Himalayan Linguistics

This contribution describes caritive expressions in Suansu, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Manipur, North-East India. Two distinct morphosyntactic caritive constructions can be identified in Suansu: the first, semantically restricted to human absentees, involves the comitative particle ʈʂidə and the negated main verb. The other strategy, more prominent and found in all semantic contexts, consists of a biclausal construction with a negated ancillary clause embedded in the main one. The types of verbs -and their specificity- used in the ancillary clause vary depending on the functions and meanings of the absentee. However, the use of the verb thõn ‘to be inside’ in the ancillary caritive clause appears to be predominant and extends to unexpected semantic contexts, signaling a possible grammaticalization process of this verb in caritive expressions.

The paper attempts to describe the different causative constructions in Tenyidie. Based on the processes of derivation involved, they are divided into three different types. While the first type is derived from intransitive as well as transitive verbs which are from different semantic domain, the second and third types are derived from different subclass of intransitive verbs; the second type is associated with the ‘move’ class of verb and the third type is associated with the ‘change’ class of verb. The paper provides a glimpse of how phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics interact in the derivation of causative construction in Tenyidie.

This paper presents a pan-dialectal synchronic survey and documentation of preinitials in the Horpa cluster (West Gyalrongic). Based on fieldwork and analysis of earlier Horpa scholarship, the study not only describes the preinitial systems of ten Horpa varieties covering all proposed branches of the Horpa cluster of West Gyalrongic, but it also identifies four key parameters of variation in the preinitial systems, namely the presence or absence of 1. guttural, 2. sigmatic, and 3. liquid contrasts in addition to the presence and absence of 4. weakened semivowel preinitials. The study contributes to the ongoing documentation and analysis of Horpa varieties, many of which are now endangered. Due to the phonological conservatism of the Gyalrongic languages, the Horpa preinitialed consonant clusters have the potential to offer insights and new perspectives for the investigation of Sino-Tibetan diachronic phonology.