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Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 24:4 (2023) ► pp.611–673

Tangut and Horpa languages

Some shared morphosyntactic features

| INALCO-CRLAO
Fieldwork from the past decade has yielded new data from a cluster of languages in Western Sichuan (China), resulting in new observations relevant for the understanding of Tangut grammar. In this paper, I intend to present morphosyntactic evidence pointing to the Tangut language’s membership within the Horpa taxon, located within the larger Gyalrongic group of the Qiangic branch of Sino-Tibetan. Tangut exclusively shares with Horpa languages cognates that are far too peculiar to be the result of mere chance. By successively considering the verbal, nominal, and postpositional domains, the present paper highlights evidence that links Tangut to Horpa, while proposing new paths to the understanding of grammatical categories of Tangut proper, such as orientational/aspectual preverbs.
Keywords: Tangut, Horpa and West Gyalrongic languages, orientation/tame preverbs, agreement history, locative cases
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Verb
    • 2.1The Tangut verbal template
    • 2.2Prefixal slots
      • 2.2.1Orientational preverbs: An overview
      • 2.2.2The history of dir.0 *rV-, dir.1 *tV-, and dir.2 *nV-
      • 2.2.3Dir.3 to dir.6: A semantic and systemic analysis
        • 2.2.3.1Innovations by loss and reanalysis
        • 2.2.3.2The semantic diversification of the dir.3/dir.6 pair
      • 2.2.4Dir.7: Tangut 𗞞 dja²- as a perfective marker
        • 2.2.4.1The semantic inadequacy of the orientational/modal interpretations
        • 2.2.4.2The systemic inadequacy of the orientational/modal interpretations
        • 2.2.4.3Comparative evidence for the perfective analysis
      • 2.2.5Interrogative preverb
      • 2.2.6“Optative” preverbs
      • 2.2.7Negative preverbs
      • 2.2.8Modal preverbs
        • 2.2.8.1 𗉘 tśʰjɨ¹ (potential)
        • 2.2.8.2 𘓁 ljɨ¹ (concessive)
    • 2.3Suffixal positions
      • 2.3.1Agreement suffixes
        • 2.3.1.1Agreement rules
        • 2.3.1.2Cross-analysis of Tangut, Khroskyabs and Horpa verbal agreement paradigms
      • 2.3.2Telic (future) suffix
      • 2.3.3Inferential (mirative) suffix
      • 2.3.4Modal enclitics
        • 2.3.4.1Hypothetical 𗗂 =mo²
        • 2.3.4.2Interrogative 𘄢 = ·jaa¹
    • 2.4Summary
  • 3.Noun phrase
    • 3.1Numerals
    • 3.2Nominalizers
      • 3.2.1The subject/agent nominalizer 𗇋 =mjijr²
      • 3.2.2The determinative nominalizer 𗭪 sji²
  • 4.Locative case markers
    • 4.1Overview
    • 4.2 𘕿 =ɣa²: General locative
    • 4.3 𗀔 =tśʰjaa¹: Superessive, time enclitic
    • 4.4 𘂤 =kʰa¹: Interessive, instrumental, superlative
    • 4.5 𗅉 / 𘔼 nioow¹: Time postessive, causal
    • 4.6Summary
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 14 September 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00142.bea
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