UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics Title Pronouns and Pronominal Morphology in Tibeto-Burman Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00h8574v Author Bauman, James Publication Date 1975 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Pronouns and Pronominal Morphology in Tibe+o-Burman By- James John Bauman B .S . (Michigan S+a+e U n iv e rs ity ) 1964 C .P h il. (U n iv e rs ity of C a lifo rn ia ) 1973 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Li nguis+i cs in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Approved: Committee in Charge DEGREE CONFERRED DECEMBER 20, 1975 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my parents Robert and Julia Bauman wiio awaited this accomplishment with, patience, understanding, and love. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE My thanks and appreciation go out to the members of my committee, Jim Matisoff, Shirley Silver, and Karl Zimmer, for the painful task of reading previous drafts of this work, often lacking in depth, organiza­ tion, and style, much of which they kindly supplied. I am, of course, indebted in more significant ways to the people who, as my teachers, contributed so much to the background necessary for successfully realizing this work. Jim Matisoff stands in the high­ est rank. His enthusiasm for Southeast Asia and his skill in discussing it, generated in me a similar enthusiasm at, luckily, an impressionable point of my career. His broad knowledge of the field has continued to impress on me the need to tread carefully that same ground. I stand in equal debt to Shirley Silver whose strong convictions about what constitutes competent scholarship have sharpened my thought considerably, by paring away at theoretical and methodological incon­ sistencies. I am grateful also to Mary Haas for communicating much of what I know of historical method in linguis­ tics, to Paul Kay whose innovative approach to lexical semantics provided the necessary stimulus to rethink the issue of pronominal categories in Tibeto-Burman, iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and to Johanna Nichols for a very exciting and timely seminar on ergativity which clarified much of my thinking on this important issue. It is impossible to stress too much the invalu­ able support I have received from fellow students and friends at Berkeley. The membership of our local group on Southeast Asia and the Pacific has collective­ ly served many times as a staging area for my trial balloons. The core of this group consists of Graham Thurgood, Marc Okrand, Bill Foley, Martine Mazaudon, Boyd Michailovsky, Peggy Abadie, Liao Chiu-chung, and Ed Hillard, many of whom are individually responsible for increasing the precision of this work in signifi­ cant ways. From this group Graham Thurgood and Marc Okrand stand out especially for their above-and-beyond- the-call contributions. Others at Berkeley who are outside of Southeast Asian studies but who have never­ theless read all or part of this work or spent time discussing different points include John Crothers, Annie Hawkinson, and especially Ronya Javkin whose hand is on every page. For practical, real world help Mrs. Larue Seeg- miller and Mrs. Eileen Odegaard of the Linguistics Department staff at Berkeley have been invaluable. Every transition of my graduate program has been made nearly painless by their intercession and encourage­ ment. I am pleased to acknowledge also the financial iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. support that I realized during the last four years of my tenure as a student, from a pre doctoral trainee ship with the Institute .of Human Learning at Berkeley, under the original sponsorship of Susan Ervin-Tripp. My affiliation with the Institute has "been of extreme value in shaping my conception of linguistics as a social science, from which I expect to benefit for the remainder of my career. