Grammaticalized sources of Kurtöp verbal morphology
On the development of mirativity versus egophoricity in the Himalayas
Kurtöp (Tibeto-Burman; Bhutan) has a rich set of finite verbal suffixes which encode evidentiality, mirativity,
and egophoricity. This article examines the origins of these suffixes in a typological context, showing how many of them have
developed via recent grammaticalizations. Synchronic processes of nominalization and clause-chaining have provided the ideal syntactic
contexts for these grammaticalizations to take place. Many of the grammaticalization pathways found here are shown to be
typologically common, such as ‘give’ becoming an applicative. We find one suffix, the egophoric, which is an obvious
borrowing. Based on the data presented here, this article puts forth the tentative hypothesis that due to principles of iconicity,
miratives will tend to be recent grammaticalizations. Similarly, the fact that the Kurtöp egophoric has been borrowed is also,
arguably, iconic.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Grammaticalization overview
- 2.2Mirativity and egophoricity
- 3.Kurtöp
- 3.1Mirativity and egophoricity in Kurtöp
- 3.2Kurtöp synchronic verbal morphology
- 3.3Clause-chaining/verb serialization
- 3.3.1Lexical final verb
- 3.3.2Auxiliary final verb
- 3.4Nominalization
- 4.Auxiliarization
- 4.1Mirative imperfective -ta
- 4.2Mirative perfective -na
- 4.3Hortative -ki
- 4.4Applicative bi
- 5.Nominalization
- 5.1Nominalizer + copula
- 5.2Nominalizer + verb ra ‘to come’
- 6.Borrowing
- 7.Summary and conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
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