On the origin of 2nd person prefix #tV- in Trans-Himalayan languages

Two 2nd person verbal indexation forms are reconstructed back to Proto-Trans-Himalayan (PTH): a suffix #-n(a) (Bauman 1975; DeLancey 1989, 2014; H. Sun 1983, 1995; van Driem 1993; Watters 2002), and a prefix #tV- (Watters 2002; Jacques 2012; DeLancey 2011a, 2014). While #-n(a) is in paradigmatic distribution with other suffixal forms, the prefixal position of #tV-raises the question of its functional origin. DeLancey (2011a, 2014: 23) suggests hypothetically that #tV- finds its origin either in a non-finite nominalization or in an irrealis nominalization, “ideal for an impersonal 2nd person use: ‘One might [speak]’ rather than ‘You will [speak].’” Through the comparison of cognate tV- possessive and tV- nominalizer prefixes found in rGyalrongic, Kuki-Naga (Ao), and Sinitic, I propose that 2nd person #tV- can be traced back to a nominal possessive modifier such as one’s or someone’s: a man-type of R-impersonals (Malchukov & Siewierska 2011). Spreading to verbs, #tV- was used as a nominalizer indexing the notional S or A argument. With nouns and verbs alike, the referent of the possessor, whether 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person, was specific (Siewierska 2011: 62), accessible in discourse, anaphorically or deictically, regardless of the presence of a coreferential overt noun-phrase. The prefix #tV- started to be used in particular to address 2nd person indirectly, a development likely triggered by pragmatic motivations, i.e. politeness, before being reanalyzed as a 2nd person indexation marker.

What is a word in Brokpa?

This paper investigates the structure of phonological word and grammatical word in Brokpa, a Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan) language of Bhutan. Defining features of a phonological word include stress, tone, and segmental properties. A grammatical word is defined based on conventionalized coherence and meaning, fixed order of morphemes, and its behaviour in relation to derivational and inflectional marking. Grammatical and phonological words in Brokpa coincide in most instances. Typical mismatches include words involving non-cohering compounds and non-cohering reduplication. A formal distinction between phonological and grammatical word is the key to our understanding of the interactions between different parts of grammar in Brokpa, and help resolve potential ambiguities of the term “word” in this language.

“May you fall [dead] while standing!”

This paper presents two types of maledictions in Thadou-Kuki. The first deals with the various forms of maledictions which on the surface appear as though they are curse words in terms of their forms and meanings. But a close examination reveals that the mere presence of such maledictions does not constitute cursing. Rather, it is the context of who said what to whom and why that determines whether they should be interpreted curses or not. The second deals with words that are used purely as abuses or insults and, as such, do not have such semantic or pragmatic ambiguities like the various forms of maledictions. The paper shows that maledictions are expressed with the help of imperatives of which the directive -în and the command tâng are used with slight nuances in meaning. That is, with the latter, the wish is more pronounced and indicates the true intent of the speaker to inflict harm upon the addressee, which the former lacks. Abuses or insults, on the other hand, are momentary emotional reactions to the things that happened around the speaker and unlike true curses are not carefully thought out expression of words. They are rather words that the speaker picked up as and when the situation demands and may involve an element of bragging.

East Tusom

East Tusom is a Tibeto-Burman language of Manipur, India, belonging to the Tangkhulic group. While it shares some innovations with the other Tangkhulic languages, it differs markedly from “Standard Tangkhul” (which is based on the speech of Ukhrul town). Past documentation is limited to a small set of hastily transcribed forms in a comparative reconstruction of Tangkhulic rhymes (Mortensen & Miller 2013; Mortensen 2012). This paper presents the first substantial sketch of an aspect of the language: its (descriptive) phonetics and phonology. The data are based on recordings of an extensive wordlist (730 items) and one short text, all from one fluent native speaker in her mid-twenties. We present the phonetic inventory of East Tusom and a phonemicization, with exhaustive examples. We also present an overview of the major phonological patterns and generalizations in the language. Of special interest are a “placeless nasal” that is realized as nasalization on the preceding vowel unless it is followed by a consonant, and numerous plosive-fricative clusters (where the fricative is roughly homorganic with the following vowel) that have developed from historical aspirated plosives. A complete wordlist, organized by gloss and semantic field, is provided as appendices.

Hearsay evidential marking strategy in Lhagang Tibetan

This exploratory study focuses on the use of hearsay evidential marking in the course of storytelling in a Tibetic language, Lhagang Tibetan, combining a descriptive linguistic approach with a literary-theoretic analysis. Tibetic languages generally possess a morpho-syntactically encoded evidential-epistemic system, in which the hearsay evidential represents a non-first-hand information source. However, we find a random use of the hearsay evidential marker in the oral literature of Lhagang Tibetan, although it has been transmitted from one generation to another by storytellers. The article aims to provide a reasonable explanation for the use of the hearsay evidential in storytelling. It proposes that hearsay evidential marking reflects the speaker’s attitude towards the utterance to either avoid full responsibility for the utterance or enhance the utterance’s authenticity. The former objective principally appears in telling a story based on a weak memory of the story; the latter appears in telling a legend. This explanation is supported by oral literature theory, especially the arguments regarding the difference between folktales and legends.

Focus enclitics in Bodo

This paper describes a set of five focus enclitics in Bodo, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Assam, India. The focus enclitics are phonologically bound morphemes which are attached to a phrase-level constituent of a sentence, such as the verb, its arguments, or its adjuncts. They all trigger existential presuppositions and express various kinds of semantic and pragmatic relations between the asserted proposition and presuppositions, such as inclusion, exclusion, contrast, concession, and correction. The description of these relations as well as other more context and construction specific functions encoded by the focus enclitics constitutes the core of this paper. This paper also examines the distribution of the focus enclitics and discusses their associated scope and interpretations. Finally, this paper investigates co-occurrence, co-occurrence restrictions, and interpretations of sequences of the enclitics.

Noun-epithets of Dongba and Daba oral traditions

Dongba and Daba chants represent two of the few oral traditions still surviving in the world. In both traditions, the main category of formulaic expressions consists of traditional noun-epithets describing spirits. Dongba and Daba spirits can be classified into five categories, of which the noun-epithets used to describe them share similar features. Another significant percentage of noun-epithets portray figures of animals. Dongba and Daba chants are both chanted in odd-numbered metric patterns in which noun-epithets are adapted to the metric context. Besides the core expression (often a tetra-syllabic compound), several monosyllabic words not affecting the core meaning may be inserted as optional morphemes to modify the number of syllables in the noun-epithet. This study provides a systematic philological analysis of the vast repertoire of Daba and Dongba noun-epithets. Comparative mythology and comparative linguistics combine to present a comprehensive description of the stylistic features of Daba and Dongba noun-epithets.