non-visual; conj: conjunction; pn: personal name; interj: interjection; trans: translocative; ifr: inferential; repeat: repetition; dub: dubitative; pot: potential; neg2: negative marker mæ-/mɑ- in Wobzi that appears only after orientational prefixes; neg3: negative marker mɑ- in Wobzi that appears in the past tense of verbs incompatible with orientational prefixes; part: sentence final particle.

2

This research was supported by the ERC Starting Grant 715618 CALC. I would like to thank Guillaume Jacques, Scott DeLancey, Zhang Shuya, Gong Xun and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.

References

DeLancey, Scott. 1981. “An interpretation of split ergativity”, Language 57/3, 626–57.10.2307/414343CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 2014. “Second person verb forms in Tibeto-Burman”, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 37/1, 3–33.10.1075/ltba.37.1.01lanCrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. Unpublished manuscript. “The comparative method, subgrouping, and the antiquity of verb agreement in Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan)” https://www.academia.edu/32924445/The_Comparative_Method_Subgrouping_and_the_ Antiquity_of_Verb_Agreement_in_Trans-Himalayan.docx.Google Scholar
Gates, Jesse P. and ’ja’ dpal, . 2017. “Argument indexation in Stau from a cross-dialectal perspective”, paper presented at the 50th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.Google Scholar
Gong, Xun. 2014. “Personal agreement system of Zbu rGyalrong (Ngyaltsu variety)”, Transactions of the Philological Society 112/1, 44–60.10.1111/1467-968X.12007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gong, Xun. 2017. “Verb stems in Tangut and their orthography”, Scripta 9, 29–48.Google Scholar
Gong, Xun. 2018. “Le rgyalrong zbu, une langue tibéto-birmane de Chine du Sud-ouest: une étude descriptive, typologique et comparative”, Doctoral Dissertation, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume. 2004. “Phonologie et morphologie du japhug (Rgyalrong)”, Doctoral Dissertation, Université Paris VII – Denis Diderot.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume. 2010. “The inverse in Japhug Rgyalrong”, Language and Linguistics 11/1, 127–57.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume. 2012a. “Agreement morphology: the case of Rgyalrongic and Kiranti”, Language and Linguistics 13/1, 83–116.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume. 2012b. “Argument demotion in Japhug Rgyalrong”, in Haude, K. and Gilles, A. (eds), Ergativity, Valency and Voice. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 199–226.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume. 2016. “Subjects and objects in Japhug and relativization”, Journal of Chinese Linguistics 44/1, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume and Antonov, Anton. 2014. “Direct-inverse systems”, Language and Linguistics Compass 8/7, 301–18.10.1111/lnc3.12079CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume, Antonov, Anton, Lai, Yunfan and Lobsang, Nima. 2014. “Person marking in Stau”, Himalayan Linguistics 13/2, 83–93.10.5070/H913224068CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume, Lai, Yunfan, Antonov, Anton and Lobsang, Nima. 2017. “Stau (Ergong, Horpa)”, in Thurgood, G. and LaPolla, R. (eds), The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Second edition. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 597–613.Google Scholar
Klaiman, M.H. 1992. “Inverse languages”, Lingua 88/3–4, 227–61.10.1016/0024-3841(92)90043-ICrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lai, Yunfan. 2015. “The person agreement system of Wobzi Lavrung (rGyalrongic, Tibeto-burman)”, Transactions of the Philological Society 113/3, 271–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lai, Yunfan. 2017. “Grammaire du khroskyabs de wobzi”, Doctoral Dissertation, Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle.Google Scholar
Lai, Yunfan. 2018. “Relativisation in Wobzi Khroskyabs and the integration of genitivisation”, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 41/2, 219–62.10.1075/ltba.17015.laiCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lai, Yunfan, Gong, Xun, Gates, Jesse P. and Jacques, Guillaume. Forthcoming. “Tangut as a West Rgyalrongic language”, Folia Linguistica Historica.Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy. 2012. “Comments on methodology and evidence in Sino-Tibetan comparative linguistics”, Language and Linguistics 13/1, 117–32.Google Scholar
Sagart, Laurent, Jacques, Guillaume, Lai, Yunfan, Ryder, Robin J., Thouzeau, Valentin, Greenhill, Simon J. and List, Johann-Mattis. 2019. “Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116/21, 10317–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2000a. “Parallelisms in the verb morphology of Sidaba rGyalrong and Lavrung in rGyalrongic”, Language and Linguistics 1/1, 161–90.Google Scholar
Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2000b. “Stem alternations in Puxi verb inflection: toward validating the rGyalrongic subgroup in Qiangic”, Language and Linguistics 1/2, 211–32.Google Scholar
Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2015. “黑水縣沙石多嘉戎語動詞人稱範疇的特點”, Language and Linguistics 16/5, 731–50.Google Scholar
Sun, Jackson T.-S. and Tian, Qianzi. 2014. “霍爾語格西話動詞對協初探”, 中國語言學集刊 7/2, 203–23.Google Scholar
Wolfart, H.C. and Carroll, J.F.. 1981. Meet Cree: A Practical Guide to the Cree Language. Second edition. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.Google Scholar
Wolfart, H. Christoph. 1973. “Plains Cree: a grammatical study”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 63/5, 1–90.10.2307/1006246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, Turrel. 1959. “A standard system of Tibetan transcription”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 22, 261–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeisler, Bettina. 2015. “Eat and drink – if you can! A language internal explanation for the ‘irregular’ paradigm of Tibetan za, zos, zo ‘eat’”, Himalayan Linguistics 15/1, 34–62.Google Scholar
Zhang, Shuya. 2019. “From proximate/obviative to number marking: reanalysis of hierarchical indexation in Rgyalrong languages”, Journal of Chinese Linguistics 47/1, 125–50.10.1353/jcl.2019.0004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zúñiga, Fernando. 2006. Deixis and Alignment – Inverse Systems in Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.70CrossRefGoogle Scholar