VERBAL MORPHOLOGY OF AMDO TIBETAN by ZOE TRIBUR A DISSERTATION Presented to the LinguistiCs Department and the Graduate SChool of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2019 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Zoe Tribur Title: Verbal Morphology in Amdo Tibetan This dissertation has been aCCepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the LinguistiCs Department by: SCott DeLancey Chairperson Spike Gildea Core Member EriC Pederson Core Member Zhuo Jing-SChmidt Institutional Representative and Janet Woodruff-Borden ViCe Provost and Dean of the Graduate SChool Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate SChool. Degree awarded September, 2019 ii © 2019 Zoe Tribur iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Zoe Tribur Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics September 2019 Title: Verbal Morphology of Amdo Tibetan This dissertation describes the functional and structural properties of the Amdo Tibetan verb system. Amdo Tibetan (Tibetic, Trans-Himalayan) is a verb-final language, characterized by an elaborate system of post-verbal morphology that are limited to finite clauses and which encode information about the nature of the assertion. Aside from imperative mood, which is expressed by a different series of constructions, the finite verb constructions of Amdo Tibetan form a morphological paradigm expressing functions associated with the semantic domains of tense, aspect, (epistemic) modality, evidentiality and egophoricity. The data included in this study comes from three kinds of sources. The majority of examples are from my own field recordings, which include elicitations as well as spontaneous speech. I also make use of data from other linguistic publications, including two second language textbooks. My own data as well as these other sources reflect a high degree of dialectal (and register) variation which is characteristic of Amdo Tibetan. As will be apparent, my data shows a diversity of phonologies, morphosyntax, lexical items and even some functional categories. Consequently, this dissertation also serves as a cross-dialectal comparative study. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Zoe Tribur GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of Colorado, Boulder DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Linguistics, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Chinese, 2005, University of Colorado AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Typology, Historical Syntax, Morphosyntax, Language Revitalization, Language Documentation, Trans-Himalayan Languages, Tibetan PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Linguistics and American English Institute, University of Oregon, Fall 2012-Spring 2015, Fall 2016-Fall 2018 Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow, Smithsonian Institution, Center for Folklike and Cultural Heritage, Tibet Project, Summer 2015-Summer 2016 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research, Small Projects Grant: “Place- based Oral Traditions of sGrog chen gsum mdo, a nomad Tibetan Community in mGo log Prefecture”. 2016. Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research, Small Projects Grant: “Oral Traditions of Minyong Glacier and Melli Snow Mountain in a Farming Tibetan Community in Dechen County”. 2016. Foreign Languages and Area Studies Fellow (Uyghur), Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Summer 2011 v For my mother and sister. For Lise, who inspired me. For Weiming, who put up with me. For Dbyang.grub, who encouraged me. For Dad. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. BACKGROUND ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Overview of Dissertation ........................................................................ 1 1.2 On ‘Sino-Tibetan’, ‘Tibeto-Burman’, and ‘Trans-Himalayan’ .............. 3 1.3 Relationship Between Amdo Tibetan and Other Varieties of Tibetan ... 8 1.3.1 Tibetic Versus Tibetan ........................................................................ 9 1.3.2 ‘Dialect’ Versus ‘Language’ ............................................................. 16 1.3.3 Linguistic Data Considered in This Study ........................................ 21 1.3.4 Sources of Data ................................................................................. 21 1.3.5 Dialects Examined ............................................................................ 22 1.4 Geography of A.mdo ............................................................................ 28 1.4.1 Languages of A.mdo ......................................................................... 33 1.5 Number of Speakers and Language Vitality ......................................... 38 1.5.1 Indicators of Vitality ......................................................................... 39 1.6 Language Attitudes ............................................................................... 43 1.7 Standardization and the Loss of Regional Varieties ............................. 47 1.8 Orthography, Transliteration Conventions and Transcriptions ............ 48 1.8.1 Written Tibetan ................................................................................. 49 1.8.2 Sources of Classical Literary Tibetan and Written Tibetan .............. 55 1.9 Methods of Data Collection .................................................................. 57 vii Chapter Page II. TYPOLOGICAL OVERVIEW ........................................................................ 60 2.1 Phonology ............................................................................................. 60 2.2 Morphology ........................................................................................... 66 2.3 Syntax ................................................................................................... 70 2.4 The Case System ................................................................................... 74 2.4.1 Case Morphology .............................................................................. 75 2.4.2 Isomorphic Case-Marking ................................................................ 79 2.4.3 Distributional Patterns of Ergative and Dative Case ........................ 85 2.4.4 Optional Dative Marking .................................................................. 91 III. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................. 94 3.1 Construction Grammar as a Usage-Based Theory ................................ 95 3.1.1 On the Appropriateness of CxG for Amdo Tibetan ........................ 101 3.2 Terminology ........................................................................................ 104 IV. THEORETICAL ISSUES SPECIFIC TO TIBETIC AND RELATED LANGUAGES .................................................................................................... 110 4.1 Conjunct/Disjunct ............................................................................... 116 4.2 Evidentiality ........................................................................................ 124 4.2.1 Evidential Grammar Versus Evidential Strategy ............................ 135 4.2.2 Interaction with Other Semantic Domains ...................................... 142 4.3 Egophoricity ........................................................................................ 144 viii Chapter Page 4.3.1 Volitionality and Assertor Involvement .......................................... 149 4.3.2 Egophoric Scope in Verbal vs. Copular Clauses ............................ 153 4.3.3 Un-marked Egophoric vs. Factual and Un-Marked ........................ 155 4.4 Factuality ............................................................................................. 161 V. THE AMDO TIBETAN CLAUSE ................................................................ 165 5.1 Overview of This Chapter ................................................................... 166 5.2 Parts of Speech in Amdo Tibetan ....................................................... 167 5.2.1 A Rejection of Autonomous Syntax and Universal Parts of Speech .................................................................................................... 167 5.2.2 Structurally-Defined Parts of Speech in Amdo Tibetan ................. 169 5.3 Overview of the Clause ....................................................................... 173 5.3.1 NP Deletion ..................................................................................... 174 5.3.2 Variable NP Order .......................................................................... 177 5.3.3 Argument Structure ......................................................................... 183 5.3.4 Structural Differences Between Finite vs. Non-Finite Clauses ...... 189 5.4 Structural and Functional Properties of the Noun Nhrase .................. 191 5.4.1 Referential NPs ............................................................................... 192 5.4.2 Referential Form – Pronominal Reference and NP Deletion .......... 197 5.5 Modification of NPs ............................................................................ 202 5.5.1 Genitive Phrase Construction ......................................................... 203 5.5.2 Modifier Phrase Construction ......................................................... 213 5.5.3 Nominalized Modifier Phrase Construction ..................................