Cover not available

In:Lost in Change: Causes and processes in the loss of grammatical elements and constructions
Edited by Svenja Kranich and Tine Breban
[Studies in Language Companion Series 218] 2021
► pp. 333–362

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Loss of object indexation in verbal paradigms of Koĩc (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal)

Loss of object indexation in verbal paradigms of Koĩc (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal)

Editor
 | Karl-Franzens Universität, Graz
Published online: 16 June 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.218.11bor
Abstract
Koĩc ([kɔĩts]; English: Sunwar) is a Kiranti language spoken in eastern Nepal. In the past, Koĩc had a biactantial indexing system with transitive verbs indexing subjects and objects, a typical feature of Kiranti languages. In modern Koĩc, transitive verbs are not indexed for object. A comparison shows connections in form and function between old and new argument indexes. Now Koĩc has a system of different conjugations, and for the majority of verbs membership in a conjugation is lexically fixed.
Most speakers of Koĩc are bilingual with Nepali (Indo-Iranian), and the longstanding Nepali influence will be discussed as one possible cause of language change.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Overview
    • 1.2Koĩc, a Kiranti language
    • 1.3The sociolinguistic situation
    • 1.4Literature about Koĩc person and number indexes
  • 2.Person and number indexes in Koĩc
    • 2.1Biactantial indexing
    • 2.2Subject and object indexes (Genetti 1988)
    • 2.3Subject indexing in modern Koĩc (Borchers 2008a)
    • 2.4The former and the current system of indexing arguments
  • 3.Person and number indexes - Additional data
    • 3.1 Konow (1909), Bieri & Schulze (1973) and Rapacha (2005)
    • 3.2Linguistic Survey of India (Konow 1909)
    • 3.3Subject and object indexes (Bieri & Schulze 1973)
    • 3.4Subject indexing in modern Koĩc (Rapacha 2005)
    • 3.5More data – Better explanations?
  • 4.Loss of morphology – Language change
  • 5.Summary
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (29)
References
Bieri, Dora, Schulze, Marlene & Hale, Austin. 1973. An approach to Sunwar discourse. In Clause, Sentence, and Discourse Patterns in Selected Languages of Nepal, Austin Hale (ed.), 433–462. Norman OK: Summer Institute of the University of Oklahoma.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borchers, Dörte. 2008a. A Grammar of Sunwar. Descriptive Grammar, Paradigms, Texts and Glossary [Languages of the greater Himalayan region 5.7]. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008b. Surelgāũko surelbhāṣā (The Surel language in the village of Suri). Sirmī 7 (6): 63.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Central Bureau of Statistics. 2012. National Population and Housing Census 2011. Kathmandu: Government of Nepal.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities. 2011. 48th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India (July 2010 to June 2011). Allahabad: Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India. <http://nclm.nic.in/shared/linkimages/nclm48threport.pdf> (14 April 2017).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 2011. “Optional” “ergativity” in Tibeto-Burman languages. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 34 (2): 9–20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Creolization in the divergence of the Tibeto-Burman languages. In Trans-Himalayan Linguistics. Historical and Descriptive Linguistics of the Himalayan Area [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 266], Thomas Owen-Smith & Nathan Hill (eds), 41–68. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Driem, George. 1991. Bahing and the Proto-Kiranti verb. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies LIV(2): 336–356. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Egli, Werner M. 1999. Bier für die Ahnen. Erbrecht, Tausch und Ritual bei den Sunuwar Ostnepals. Frankfurt: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation (IKO).
Genetti, Carol. 1988. Notes on the structure of the Sunwari transitive verb. Linguistics in the Tibeto-Burman Area 11 (2): 62–92.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hodgson, Brian Houghton. 1858. Comparative vocabulary of the languages of the broken Tribes of Nepál. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal XXVII: 393–456.
Jacques, Guillaume, Lahaussois, Aimée, Michailovsky, Boyd & Bahadur Rai, Dhan. 2012. An overview of Khaling verbal morphology. Language and Linguistics 13(6): 1095–1170. <[URL]> (3 October 2019).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2005. Language Contact and Grammatical Change [Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact]. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konow, Stan. 1909. Sunwār or Sunuwār. In Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III: Tibeto-Burman Family, Part I: General Introduction, Specimens of the Tibetan Dialects, the Himalayan Dialects, and the North Assam Group, George Abraham Grierson (ed.), 198–205. Calcutta (Kolkata): Superintendent of Government Printing, India. <[URL]> (18 March 2019).
Kusters, Wouter. 2003. Linguistic Complexity. The Influence of Social Change on Verbal Inflection. Utrecht: LOT. <[URL]> (12 October 2019).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matras, Yaron. 2009. Language Contact [Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics]. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michailovsky, Boyd. 1975. Notes on the Kiranti verb (East Nepal). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area II (2): 183–218.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1988. La Langue Hayu. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Hayu. In The Sino-Tibetan Languages [Routledge Language Family Series], Graham Thurgood & Randy J. LaPolla (eds), 518–532. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. Kiranti Languages. In The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2 edn. [Routledge Language Family Series], Randy LaPolla & Graham Thurgood (eds.), 646–679. Oxford & New York: Routledge. halshs-01705023. <[URL]> (19 August 2019).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rapacha, Lal. 1996. Sunwar Language. A Sociolinguistic Profile. MA thesis, Central Department of English, Kirtipur.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. A Descriptive Grammar of Kirānti-Kõits. PhD dissertation. Jawaharlal Nehru University.
. 2009. Vanishing Ethnicity, Cultures and Languages of Nepal. Kathmandu: Institute of Kirantology.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. Kirā̃nti-Kõits (Sunuwār/Mukhiyā) Pahicān tathā bhāṣā-sāhityako aitihāsik sarbhekṣaṇ (A Historical Survey of Kiranti-Koits (Sunwar/Mukhiya) Identity and Language-Literature). Kathmandu: Kirā̃nti vijñān adhyayan sãsthān.
Shneiderman, Sara & Turin, Mark. 2006. Seeking the tribe. Ethno-politics in Darjeeling and Sikkim. Himal Southasian, March-April 2006: 54–58. <[URL]> (19 August 2019).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 1994. Language Contact and Change. Spanish in Los Angeles [Oxford Studies in Language Contact]. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Thomason, Sara G. & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Coetsem, Frans. 2000. A General and Unified Theory of the Language Transmission Process in Language Contact [Monographien zur Sprachwissenschaft 19]. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Without Author. 2011. The Word of God. The Holy Bible Sunuwar. Kathmandu: Wycliffe Inc. & Ekta Books Distributors. <[URL]> (29 September 2019).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue