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Article published In: Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
Vol. 48:1 (2025) ► pp.132–161

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The Cogtse plural marker =ɲê and its evolutionary pathway

ORCiD logo with link | Trinity College Dublin
Published online: 17 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.24002.li
Abstract
This paper examines the plural marker =ɲê in Cogtse Situ, a Gyalrongic language spoken in Western Sichuan, based on data from Lin, You-Jing (林幼菁). 2016. 嘉戎语卓克基话语法标注文本 [Cogtse Rgyalrong Texts: Fully analyzed spontaneous narratives with an updated sketch grammar of the language]. Beijing: Social Sciences Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. Although the etymology of =ɲê suggests that it was originally a plural marker, its morphosyntax reveals that its hosts range beyond traditional nominals and further cover infinitives, clauses, and adverbs, indicating that =ɲê has a wider array of uses beyond simply expressing plurality in modern Cogtse. In this paper, I discuss the uses and the semantics of the marker =ɲê extend to honorific, associative, approximative, and intensificative. After describing the different functions of =ɲê, I propose an evolutionary pathway for these uses. The proposal of the pathway provides a possible explanation for the relationship between different uses of this =ɲê, and this paper fills the research gap in the study of the plural marker in Gyalrongic languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Etymology of =ɲê ‘PL’
  • 2.Number category
    • 2.1Number applied to nouns
    • 2.2Number applied to pronoun
      • 2.2.1Personal pronoun
      • 2.2.2Demonstrative pronoun
  • 3.Cogtse =ɲê
    • 3.1Uses and morphosyntax of =ɲê
    • 3.2Additive plural use of =ɲê
    • 3.3Honorific use of =ɲê
    • 3.4Associative use of =ɲê
    • 3.5Approximative use of =ɲê
    • 3.6Intensificative use of =ɲê ‘PL’
    • 3.7=ɲê ‘pl’ occurring after adverbs
  • 4.The evolutionary pathways of =ɲê ‘PL’
    • 4.1Additive plural as the original use
    • 4.2From additive plural to honorific
    • 4.3From additive plural to associative
    • 4.4From associative to approximative
    • 4.5From approximative and honorific to intensificative
      • From approximative to intensificative
      • From honoric to intensificative
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (60)
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