Grammatical relations in Tamang, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal
This thesis investigates grammatical relations in Tamang, a (Tibeto-Burman) Sino-Tibetan language with roughly one million mother-tongue speakers, who live predominantly in the central hills of Nepal. Sino-Tibetan languages are known for their diversity of morphosyntactic profiles for expressing predicate-participant relations, which range from fully syntactic grammatical functions (eg. in Kham, Kiranti languages) to non-syntactic systems which encode semantic and pragmatic information about elements of the clause (eg. in Meithei, Chinese). Tamang represents an intermediate type, displaying a mixture of non-syntactic and syntactic patterns. This mixed profile is evident in intra-clausal relations in main and dependent clauses, where assignment of case morphemes encoding a mixture of semantic, pragmatic and syntactic information interacts with other strategies such as manipulation of word order and omission of clause participants. Inter-clausal relations are also unevenly syntacticized, some being based on syntactic pivots which privilege particular arguments, and some not. The research presented here is based on a corpus of field data from the Tamang dialect spoken in the villages of Lekharka and Bhote Namlang
Owen-Smith, Thomas
Grammatical relations in Tamang, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal. This thesis investigates grammatical relations in Tamang, a (Tibeto-Burman) Sino-Tibetan language with roughly one million mother-tongue speakers, who live predominantly in the central hills of Nepal. Sino-Tibetan languages are known for their diversity of morphosyntactic profiles for expressing predicate-participant relations, which range from fully syntactic grammatical functions (eg. in Kham, Kiranti languages) to non-syntactic systems which encode semantic and pragmatic information about elements of the clause (eg. in Meithei, Chinese). Tamang represents an intermediate type, displaying a mixture of non-syntactic and syntactic patterns. This mixed profile is evident in intra-clausal relations in main and dependent clauses, where assignment of case morphemes encoding a mixture of semantic, pragmatic and syntactic information interacts with other strategies such as manipulation of word order and omission of clause participants. Inter-clausal relations are also unevenly syntacticized, some being based on syntactic pivots which privilege particular arguments, and some not. The research presented here is based on a corpus of field data from the Tamang dialect spoken in the villages of Lekharka and Bhote Namlang
grammatical_relation language nepal investigates grammatical_relation sino tibetan language mother_tongue speaker live predominantly central hill nepal sino tibetan language know diversity morphosyntactic profile express predicate participant relation range fully syntactic grammatical_function languages non syntactic system encode semantic_pragmatic information element clause chinese represent intermediate type display mixture non syntactic syntactic pattern mixed profile evident intra clausal relation main dependent clause assignment case morpheme encode mixture semantic_pragmatic syntactic_information strategies manipulation word_order omission clause participant inter clausal relation also base syntactic privilege particular argument not present base_corpus field data dialect_speak village