Participles with a semantic void in Koints
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Dörte Borchers
Abstract
Koints ([kɔĩts]; English: Sunwar, Sunuwar; Nepali: Sunuvār) is a Kiranti language spoken in eastern Nepal. With about 38,000 speakers, Koints is one the larger languages of the 123 languages of Nepal (Central Bureau of Statistics 2012: 164). The past tense participle paradigm of transitive verbs of Koints has a semantic void for a first person singular when the participle functions as main verb. Speakers of Koints fill this void spontaneously with the first person singular past tense form of the same lexeme. Koints finite past tense forms, which have person and number indexes of the subject, and forms from the past tense participle, which is not indexed for participants, are in general used interchangeably. It is hypothesized that the void and its filler might be a gap or a case of suppletion. The reason for the occurrence of the void, which always has the same filler, might be a language-internal rule of Koints. According to that rule, forms referring to first person subjects of transitive verbs are at least as finite or even more finite than those referring to other subjects. Finiteness refers in this context only to the morphological marking of participants. This qualitative study is based on data from Koints texts that different persons collected at different times in different locations in Nepal and on data from elicitations undertaken with three speakers of Koints during the past five years. It will be shown that the semantic void in the past tense participle’s paradigm is a semantic gap rather than a case of suppletion, even though it has a regular filler. The gap is odd because it occurs with a large number of verbs, and is limited to only one function of a form that has several functions.
Abstract
Koints ([kɔĩts]; English: Sunwar, Sunuwar; Nepali: Sunuvār) is a Kiranti language spoken in eastern Nepal. With about 38,000 speakers, Koints is one the larger languages of the 123 languages of Nepal (Central Bureau of Statistics 2012: 164). The past tense participle paradigm of transitive verbs of Koints has a semantic void for a first person singular when the participle functions as main verb. Speakers of Koints fill this void spontaneously with the first person singular past tense form of the same lexeme. Koints finite past tense forms, which have person and number indexes of the subject, and forms from the past tense participle, which is not indexed for participants, are in general used interchangeably. It is hypothesized that the void and its filler might be a gap or a case of suppletion. The reason for the occurrence of the void, which always has the same filler, might be a language-internal rule of Koints. According to that rule, forms referring to first person subjects of transitive verbs are at least as finite or even more finite than those referring to other subjects. Finiteness refers in this context only to the morphological marking of participants. This qualitative study is based on data from Koints texts that different persons collected at different times in different locations in Nepal and on data from elicitations undertaken with three speakers of Koints during the past five years. It will be shown that the semantic void in the past tense participle’s paradigm is a semantic gap rather than a case of suppletion, even though it has a regular filler. The gap is odd because it occurs with a large number of verbs, and is limited to only one function of a form that has several functions.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Preface vii
- Contents xi
- Acknowledgements xiii
- On the syntax of comparative clauses in Vedic Sanskrit … like someone eating the foam off the water 1
- Some questions about yád in Vedic 23
- A statistical model of syntactic and nonsyntactic factors affecting relative clause placement in Hindi 43
- Optionality and variation in agreement in some participles in Hindi-Urdu 77
- A cross-linguistic approach to sentential subjects in Kannada 119
- Relation between animacy and case marking in Eastern Indo-Aryan languages 173
- Participles with a semantic void in Koints 191
- Competition between vectored verbs and factored verbs in Hindi-Urdu, Marathi and Gujarati 207
- How similarly do Hindi rakhnā and Japanese oku PUT behave as a V2? A corpus-based comparative analysis 243
- The use of vector verbs in early modern Tamil 261
- Reflexive and reciprocal marking in Mising 291
- Reciprocals in Kokborok — A Case of Syntactic Convergence 311
- A cognitive semantic analysis of locative and spatial constructions in Bangla 339
- Revisiting Pāṇini’s generative power 361
- Hindi root allomorphy: Insights from phonological and morphosyntactic theory 381
- Lexeme and speech syllables in English and Hindi. A case for syllable structure 415
- List of contributors 463
- List of contributors 469
- Index of languages 477
- Index of subjects 479
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Preface vii
- Contents xi
- Acknowledgements xiii
- On the syntax of comparative clauses in Vedic Sanskrit … like someone eating the foam off the water 1
- Some questions about yád in Vedic 23
- A statistical model of syntactic and nonsyntactic factors affecting relative clause placement in Hindi 43
- Optionality and variation in agreement in some participles in Hindi-Urdu 77
- A cross-linguistic approach to sentential subjects in Kannada 119
- Relation between animacy and case marking in Eastern Indo-Aryan languages 173
- Participles with a semantic void in Koints 191
- Competition between vectored verbs and factored verbs in Hindi-Urdu, Marathi and Gujarati 207
- How similarly do Hindi rakhnā and Japanese oku PUT behave as a V2? A corpus-based comparative analysis 243
- The use of vector verbs in early modern Tamil 261
- Reflexive and reciprocal marking in Mising 291
- Reciprocals in Kokborok — A Case of Syntactic Convergence 311
- A cognitive semantic analysis of locative and spatial constructions in Bangla 339
- Revisiting Pāṇini’s generative power 361
- Hindi root allomorphy: Insights from phonological and morphosyntactic theory 381
- Lexeme and speech syllables in English and Hindi. A case for syllable structure 415
- List of contributors 463
- List of contributors 469
- Index of languages 477
- Index of subjects 479
