A Grammar of Yakkha
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A grammar of Yakkha Diana Schackow language Studies in Diversity Linguistics 7 science press Studies in Diversity Linguistics Chief Editor: Martin Haspelmath Consulting Editors: Fernando Zúñiga, Peter Arkadiev, Ruth Singer, Pilar Valen zuela In this series: 1. Handschuh, Corinna. A typology of marked-S languages. 2. Rießler, Michael. Adjective attribution. 3. Klamer, Marian (ed.). The Alor-Pantar languages: History and typology. 4. Berghäll, Liisa. A grammar of Mauwake. 5. Wilbur, Joshua. A grammar of Pite Saami. 6. Dahl, Östen. Grammaticalization in the North: Noun phrase morphosyntax in Scandinavian vernaculars. 7. Schackow, Diana. A grammar of Yakkha. 8. Liljegren, Henrik. A grammar of Palula. 9. Shimelman, Aviva. A grammar of Yauyos Quechua. ISSN: 2363-5568 A grammar of Yakkha Diana Schackow language science press Diana Schackow. 2015. A grammar of Yakkha (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 7). Berlin: Language Science Press. This title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/66 © 2015, Diana Schackow Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 978-3-946234-11-1 (Digital) 978-3-946234-12-8 (Hardcover) 978-3-946234-13-5 (Softcover) ISSN: 2363-5568 Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort Typesetting: Diana Schackow, Sebastian Nordhoff, Lennart Bierkandt, Felix Kopecky Proofreading: Slavomir Čéplö, Christian Döhler, Joseph Farquharson, Constantin Freitag, Tom Gardner, Eitan Grossman, Andreas Hölzl, Charles Ka Shing Ko, Linda Lanz, Timm Lichte, Michelle Natolo, Stephanie Natolo, Conor Pyle, Benjamin Saade, Aviva Shimelman, Aaron Sonnenschein, João Veloso Fonts: Linux Libertine, Arimo, DejaVu Sans Mono Typesetting software:Ǝ X LATEX Language Science Press Habelschwerdter Allee 45 14195 Berlin, Germany langsci-press.org Storage and cataloguing done by FU Berlin Language Science Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, ac- curate or appropriate. 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Contents Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Aims of this grammar ........................ 1 1.2 How to use the grammar ...................... 2 1.2.1 Structure of the book .................... 2 1.2.2 Orthography and transliterations ............. 2 1.2.3 Glossing and further conventions ............. 3 1.2.4 Notes on terminology ................... 4 1.3 Data sources ............................. 6 1.3.1 Fieldwork .......................... 6 1.3.2 The corpus .......................... 8 1.3.3 The lexical database .................... 9 1.4 Earlier studies on Yakkha language and culture .......... 10 1.5 Typological overview of the Yakkha language .......... 10 1.5.1 Phonology .......................... 11 1.5.2 Word classes ........................ 11 1.5.3 Nominals .......................... 11 1.5.4 Verbs ............................. 12 1.5.5 Syntax ............................ 13 2 The Yakkha language and its speakers 17 2.1 Geographical context ........................ 17 2.2 Cultural and historical background ................ 21 2.2.1 Kiranti ............................ 21 2.2.2 The Yakkha ......................... 25 2.3 Genealogical affiliation ....................... 31 2.4 Sociolinguistic context ....................... 34 2.4.1 Dialectal variation ..................... 34 2.4.2 Endangerment ....................... 37 Contents 3 Phonology 41 3.1 Phoneme inventory and allophonic rules ............. 41 3.1.1 Vowel phonemes ...................... 41 3.1.2 Diphthongs ......................... 42 3.1.3 Consonant phonemes ................... 43 3.2 Syllable structure .......................... 51 3.3 The phonological treatment of Nepali and English loans ..... 55 3.4 Stress assignment .......................... 57 3.5 Morphophonological processes ................... 62 3.5.1 Voicing ........................... 63 3.5.2 The prefixation of underspecified nasals ......... 68 3.5.3 Vowel harmony ....................... 70 3.5.4 Operations to avoid adjacent vowels ........... 71 3.5.5 Consonants in sonorous environment .......... 74 3.5.6 Assimilations ........................ 76 3.5.7 Operations involving nasals ................ 78 3.5.8 Nasal copying ........................ 83 4 Pronouns, demonstratives, quantifiers, numerals, interrogatives 87 4.1 Personal pronouns .......................... 87 4.2 Possessive pronouns and nominal possessive inflection ..... 88 4.2.1 Possessive pronouns .................... 88 4.2.2 Possessive prefixes ..................... 88 4.2.3 Obligatory possession ................... 