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface iii Table of Consents vi List of Figures xii Introduction xv Orthographic Standardization xvii Abbreviations and Conventions xix Chapter 1: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives 1 1.0. Introduction 1 1.1. Morpho-Syntactic Stereotype of TB 3 1.1.1. Divergence from the Stereotype: The Pronominalized Languages 6 1.1.2. Accounting for Pronominalization: Outside Sources vs. Internal Development 9 1.2. Linguistic' Areas 13 1.3* Linguistic Substrata 15 1.3.1* l&e Case of Rumanian 18 1.3.2. The Case of Armenian 20 1.4. Morphological Borrowing 21 Chapter 2: A History and Typology'of Tibeto- Burman Pronominal Verb Morphology 29 2.0. Introduction 29 2.1. History of Thought Regarding Pronominalization 29 2.1.1. Brian K. Hodgson 30 2.1.11. Classification of Tibeto-Burman 31 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page 2.1.12. The Turanian Hypothesis 35 2.1.121. General Turanian Characteristics 36 2.1.122. Pronominal Characteri stics of Turanian 40 2.1.2. The linguistic Survey of India 42 2.1.21. Konow’s Assessment of T3 43 2.1.22. The Formulation of the Munda Hypothesis 47 2.1.3. Morphological Borrowing from Indo-European 48 2.1.4. Hypothesis of Native Origin 50 2.2. An Evaluation of the Ivlunda Substratum Hypothesis 52 2.2.1. The Munda Pronominal System 53 2.2.2. Comparison of Bailing and Santali 54 2.2.21. Independent Pronouns 55 2.2.22. Intransitive Verb Affixes 59 2.2.23. Transitive Verb Affixes 62 2.2.3. Munda and the Proto—Austroasiatic Pronominal System 66 2-3. Typological Evidence for the Nativeness Hypothesis 69 2.3.1. Geographic Distribution of Pronominalization 69 2.3.2. Aims of the Comparison 75 2.3.3* Typology of Pronominal Verb Affixes 78 2.3.31. Transitive Verb Affixes 79 2.3.32. The Reflexive Affix Category 82 2.3.33. Affixation Patterns 82 vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page 2.3.34. Tense/Aspect/Mood Concord 83 2.3.35* Negative Concord 84 2.3.4. Distribution and Assessment of Affix Types 85 2.3.41. Occurrence of Tense/Aspect Concord 85 2.3.42. Co-occurrence of Transitive with. Intransitive Paradigms 87 2.3.421. Parallels Between Lushei and Eachin 88 2.3.422. Parallels Between Tiddim and Eachin 90 2.3.423. Morphological links Between Eachin and Euki-Chin 91 2.3.424. Morphological Links Between Eachin and Other Pronominal- ized Languages 91 2.3.43. Occurrence of Reflexive Affixes 94 2.3.44. Prefixation versus Suffixation 95 2.3.5. Pronominal Categories 99 2.3.51. Correlations Between Categories 99 2.3.52. Proto-Categories 102 Chapter 3s Independent Pronouns: Categories and Roots 105 3.0. Introduction 105 3.0.1. Paradigmatic Change 106 3.0.2. Pronominal Diversity in TB Subgroups 109 3.1. Overview of TB Independent Pronouns 112 3.1.1. Eeconstruetible Forms: *na and *naq 112 3.1.2. Alternation in Pronominal Forms 114 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page 3.1.21. Case Related Alternation 115 3.1.22. Humber Related Alternation 117 3.1.23. Affix Related Alternation 120 3.2. Pronominal Roots in the Himalayan Languages 123 3.2.1. Eastern Himalayish 123 3.2.21. Singular Forms: #gaqa and #kana 125 3.2.22. Non-Singular 1st Person Forms: The Inclusive/Exclusive Di st inct i on 129 3.2.221. Nasal Initial Roots 130 - 3.2.222. Inclusive #i and Exclusive ^ 131 3.2.223. Ihe Exclusive Roots #ka, #ku, and #u and the Question olTPTB Pronominal Categories 133 3.2.23. 2nd Person Morphemes 137 3.2.231. #i as a 2nd Person Marker 137 3.2.232. Plural Marker #i 140 3.2.2. Tihetan 142 3.2.3. Other Himalayish Languages: #gyaqa and #kyana 146 3.3. Pronominal Roots in the Languages of the Assam Hills 151 3.3.1. Overview 154 3.3.2. 2nd Person Forms 156 3.3.21. Forms in no or n u 156 3.3.22. Suppletive Plurals and Forms in ni 157 3.3.3. 1st Person Forms 160 3.3.31. 3rd Person Influences 162 ix Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page 3.3*32. Non-Singular Porms 165 3.4. Appraisal of the Disyllabic Pronoun Hypothesis 167 3.4.1. Summary of the Argument 167 3.4.2. Etymology of the Stop Initial Pronominal Elements 171 3.4-.21. Historical Priority of the Nasal Initial Soots 172 3.4.22. The Genitive Marker #kya 174 3.4.23. Reanalysis of a PTB Genitive Construction 176 3.4.24. Stop Initial Plural Stems 180 3.5. Summary 182 3.5.1. System of PTB Pronominal Roots 182 3.5.2. Predictive Capacity of the System: Other TB Subgroups 184 Chapter 4: Affixal Pronominal Roots and Patterns of Affixation 189 4.0. Introduction 189 4.1. Intransitive Verb Affixes 191 4.1.1. The Prototype of the Intransitive Verb Paradigms 191 4.1.2. 1st Person Singular Porms 196 4.1.3. Dual Markers 197 4.1.4. Plural Markers 199 4.1.5. The Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction 200 4.1.6. The Morpheme #te 203 4.1.7. 2nd Person Porms 206 4.1.8. Homonhony Avoidance: Systemic Stability 208 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.