Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T13:10:11.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The conjugation of the Tangut verb

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Ksenia Borisovna Kepping
Ksenia Borisovna Kepping
Affiliation:
Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The data and analyses of Tangut verbal morphology which I have presented (1979b, 1981, 1982, 1985) represent the cumulative result of more than twenty years of research of Tangut texts. It is with great regret that I saw my analyses misunderstood (LaPolla, 1992). In order to clarify my view on the Tangut verbal agreement, I feel compelled to give a succinct account of the phenomena causing so much controversy in the Tibeto-Burman linguistic literature.

The Tangut verb shows agreement for person and number of actant. The three overt agreement morphemes are <-ŋa2> (first person singular), <-na2> (second person singular) and <-ni2> (first and second person plural). The Tangut verb shows overt agreement only with first and second person actant. Third person involvement is marked by zero. A Tangut intransitive verb agrees with the subject, i.e. the ‘intransitive subject’. The two rules for the distribution of the overt agreement markers in the transitive verb as formulated in my Tangut grammar (Kepping, 1985: 233–4) are: (1) If one and no more than one of the actants is a first or second person, then the verb will overtly agree with that actant regardless of its syntactic role, and (2) if a transitive verb has two non-third person actants, the verb will agree with the grammatical patient or ‘transitive object’.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 339 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1994

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Bauman, James John. 1975. ‘Pronouns and pronominal morphology in Tibeto-Burman’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 1985. Morphology: a study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1980. ‘Agreement, animacy and voice’, in Wege zur Universalienforschung, Sprachwissenschaftliche Beiträge zum 60. Geburtstag von Hansjakob Seiler. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 229–34.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1972. The Dyirbal language of North Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driem, George van. 1990. ‘An exploration of Proto-Kiranti verbal morphology’, Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 22: 27–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driem, George van. 1991a. ‘Bahing and the Proto-Kiranti verb’, BSOAS, LIV, 2: 336–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driem, George van. 1991b. ‘Tangut verbal agreement and the patient category in Tibeto-Burman’, BSOAS, LIV, 3: 520–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driem, George van. 1992. ‘Le proto-kiranti revisité, morphologie verbale du lohorung’, Ada Linguistica Hafniensia, 24: 33–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driem, George van. 1993a. ‘The Proto-Tibeto-Burman verbal agreement system’, BSOAS, LVI, 2: 292–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driem, George van. 1993b. A grammar of Dumi, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1979a. Sun‘ Czy v tangutskom perevode (Faksimile ksilografa. Izdanie teksta, perevod, vvedenie, kommentarij, grammatičeskij očerk, slovar’ i priloženie). Moscow: Izdatel'stvo ‘Nauka’.Google Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1979b. ‘Elements of ergativity and nominativity in Tangut’, in Plank, Frans, (ed.), Ergativity: towards a theory of grammatical relations. London: Academic Press, 263–77.Google Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1981. ‘Agreement of the verb in Tangut’, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 6/1: 39–47.Google Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1982. ‘Once again on the agreement of the Tangut verb’, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 7/1: 39–54.Google Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1985. Tangutskij jazyk, morfologija. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo ‘Nauka’.Google Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1987. ‘Korreljacija meždu vidom i nakloneniem v tangutskom jazyke’, Problemy Języków Azji i Afryki: Materialy II Międzynarodowego Sympozjum Warszawa-Kraków, 10–15 listopada 1980 (Polska Akademia Nauk, Komitet Nauk Orientalistycznych). Warsaw: Pánstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 55–9.Google Scholar
Keping (Kepping) Borisovna, Ksenija. 1990. Vnov‘ sobrannye zapisi o ljubvi k mladšim i počtenii k staršim: poslednjqja čžjuan’ (Faksimile rukopisi, izdanie teksta, vvedenie, perevod i ommentarij). Moscow: Izdatel'stvo ‘Nauka’.Google Scholar
Kolokolov, Vsevolod Sergeevič, and Kyčanov., Evgenij Ivanovič 1966. Kitajskaja klassika v tangutskom perevode (Lun' Juj, Mèn Czy, Sjao Czin), faksimile tekstov. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo ‘Nauka’.Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 1992a. ‘On the dating and nature of verb agreement in Tibeto-Burman’, BSOAS, LV, 2: 298–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevskij, Nikolaj Aleksandrovič. 1960. Tangutskaja filologija. Issledovanija i slovar‘ (in two vols.). Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vostočnoj Literatury.Google Scholar
Tatsuo, Nishida. 1964/1966. Seikago no Kenkyū, Seikago no Saikōsei to Seikamoji no Kaidoku (A study of the Hsi-Hsia language: reconstruction of the Hsi-Hsia language and decipherment of the Hsi-Hsia script). Vols. 1 & 2. Tōkyō: Zauhō Kankokai.Google Scholar
Tatsuo, Nishida. 1987. ‘A Study of the structure of Hsihsia verb phrases’, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko (The Oriental Library), no. 45, 1–24.Google Scholar
Sofronov, Mixail Viktorovič. 1968. Grammatika tangutskogo jazyka (in two vols.). Moscow: Izdatel'stvo ‘Nauka’Google Scholar