From Proximate/Obviative to Number Marking: Reanalysis of Hierarchical Indexation in Rgyalrong Languages, 2019

This paper documents the inverse marking system in Brag-bar dialect of Situ Rgyalrong, a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in south-west China. It describes a case of reanalysis of proximate/obviative marking in the nonlocal domain as number marking, and uses this development as a model to account for person indexation pattern found in Kiranti languages, another subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan family which has never been in contact with Rgyalrong languages.

The question of whether verbal agreement should be reconstructed to proto-Sino-Tibetan is a very controversial issue. The bewildering diversity of this family and our poor knowledge of sound laws make comparisons across sub-branches difficult.

This article offers a description of the person agreement system of Wobzi Lavrung, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Sichuan, China. The Lavrung language is still imperfectly described, and the aim of this paper is to contribute to the documentation of one of its dialects. The analysis follows the terminology proposed in Dryer (1986), Haspelmath , Zuñiga (2006), and. We discuss the inflectional affixes, the empathy hierarchy and the different types of transitive constructions in the language. Furthermore, the system under analysis is compared to related languages such as Rgyalrong and Rta'u.

Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, Vol. 73 (2020), No. 1, pp. 81–111.

This paper discusses a typologically peculiar inverse-like construction found in the polysynthetic ergative Circassian languages of the Northwest-Caucasian family. These languages possess a cislocative verbal prefix, which, in addition to marking the spatial meaning of speaker-orientation, systematically occurs in polyvalent verbs when the object outranks the subject on the person hierarchy. The inverse like use of the cislocative in Circassian differs from the " canonical " direct-inverse system in that, first, it is fully redundant since the person-role linking is achieved by means of the person markers themselves and, second, it does not occur in the basic transitive construction, featuring instead in configurations involving an indirect object both in ditransitive and bivalent intransitive verbs. It is argued that the typologically outstanding properties of the Circassian inverse-like marking can be naturally explained by its diachronic origin.

2018

In voice and alignment typology, a categorical distinction is generally made between inverse systems on the one hand and symmetrical voice systems on the other. A major reason for distinguishing between these two types is the assumption that inverse systems are governed by a hierarchy involving grammatical, semantic, and ontological criteria, while symmetrical voice systems are based on discourse-pragmatic factors. However, the two types also have several important properties in common, in particular the fact that they have more than one nonderived transitive construction. Based on data from three native languages of South America, we show that the line between the two types is not always easy to draw, and that features of the inverse type can coexist with those of the symmetrical-voice type in the same language.

The languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar (TAP) are notable for their object agreement prefixes. Previously, this has been highlighted because this exists largely without subject agreement (a rare pattern crosslinguistically; Klamer 2014, Siewierska 2011) and the proliferation of different prefix series and the semantics they express (Fedden et al 2014, 2013, Kratochvíl 2011, inter alia). One particular feature has not raised much comment, despite its rarity and difficulties it raises for syntactic theory (Chumakina & Bond 2016): object agreement is only obligatory for a lexical class of transitive verbs. This is particularly unfortunate since classes defined in the same way are a feature of many Trans-New-Guinea (TNG) languages, the prefixing class labelled object verbs, even being reconstructed to the protolanguage (Suter 2012). They exist in a number of non-contiguous groups of families: Dani; Ok and Anim; Kainantu-Goroka and Finisterre-Huon. These languages have dealt with this uninflectability in different ways, through support verbs, that resemble auxiliaries, or free object pronouns. What they all share are cognate agreement prefixes based on the TNG pronominals (see Suter 2012 cf: Ross 2005). The TAP languages also look to have object verbs defined by prefixes that may well be derived from these same pronominals. This connection between the TNG and TAP is especially significant since the pattern is crosslinguistically rare. This implies that it is unlikely to have been caused by chance. This provides important extra evidence of TNG-TAP interconnectedness. Moreover, it is a serious question whether these lexical verb classes would likely be diffused and apply to the whole transitive verbal lexicon of TAP (conjugation classes are not likely to be recombinantly borrowed; Panov 2015, Koutsoukos 2016, or even Robbeets 2015, 2017). This may leave inheritance as the most probable explanation for why object verbs are found in both TAP and TNG. This would then add to the growing evidence for the TNG descent of TAP.

Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 2018

This paper focuses on the morphosyntax as well as the semantics of relativisation in Wobzi Khroskyabs, a Rgyalrongic language spoken in Sichuan, China. Different strategies of relativisation are presented, especially the nominalisation strategy. Wobzi Khroskyabs exhibits an innovative relativisation strategy with the genitive marker =ji, which is rarely found in other Rgyalrongic languages. Several hypotheses are put forward to account for the evolutionary pathway from genitivisation to relativisation, showing that genitive =ji probably followed an ergative pattern to enter the relativisation of core arguments.

