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Perfective Stem Renovation in Khalong Tibetan* Jackson T.-S

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Perfective Stem Renovation in Khalong Tibetan* Jackson T.-S Perfective stem renovation in Khalong Tibetan* Jackson T.-S. Sun 1. Introduction This paper presents preliminary findings on an unusual area of inflectional verb morphology in Khalong, a previously undescribed fonn of Tibetan spoken in a remote comer of Sichuan, as part of our continued efforts to investigate and document the minor Tibetan dialects distributed in that province (J. T.-S. Sun 2003a, 2003b, 2006; Lin 2002; J. T.-S. Sun and Lin 2002). Khalong Tibetan is spoken along a section of the DUke (WT <rdo.khog.chu>') River from Ela Village of Gangmiida Township to KhaI6ng (kha101) <kha.1ong» Village of Wuyl (V:;>XJl) Township, in cen­ tral Rangtang County of Aba Prefecture in Sichuan. For lack of a better tenn, I shall refer to this Tibetan dialect as Khalong after the name of the village my consultant comes from. There is widespread bilingualism at Khalong Village, where in addition to this fonn of Tibetan people also speak as a second language the Dashfgou (turk:;>?) variety of Showu rGyal­ rong,2 the major indigenous tongue of Wuyi and ShiIi townships in Rang­ tang County. The position of Khalong among modem Tibetan dialects is not yet com­ pletely clear. Despite the general resemblance between Khalong and Amdo, the dominant Tibetan dialect in Aba Prefecture, Khalong preserves certain archaic phonological features not found in any known variety of Amdo, such as the distinction between the two liquid consonants at both prefixal (e.g. l1)a <lnga> 'five' vs. rI)a <rnga> 'drum') and coda positions (e.g. 11)kha1ma <mkhal.ma> 'kidney' vs. 11)khar <mkhar> 'stone watch tower'), and is moreover quite difficult to understand for Amdo speakers.3 The aberrance of Khalong can be attributed in part to a Showu rGyalrong substratum, as evidenced by many Khalong tenns for native plants, ani­ mals, and certain verbs with highly specific meanings4 which are unrelated to Tibetan but clearly akin to the corresponding Showu rGyalrong words. For example: 324 Jackson T.-S. Sun (1) Khalong Showu5 Written Tibetan yoze 'fly (insect)' yom <sbrang.bu> p~ku 'owl' p;5ku <rug.pa> rtili 'weasel' rtilik <sre.mong> qbale 'thrush (bird)' qbf/le <'joJ.mo> qa 'wheat' qii <gro> rale 'turnip tuber' role <nyung.ma> sa-Kloq 'badger'6 Klo% 'to dig' <brum.pa> Another noteworthy Khalong deviation from the typical Amdo phonological system is the distribution of the high front vowels i and e. Khalong shares with Amdo Tibetan important sound changes which on the one hand altered the quality of Old Tibetan? *-i- rhymes, turning the vowel in most such rhymes to ;} and, on the other hand, merged the Old Tibetan rhymes *-ek- <eg> with *-ak- <ag> (into Khalong ;}x) and *-el) <eng> with *-BlJ < ang> (into Khalong ;}l). Contrary to what one might expect, however, the inventory of Khalong phonology still contains rhymes the origins of which should have been obliterated by the above-mentioned sound changes, including -ex, -el), and all kinds of closed rhymes with the modem vowel -i-. Without exception, all such "mysterious" rhymes result from ablaut in the formation of perfective verb stems. This morphologi­ cally-based phonological aberrance, therefore, requires an explanation. In what follows, I will show that this important characteristic of the Khalong dialect may again be due to rGyalrong substratal influence. Specifically, I will argue that the phenomenon at hand, namely innovative ablaut utilized to form perfective verb stems, represents a fascinating ex­ ample of contact-induced morphological change inspired by Showu rGyal­ rong ablaut of similar vowel grades and function. The remainder of the introductory section provides a brief summary of synchronic Khalong phonology (§ 1.1) and a summary of Khalong verb­ stem alternations (§ 1.2). Section 2 is devoted to examining the origins of modem Khalong imperfective stems, which more often than not came from erstwhile perfective stems. The innovative ablaut patterns which created secondary perfective stems out of the new imperfective stems are intro­ duced in Section 3, followed by a discussion of the extent of their applica­ bility beyond the requirements of remedial morphology in Section 4. In the ensuing section, I set forth two probable affinities between modification by ablaut in the formation of the Khalong perfective stem and the functionally parallel second stem in Showu rGyalrong. The concluding section wraps up the findings of this study and supplies further exemplification of probable Perfective stem renovation in Khalong Tibetan 325 Qiangic morphological features imported into other Tibetan dialects in close contact with Qiangic languages. 