Himalayan Linguistics

The paper describes the person-indexing morphology in Anal with an emphasis on the different forms in the verbal systems of the language. As in many other related languages, the indexation in Anal verbs is performed by two sets of morphemes: suffixes and prefixes. The suffixes are the archaic morphemes reconstructed to the proto-language. The prefix paradigm is typical for the branch, but exhibits peculiar person shifts. Most of the paradigms employ explicit suffixes for A/S-marking and prefixes for P-marking of SAP forms. 3^rd person is not marked explicitly. Nominal forms that use Stem-2 have two different indexation patterns: 3:P scenarios mark the A-referent by possessive prefixes, while SAP:P scenarios mark the P-referent by a prefix and the A-argument by a suffix. P-prefixes are derived from possessive prefixes by vowel-lengthening. There are a few additional person-indexing forms in less frequent paradigms, and peculiar paradigm-specific changes such as 1^st person-marking by tone and length in one of the tenses. The overall system shows historical evidence for multiple cycles of periphrastic constructions with the copula as the conjugated form.