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Article published In:
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
Vol. 43:2 (2020) ► pp.292–309

The origin of the causative and simulative suffix -ter in Hakha Lai and Falam Chin

| California State University, Fullerton

This paper investigates the origin of the causative (CAUS) and simulative (SML) suffix -ter in two varieties of Lai language, Hakha Lai and Falam Chin. It also shows that Proto Central Chin (PCC) full verbs *tiir ‘to send someone to do an errand’ and *der ‘to pretend to’ grammaticalized and merged into the Lai CAUS and SML suffix -ter due to frequency pressure, the first time this type of argument for semantic change is used in Kuki-Chin (KC).

Keywords: causative, dialect, frequency pressure, merger, prefix, reflexive, simulative, suffix
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Causative Constructions in Kuki-Chin Languages
    • 1.2Origin of the causative suffix -ter in Hakha Lai and Falam Chin
    • 1.3Origin of the SML suffix -ter in Hakha Lai and Falam Chin
    • 1.4Discussion on frequency pressure
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 January 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.19016.bik
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