UC Santa Barbara Himalayan Linguistics Title Notes on Kusunda Grammar: A language isolate of Nepal Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/83v8d1wv Journal Himalayan Linguistics, 0(0) Author Watters, David Publication Date 2006-07-15 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Notes on Kusunda Grammar* A Language Isolate of Nepal David E. Watters Tribhuvan University, SIL International With the participation of: Yogendra P. Yadava, Madhav P. Pokharel, Balaram Prasain Himalayan Linguistics Archive 3 * First edition published 2005 by the National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities, Kathmandu, Nepal; ISBN 99946-35-35-2 paperback. (For limited distribution within Nepal only) Himalayan Linguistics Archive 3. (2006) 1-182. © 2006 All rights reserved. Table Of Contents Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................................5 List of abbreviations.......................................................................................................7 1. Introduction.........................................................................................................9 1.1. The current status of Kusunda.........................................................................9 1.2. Later research on Kusunda ............................................................................10 1.3. Recent contact with Kusunda speakers ..........................................................11 1.4. Context leading to the current study...............................................................12 2. A socio-linguistic and anthropological profile.............................................13 2.1. Vocabulary.....................................................................................................13 2.2. Tibeto-Burman and other borrowings............................................................15 2.3 Marriage and kinship vocabulary...................................................................16 2.4. Origin myths..................................................................................................17 2.5. Religion .........................................................................................................18 2.5.1. Birth and death.........................................................................................18 2.5.2. Illness ......................................................................................................19 3. Linguistic type ..................................................................................................20 4. Phonology ..........................................................................................................22 4.1. Harmony........................................................................................................22 4.2. Contraction ....................................................................................................23 4.3. Vowels...........................................................................................................24 4.3.1. Vowels and uvular consonants.................................................................25 4.3.2. Pharyngealization of vowels and lowering of pitch ..................................26 4.3.3. Vocalic sequences....................................................................................27 4.3.4. Nasalization .............................................................................................30 4.4. Consonants....................................................................................................31 4.4.1. The labial series .......................................................................................32 4.4.2. The apical series.......................................................................................34 4.4.3. The laminal series ....................................................................................37 4.4.4. The velar and uvular series.......................................................................37 4.4.5. Liquids, flaps, glides, etc. .........................................................................43 5. Word classes......................................................................................................44 5.1. Pronouns .......................................................................................................44 5.1.1. Possessive pronouns and the genitive ......................................................45 5.1.2. Oblique forms and the accusative.............................................................47 5.1.3. Interrogative pronouns.............................................................................47 5.1.4. Demonstrative pronouns..........................................................................49 5.2. Nouns and noun morphology........................................................................49 5.2.1. Number marking......................................................................................49 5.2.2. Case marking...........................................................................................50 5.3. Locative postpositions....................................................................................56 5.4. Adjectives.......................................................................................................58 5.5. Verbs and verb morphology...........................................................................59 2 Himalayan Linguistics: Archive No. 3 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 5.5.1. Person marking in verbs ..........................................................................59 5.5.2. Number marking......................................................................................63 5.5.3. Tense-aspect-modality (TAM).................................................................66 5.5.4. Negation ..................................................................................................71 5.5.5. Imperatives...............................................................................................75 5.5.6. Prohibitives..............................................................................................78 5.5.7. Hortatives and optatives ...........................................................................79 5.6. Adverbs..........................................................................................................82 5.6.1. Adverbs of manner...................................................................................83 5.6.2. Adverbs of time........................................................................................83 5.6.3. Adverbs of location..................................................................................84 5.6.4. Adverbs of quantity..................................................................................84 6. Basic clause types..............................................................................................85 6.1. Copular constructions....................................................................................85 6.1.1. Equative clauses.......................................................................................85 6.1.2 Existential copula.....................................................................................87 6.1.3 Locational copula.....................................................................................89 6.1.4 The inchoative and the causative...............................................................90 6.2 Intransitive–transitive clauses.........................................................................93 6.2.1 Intransitive suffixing pattern 1 .................................................................94 6.2.2 Intransitive suffixing pattern 2 .................................................................94 6.2.3 Suffixing pattern 3...................................................................................95 6.2.4 Bitransitive verbs......................................................................................95 6.3 Clausal syntax................................................................................................95 7. Transitivity alternations – causatives, anti-causatives, and reflexives......97 7.1 Causative........................................................................................................97 7.1.1 Morphological causative -a......................................................................97 7.1.2 Morphological causative -da....................................................................98 7.2 Anti-causative.................................................................................................99 7.2.1 Anti-causative -q versus lexical -q..........................................................100 7.2.2 Anti-causative -t .....................................................................................101 7.2.3 Passive...................................................................................................103 7.3 Reflexive......................................................................................................104 8. Morphology of subordinate structures.........................................................106 8.1 Neutral forms...............................................................................................106 8.1.1 In Class II intransitive