How does clusivity disappear? A historical microtypology of South-Central Trans-Himalayan

Linda Konnerth (University of Cologne)

Clusivity is phylogenetically stable: in those phylogenetic groups where we can reconstruct clusivity, the daughter languages are relatively likely to inherit the opposition (Nichols 1995; 2003; Wichmann and Holman 2009). There is also evidence that clusivity is likely to spread areally (Jacobsen 1980). Nonetheless, clusivity may also disappear. We know that a language may lose clusivity as either the inclusive merges with the exclusive, or the other way around (Bates 2018). In Austronesian languages, the generalization of the inclusive as the new 1PL is more common, at the expense of the exclusive form (Lichtenberk 2005: 280-3).

The current study offers a historical microtypological approach that zooms in on this question in one branch of the Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) language family: South-Central (SC; “Kuki-Chin”). Clusivity reconstructs to Proto-SC (DeLancey 2018). SC languages generally have “pure person” marking systems (Cysouw 2003) where EXCL=1SG but the inclusive is an entirely separate form.

Currently, we have sufficient documentation of 35 languages. Of those, 26 languages exhibit clusivity. Generally, these languages have up to three paradigms of person markers: independent pronouns and two sets of bound indexes. It is noteworthy that 9 out of 35 languages entirely lost clusivity in all person paradigms. These languages end up with either general first person forms or general 1PL forms.

Table 1 lists five clearly attested types of changes (i-v) in these 9 languages. Only in (i), the erstwhile EXCL=1SG ends up restricted to mere 1SG marking. In all other changes (ii-v), the EXCL becomes the general first person or general 1PL form. This is noteworthy as it goes against Lichtenberk's (2005) observations regarding loss of clusivity in Austronesian languages where it is generally the INCL that becomes the new 1PL as clusivity is lost. Nonetheless, the exclusive is not the salient form in the attested changes. Table 1 shows that inclusive forms (more specifically the bound indexes) undergo a variety of changes: to 1SG (iii) or 2SG (iv); to specifically first person object markers (v); and perhaps even to reflexive marking (vi), although this remains speculative.

Changes Attested in (i) INCL > 1PL (EXCL limited to SG) Ranglong (NW) (ii) INCL entirely lost Aimol (NW), Pangkhua (C), Senthang (M) (iii) INCL > 1SG Mara (M) (iv) INCL > 2SG Mizo (C) (v) INCL > 1 OBJ Falam Chin (C), Laizo (C) (vi) ?INCL > REFL Hakha Lai (C) Table 1. Changes in South-Central languages (subgroup in parentheses)

We can compare the changes in Table 1 to a number of parallel cases we find attested in languages that display clusivity, either with (some of) the same inherited forms in a subset of the paradigms, or else owing to an innovation. Preliminary results suggest that only (i) and perhaps (iii) are restricted to a single language each, which have both lost clusivity entirely, while all other changes also occur in languages, which still display clusivity. This suggests that shifting the inclusive to a new function is not the trigger for the loss of clusivity.

References

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