90 4.3 Demonstratives ........................... 93 4.3.1 Proximal, distal and anaphoric deixis ........... 93 4.3.2 Demonstrative adverbs and quantifiers .......... 97 4.4 Indefinite reference ......................... 98 4.5 Quantifiers, numerals and numeral classifiers ........... 101 4.5.1 Quantification, size and degree .............. 101 4.5.2 Numerals and classifiers .................. 105 4.6 Interrogative proforms ....................... 107 5 The noun phrase 113 5.1 Noun formation and properties of lexical nouns ......... 113 5.1.1 Lexical nominalizations .................. 113 5.1.2 Compounding ........................ 114 5.1.3 Proper nouns and teknonymy ............... 119 5.1.4 The count/mass distinction ................ 120 iv Contents 5.1.5 Inherent duality ....................... 121 5.2 Nominal inflectional morphology ................. 122 5.2.1 Number ........................... 122 5.2.2 Core case markers (Group I) ................ 125 5.2.3 Further case markers (Group II) .............. 142 5.3 Relational nouns ........................... 149 5.4 The structure of the noun phrase .................. 151 5.4.1 Possessive phrases ..................... 152 5.4.2 Other modifiers: adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, demon- stratives ........................... 153 5.4.3 Relative clauses ....................... 154 5.4.4 Coordination ........................ 155 5.4.5 Combinatory possibilities ................. 156 5.4.6 Information structure inside the noun phrase ...... 157 6 Adjectives and adverbs 159 6.1 Adjectives .............................. 159 6.1.1 Kinds of adjectives ..................... 159 6.1.2 Color terms ......................... 161 6.1.3 Adjectives in attributive and in predicative function .. 163 6.2 Comparison, equation and degree ................. 165 6.2.1 Degree ............................ 165 6.2.2 The equative ......................... 165 6.2.3 The comparative and the superlative ........... 167 6.3 Adverbs ................................ 168 6.3.1 Manner adverbs derived by the comitative =nuŋ ..... 169 6.3.2 Temporal adverbs ...................... 170 6.3.3 Adverbs based on obligatorily possessed nouns ..... 171 6.3.4 Adverbs derived by -lik ~ -lek ............... 172 6.3.5 Marginal derivations .................... 173 6.3.6 Non-derived adverbs .................... 174 6.4 Reduplication, triplication and ideophones ............ 174 6.4.1 Reduplication in adjectives ................. 175 6.4.2 Reduplication in adverbs .................. 177 6.4.3 Triplication ......................... 179 6.4.4 Ideophonic adverbs ..................... 181 7 The geomorphic orientation system 183 7.1 Introduction ............................. 183 v Contents 7.2 Demonstratives ........................... 187 7.3 Adverbs ................................ 193 7.4 Postpositions ............................. 200 7.5 Motion verbs ............................. 202 8 Verbal inflection 205 8.1 Stem formation ........................... 205 8.1.1 Stem types .......................... 208 8.1.2 Morphophonological behavior of stems ......... 215 8.2 Person, number and syntactic role marking ............ 216 8.3 Polarity ................................ 227 8.4 Tense and aspect marking ..................... 230 8.4.1 The nonpast ......................... 230 8.4.2 The past tenses ....................... 233 8.4.3 The progressive ....................... 239 8.4.4 The periphrastic continuative ............... 241 8.4.5 The transitive completive ................. 242 8.4.6 Tense/aspect paradigm tables ............... 243 8.5 Mood ................................. 243 8.5.1 The subjunctive ....................... 250 8.5.2 The Optative ........................ 254 8.5.3 The Imperative ....................... 254 8.6 Periphrastic honorific inflection .................. 256 8.7 The inflection of the copulas .................... 258 8.7.1 The identificational copula (with a zero infinitive) .... 258 8.7.2 The existential verb wama ................. 262 8.8 Further markers ........................... 265 8.9 Non-finite forms ........................... 267 9 Noun-verb predicates 269 9.1 Simple noun-verb predicates .................... 269 9.2 Experiencer-as-possessor constructions .............. 274 9.2.1 Subframes of argument realization ............ 276 9.2.2 Semantic properties .................... 280 9.2.3 Morphosyntactic properties ................ 283 10 Complex predication 289 10.1 Formal properties .......................... 290 vi Contents 10.2 The functions of the V2s ...................... 296 10.2.1 The V2 -piʔ (benefactive, affected