Agreement in Kuki-Chin languages of Barak valley

Pauthang Haokip

doi:10.1515/jsall-2018-0008

Article

Agreement in Kuki-Chin languages of Barak valley

Pauthang Haokip

Published/Copyright: November 30, 2018

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From the journal Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics Volume 5 Issue 2

Abstract

This paper discusses the agreement system of five Kuki-Chin (KC) languages of Barak valley, viz. Saihriem, Hrangkhol, Chorei, Sakachep, and Ronglong. The paper has an introduction, and five sections dedicated to agreement in different contructions: intransitive structures, transitive structures, agreement with the same person, agreement with ditransitive verbs, and agreement in hortative and imperative constructions. The discussion of agreement is further divided into subparts by paradigm; non-future, future and negative; and by languages. As in most KC languages, the Barak valley KC languages exhibit both preverbal and postverbal agreement clitics. The preverbal agreement clitics are homophonous with the possessive pronouns which occur before a noun. In intransitive constructions, the future affirmative paradigm has the same subject agreement clitics as the non-future paradigm. But unlike the non-future paradigm, the agreement clitics occur mostly after the verb and before the future tense marker in the future paradigm. In intransitive constructions, the postverbal agreement clitic shows up only in the future negative paradigm. As in the case of preverbal agreement clitics, the subject NP of an intransitive verb in the future negative paradigm can be dropped, and it can be recovered from its corresponding postverbal agreement clitics. Across the Barak valley KC languages, a transitive verb agrees with its object for the 1st person. Saihriem is the only language which shows number distinction for the second person object. If a verb takes more than one object, one with an inanimate direct object and the other with an indirect human object, the human indirect object takes precedence over the inanimate direct object for agreement. The Imperative construction takes the regular pre-verbal subject agreement marker for 1st and 3rd person in both the singular and plural form. On the contrary, the second person does not take any agreement marker. However, the number (singular and plural of the person) is distinguished in the imperative marker itself.

Keywords: agreement; Kuki-Chin; Barak valley

Acknowledgements

I would like to put on record my appreciation of thanks to the following people who have offered their valuable time throughout the process of my data collection; Chungjakhup Khochung, John Aimol for Saihriem, Labiak Phoitong, Pachung Hrangkhol for Hrangkhol; Siekte and Rebecca for Sakachep; Seilengir and Buma for Ranglong; and Ringhoilal for Chorei. I am indebted to Linda Konnerth, Hiram Randall Ring, and George Bedell for the initial comments and also to two reviewers of this paper. Of course, the author retains responsibility for any errors and omission of facts. Work on the Barak valley KC languages has been made possible through the Major Research Project funded by UGC, New Delhi for the period of two years, 2013–2014.

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Published Online: 2018-11-30

Published in Print: 2018-11-27

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https://doi.org/10.1515/jsall-2018-0008

Keywords for this article

agreement; Kuki-Chin; Barak valley