1.1. Phonological summary 1 2 3 The structure of the Khalong syllable in Khalong is C C VC • The seg­ mental inventory includes fifty-seven consonants and six vowels. The (ini­ tial) consonantal phonemes are: (2) P t is t~ c !f k q rph nth ~h nCh n!f' Dkh h h ph t ish t~h C !f' kh qh b d d~ J cB 9 nb na ndz na~ ry DeB ng f s ~ f X X V z 3 y m n J1 1] m n 0 0 0 0 J1 1] r 1 01 j Nine consonants (p, m, t, n, x, I), ,t, r, 1) may occur at the syllable-coda position. Notably, the uvular coda ,t contrasts with the velar coda x after the vowel ~. There are six vowel phonemes (a, i, u, e, 0, ~). Khalong phonotactics permits a good many two-member complex onsets, but no vowel clusters at all. 8 No distinctive use is made of such suprasegmental features as vowel length, nasalization, or tone. Pitch modulations play no role even at the allophonic level. The disyllabic words kava 'pillar' and 3a3i 'child', for 5 3 5 example, are pronounced [k.r v.r ] and [J.r Y3] respectively, with high pitch on both syllables, although the final syllables are slightly more stressed. With affixed words, the stress falls predictably on the stem.9 1.2. Verb-stem alternations The majority of Khalong verbs exhibit stem alternations. A maximum of three stems is formally distinguished: imperfective [IMPFV], perfective [PFV], and imperative [IMP]. For verbs that show two distinct stems, the 326 Jackson T.-S. Sun non-imperfective stem may serve perfective, imperative, or both perfective and imperative functions. These distributional possibilities are illustrated below: (3) Three-stem verbs IMPFV PFV IMP Tjap vJep Tjop 'to beat' fkol fkel rkol 'to boil (liquid)' (4) Two-stem verbs a. IMPFVlIMP PFV Dtbu Dtbj 'to drink' nbot Dbet 'to call' b. IMPFV/PFV IMP le ci 'to do; to make' c. IMPFV PFV/IMP J1u J1e 'to buy' 1)~ 1)1 'to weep' 2. The imperfective stem A number of alternating Khalong verbs have retained the original imper­ fective stems, including 'to weep' and 'to butcher': (5) a. 'to weep' IMPFV 1)~ (WT [lMPFV] <ngu» PFV/IMP 1)i(WT [PFVIIMP] <ngus» b. 'to butcher' IMPFV fJa (WT [IMPFV] <bsha '» PFV fJe (WT [PFV] <bshas» IMP Jew However, direct preservation of the original imperfective stems is quite uncommon. As has also been noted elsewhere among modem Tibetan dia­ lects (Jaschke 1954; Chang and Chang 1982; Qu 1985: 14), the spoken Khalong imperfective stems frequently trace back to Written Tibetan per­ fective stems. Examples of Khalong imperfective stems deriving from per­ fective stems are: Perfective stem renovation in Khalong Tibetan 327 (6) a. 'to laugh' IMPFV vgat (WT [PFV] < bgad» PFV vget (innovated) IMP rgot (WT [IMP] <dgod» b. 'to break [VT] (sth. stiff)' IMPFV ptfgz (WT [PFV] <beag» PFV ptfiZ (innovated) IMP tjboz (WT [IMP] <ehog» c. 'to break [VT] (sth. soft and pliable)' IMPFV ptfat(WT [PFV] <bead» PFV ptfet (innovated) IMP tjbot (WT [IMP] <ehod>) The following sets exemplify the other less common sources ofKhalong imperfective stems, namely Written Tibetan future (7) and imperative (8) stems: (7) a. 'to string (beads)' IMPFV VJg (WT [FUT] < brgyu>) PFV vJi (WT [PFV] < brgyus» IMP TJi (WT [IMP] <rgyus» b. 'to boil (solid food)' IMPFV ptsu (WT [PUT] <btso» PFV ptse (WT [PFV] <btsos» IMP tshe (WT [IMP] <tshos>) (8) a. 'to drive (cattle)' IMPFV tet(WT [IMP] <ded»l1 PFV tit (innovated) IMP tet(WT [IMP] <ded» b. 'to scratch (to stop an itch)' IMPFV pt~hgX (WT [IMP] <phrug>)12 PFV pt~hix (innovated) IMP f§h gX (innovated) In a number of cases, the new imperfective stems are hybrid forms based on Written Tibetan imperfective and perfective stems, as shown by: T 328 Jackson T.-S. Sun (9) 'to accumulate' IMPFV [sox (mixture of WT [IMPFV] <gsog> and [PFV] < bsags>) PFV [sex (innovated) IMP soX (WT [IMP] <sog» The imperfective of 'to accumulate' [soX goes back to a proto-form with the initial of the WT perfective stem (bs-) and the rhyme of the WT imperfective stem (- og). Similar examples of compromise forms are: (10) a. 'to dredge' IMPFV xf~l) (mixture of WT [IMPFV] <gshong> and [PFV] < bshangs>) PFV xfiI) (innovated) IMP xfol) (innovated) b. 'to reach for sth.' IMPFV rfiap (mixture ofWT [IMPFV] <snyob> and [PFV] <bsnyabs» PFV rfiep (innovated) IMP rfiop (WT [IMP] <snyobs» In the Lhasa dialect, for example, the usurpation of the original imper­ fective stem by the future or perfective stems normally resulted in merger in favor of the perfective stem. Remarkably, Khalong generally preserved the perfectivity distinction in the verb stems by applying remedial mor­ phology, the subject ofthe ensuing section. 3. The new perfective stem For Khalong verbs that lost the original imperfective stems through stem usurpation, secondary perfective stems were created out of the new imper­ fective stems by means of ablaut. Taking for example the verb 'to laugh' again, ablaut turned the stem vowel a of the new imperfective stem vgat [IMPFV] into e, yielding vget [PFV].
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