This article proposes an idealized model of direct-inverse systems inspired by canonical morphology, against which attested systems are then evaluated in terms of their deviation from it. A language-independent definition of obviation is provided, and then applied to language families other than Algonquian. Referential hierarchies are shown not to be the only way of accounting for direct-inverse systems. Finally, the article surveys the attested origins of inverse systems and the ways in which they can be further reanalyzed, ultimately leading to their decay.

This paper discusses the use of the inverse prefix in generic 5 person marking systems in several Rgyalrong languages. While closely re-6 lated, Japhug and tshobdun differ considerably: the inverse prefix marks 7 generic A in Japhug, while it appears in the generic P form in Tshobdun. 8 We propose a historical scenario to explain how such radically different 9 systems came into being, show that our reconstruction can also explain the 10 origin of the local scenario portmanteau 1→2 and 2→1 prefixes. These 11 reconstructions allow us to establish the existence of several previously 12 unattested grammaticalization pathways. 13

Transactions of the Philological Society, 2014

In this paper, the personal agreement system of the Ngyaltsu variety of Zbu rGyalrong is described, the first such description for this rarely documented Sino-Tibetan language. The agreement pattern is characterised by a direct-inverse system, analysed in detail using the conceptual apparatus from. The system is then compared with those of three neighbouring rGyalrong languages: Eastern rGyalrong, Japhug and Tshobdun, where it is suggested, especially from the behaviour of closed-syllable stems in Eastern rGyalrong, that the person suffixes across rGyalrong are internally structured, the 1SG suffix having a particularly close relationship with the stem.

Published version: Jacques, Guillaume. 2016. Subjects, objects and relativization in Japhug. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 44:1-28.

The diachronic analysis of person indexation systems in Sino-Tibetan (Trans-Himalayan) languages is currently a topical issue. Factual errors have occasionally crept in, detracting somewhat from the quality of the linguistic discussion about these systems. Evidence from Tangut, Gyal-rongic and Kiranti is so central to the debates that it appeared useful to provide a few clarifications about their person indexation systems, adduc-ing evidence from a body of texts that has been considerably enriched in the past decade. The main points made in this paper can be summarized as follows. First, the view that personal affixes derive diachronically from pronouns is by no means as self-evident as it may seem. Second, person indexation in Tangut, the oldest Trans-Himalayan language with person in-dexation, is not optional, as has sometimes been stated in the literature. Third, person indexation in Gyalrongic and Kiranti is sensitive to grammatical relations, a finding which calls into question its analysis as marking speech act participant involvement.

2012

""This article investigates the synchronic status and diachronic origin of an incorporation-like construction in Japhug, a polysynthetic Sino-Tibetan language of Eastern Tibet. This construction constitutes the intermediate stage on a path of development from denominal derivation to incorporation, the opposite of the usual path of development from incorporation to denominal derivation. Additionally, this article shows that similar phenomena exist in other languages, and that coalescence between noun and verb is not the only attested diachronic origin of incorporating verbs.""

hu=V-awas-ki… 1=V-1p-p/2 *! * ***** hu=V-ki…-awas 1=V-p/2-1p

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages, 2019

North American languages exhibit a variety of agreement systems, including nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive, hierarchical/direct-inverse, and agent-patient patterns, as well as phenomena such as object agreement, inverse number, and omnivorous number. This chapter examines the patterning and exponence of agreement in these languages, including the φ-features tracked by agreement, types of agreement systems and how these systems reflect grammatical alignment, debates about the syntactic status of agreement markers (as genuine agreement or clitics), and the points at which agreement can occur in the clausal spine.

This article attempts to lay the conceptual foundations of voice phenomena, ranging from the familiar active/passive contrast to the ergative/antipassive opposition, as well as voice functions of split case-marking in both transitive and intransitive constructions. We advance the claim that major voice phenomena have conceptual bases rooted in the human cognition of actions, which have evolutionary properties pertaining to their origin, development, and termination. The notion of transitivity is integral to the study of voice as evident from the fact that the so-called transitivity parameters identified by Hopper and Thompson (1980) and others are in the main concerned with these evolutionary properties of an action, and also from the fact that the phenomena dealt with in these studies are mostly voice phenomena. A number of claims made in past studies of voice and in some widely-received definitions of voice are shown to be false. In particular, voice oppositions are typically based on conceptual — as opposed to pragmati— meanings, may not alter argument alignment patterns, may not change verbal valency, and may not even trigger verbal marking. There are also voice oppositions more basic and wide-spread than the active/passive system, upon which popular definitions of voice are typically based.

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