himalayan linguistics - UCSB Linguistics - University of California ...

(21) (a) maha-ja-ja seɦ-cyo le
female-child-child beautiful-ATT.NMZ COP
(c) i-se bɦormi lama ale
‘The young girl is beautiful.’ (T)
P.DEM-DEF person priest COP
(b) i-se ‘This man is a Buddhist bɦormi priest.’ lama (T) le-a Grunow-Hårsta: Adjectives and adjectivals in Magar
P.DEM-DEF person priest COP-PST
(22) translation moi as in des-cyo (23a), an interpretation chanɦ-a
‘This man was a Buddhist priest.’
not
(T)
possible in the Tanahu dialect. Likewise, examples
(18a), (19a) mother and (20a) fat-ATT.MNZ above, from become-PST Syangja dialect, can have the following nominal interpretations:
‘The kid (c) ‘Mother is a i-se white became one.’, fat.’ ‘The bɦormi bag is lama a new one.’, ale and ‘The young girl is a beautiful one.’ respectively.
P.DEM-DEF person priest COP
(23) (a) ‘This lenja man is a mɦorɦ-cʌ Buddhist priest.’ (T) ale
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ COP
(22) moi ‘The des-cyo young man is (a) chanɦ-a foolish (one) ~ ‘a fool.’ (S)
mother fat-ATT.MNZ become-PST
‘Mother (b) lenja became fat.’ mɦorɦ-cʌ le
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ COP
(23) (a) lenja ‘The young man mɦorɦ-cʌ is foolish.’ (T) ale
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ COP
(c) lenja mɦorɦ-mʌ=le
‘The young man is (a) foolish (one) ~ ‘a fool.’ (S)
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ=IMPF
(b) lenja ‘The young man mɦorɦ-cʌ is acting foolish.’ le
X young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ COP
(24) a-se-i ‘The young man bela-aŋ is foolish.’ (T) gwa gya-mʌ=le
3.1.2.2 R.DEM-DEF-FOC Adjectival intransitive time-LOC verbs bird red-CONT.NMZ= IMPF
As seen (c) ‘In in that (23c), lenja season, property the mɦorɦ-mʌ=le
bird concepts is red.’ are also expressed with intransitive verbs. These intransitive
verbs express young.man transient and foolish-ATT.NMZ=IMPF
less time-stable properties, as would be expected of a verbal construc-
(25) tion. This (a) is ‘The babu-ja exemplified young man in ma-marɦaŋ-mʌ=le
(24). is acting foolish.’
boy-child NEG-happy-CONT.NMZ=IMPF
(24) a-se-i ‘The little boy is bela-aŋ not happy (just gwa now).’ gya-mʌ=le
R.DEM-DEF-FOC time-LOC bird red-CONT.NMZ= IMPF
‘In (b) that moi-e season, the bird babu-ja-ke is red.’ marɦaŋ-ak-a
X Mother-ERG boy-child happy-CAUS-PST
(25) (a) Adjectival babu-ja ‘Mother verbs made inflect the ma-marɦaŋ-mʌ=le
little with boy the happy.’ full range of verbal morphology. This includes: derivational
morphology, boy-child such as the NEG-happy-CONT.NMZ=IMPF
negative (25a) and the causative (25b); subject-verb agreement (26b-g),
which has been ‘The preserved little boy in is not the happy Syangja (just dialect; now).’
(b) moi-e babu-ja-ke marɦaŋ-ak-a
Mother-ERG boy-child happy-CAUS-PST
‘Mother made the little boy happy.’
27 (21) (a) maha-ja-ja seɦ-cyo le
female-child-child beautiful-ATT.NMZ COP
‘The young girl is beautiful.’ (T)
(b) i-se bɦormi lama le-a
P.DEM-DEF person priest COP-PST
‘This man was a Buddhist priest.’ (T)
(c) i-se bɦormi lama ale
P.DEM-DEF person priest COP
‘This man is a Buddhist priest.’ (T)
(22) moi des-cyo chanɦ-a
mother fat-ATT.MNZ become-PST
‘Mother became fat.’
(23) (a) lenja mɦorɦ-cʌ ale
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ COP
‘The young man is (a) foolish (one) ~ ‘a fool.’ (S)
(b) lenja mɦorɦ-cʌ le
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ COP
‘The young man is foolish.’ (T)
(c) lenja mɦorɦ-mʌ=le
young.man foolish-ATT.NMZ=IMPF TAM markers, including the copula le, which has
come to signify ‘The imperfective young man is aspect acting (26a-c); foolish.’ and the vestigial nominalizers -mʌ (26d-e) and -o (26f),
which have become fully integrated into the finite verbal paradigm and express continuous and habitual
(24) aspects a-se-i respectively (Grunow-Hårsta bela-aŋ gwa 2009: gya-mʌ=le in press; see DeLancey in press for a discussion of
the integration R.DEM-DEF-FOC of nominalizers time-LOC into finite bird verb red-CONT.NMZ= paradigms as a general IMPF process). Other TAM markers
include ‘In the that irrealis season, (26g), the the bird optative is red.’ (26h), the imperative (26i), and the hortative (26j).
(25) (a) babu-ja ma-marɦaŋ-mʌ=le
boy-child NEG-happy-CONT.NMZ=IMPF
‘The little boy is not happy (just now).’
(b) moi-e babu-ja-ke marɦaŋ-ak-a
X
Mother-ERG boy-child happy-CAUS-PST
‘Mother made the little boy happy.’
27 Agreement on verbs is a salient feature in other Himalayish languages and attributed to the proto-language
(DeLancey 1988, 1989, 1992; van Driem 1990, 1991, 1995 and 1999; and Watters 2002). It is absent from the Tanahu
dialect.
113