Abstract
The subject of this study is the copy-verb construction {verbal_stem=discourse_clitic final_verb} in the Tibeto-Burman family, with particular emphasis on two languages, Burmese and Pumi. Both languages show a highly diverse functional span of this construction, thereby offering insights for its analysis and for our understanding of the interaction of verbal categories with information structure and context. The copy-verb construction of Pumi and Burmese is subsequently compared with parallel phenomena in Tibeto-Burman and is situated in a wider crosslinguistic perspective.
Acknowledgements
This article stems from our joint research and discussions at the Centre of Research on Language Diversity (formerly RCLT) at La Trobe University, Melbourne. We are thankful to our CRLD colleagues Stephen Morey and Stefan Schnell for providing comments on an earlier version of the article. We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of three anonymous reviewers and of Frans Plank for their comments and suggestions throughout the reviewing process. In addition, we are grateful for the helpful feedback of the audience at the 47th ICSTLL on a partial version of this article, in particular Liu Danqing, who referred us to his work on copy-verb constructions in Chinese and Tibeto-Burman, and Linda Konnerth who drew our attention to a number of valuable examples of copy-verb constructions in Tibeto-Burman literature, in particular in Kuki-Chin and Tangkhul, and contributed additional examples from her own work in progress on Monsang. Erik Andvik referred us to his analysis of the construction in Tshangla. Additional thanks go to the respective language communities and consultants, especially Ashin Sopaka and Mr. Myo Tha Htet for Burmese, and Gerong Pincu and other contributors from Wadu village for Pumi. We also thank Ginny Larson and Ellen Bartee who proofread successive versions of the article.
Abbreviations
- 1/2/3
1st/2nd/3rd person
- abl
ablative
- add
additive
- addfoc
additional focus
- agt
agentive
- agrm
agreement attitude
- caus
causative
- ch
Chinese loanword
- cl
class pronoun
- clf
classifier
- cntrtop
contrastive topic
- coll
collective
- comp
complementiser
- coord
coordinator
- csb
co-subordinate
- cul
culminative
- custexcl
exclusive customary
- decl
declarative
- def
definite
- disjtop
disjunctive topic
- diss
dissatisfaction
- down
downwards
- du
dual
- ego
egophoric
- emph
emphatic particle
- epist
epistemic
- excl
exclusive
- exist:ab
existential (abstract)
- exist:an
existential (animate)
- exist:at
existential (attached)
- exist:poss
existential (possessive)
- expt
expectational
- f
feminine
- foc
focus
- frsp
from speaker
- fut
future
- fv
final vowel
- gen
genitive
- gnomic
gnomic
- imp
imperative
- in
inwards
- incl
inclusive
- indf
indefinite
- inf
infinitive
- infr
inferential
- intj
interjection
- ipfv
imperfective
- irr
irrealis
- link
linker
- loc
locative
- log
logophoric
- m
masculine
- neg
negative
- nego
non-egophoric
- nmlz
nominaliser
- nf
non-final verbal suffix
- nvl
non-volitional
- np
noun prefix
- nsg
non-singular
- obj
object
- out
outwards
- pfv
perfective
- pl
plural
- pn
proper name
- pol
politeness
- prf
perfect
- prs
present
- prt
particle
- pst
past
- ptc
participial suffix
- quot
quotative
- r
realis
- rel
relative
- rhet
rhetorical question
- rinf
reinforce
- sbj
subject
- sc2
subject concord of class 2
- seq
sequentional
- sg
singular
- spec
speculative
- tam
tense and aspect marker
- top
topic
- tosp
to speaker
- trail
trailing knowledge
- up
upwards
- vol
volitive
- vn
verbal noun
- warn
warning.
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Signing not (or not): A typological perspective on standard negation in Sign Language of the Netherlands
- Copy-verb constructions in Tibeto-Burman and beyond
- Past–future asymmetries in time adverbials and adpositions: A crosslinguistic and diachronic perspective
- Possessor dissension: Agreement mismatch in Ngumpin-Yapa possessive constructions
- Do grammatical relations reflect information status? Reassessing Preferred Argument Structure theory against discourse data from Tondano
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Signing not (or not): A typological perspective on standard negation in Sign Language of the Netherlands
- Copy-verb constructions in Tibeto-Burman and beyond
- Past–future asymmetries in time adverbials and adpositions: A crosslinguistic and diachronic perspective
- Possessor dissension: Agreement mismatch in Ngumpin-Yapa possessive constructions
- Do grammatical relations reflect information status? Reassessing Preferred Argument Structure theory against discourse data from Tondano