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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
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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

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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.

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