A Grammar of Prinmi : Based on the Central Dialect of Northwest Yunnan, China

A Grammar of Prinmi represents the first in-depth description of a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Pǔmǐ Nationality and the Zàng Nationality (in Mùlǐ, Sichuan) in southwest China. Prinmi belongs to the Qiangic branch and is closely related to the extinct language of Tangut. Picus Ding examines in the grammar the phonology (both segmental and suprasegmental), morphology, syntax and information structure of Prinmi, with two sample texts and an English-Prinmi glossary provided in appendices. Some noteworthy features of Prinmi include a wealth of clitics (appearing as proclitic, enclitic, mesoclitic or endoclitic), a lexical tone system akin to Japanese, and a collection of existential verbs that discriminates concreteness, animacy, and location. A Grammar of Prinmi Copyright Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables Preface Abbreviations Maps Photographs Chapter One: Introduction 1.1. The Pǔmǐ people: a brief ethnography 1.1.1. Origin and history of migration 1.1.2. Religion 1.1.3. Relations with other minority nationalities 1.1.4. Multilingualism and language attitude 1.2. Overview of the Prinmi language 1.2.1. Previous work 1.2.2. Genetic affiliation and varieties of the language 1.2.3. Typological profile 1.3. Fieldwork settings 1.3.1. The community 1.3.2. Consultants and data 1.4. Presentation of data and examples Chapter Two: Segmental Phonology 2.1. Consonants 2.1.1. Plain plosives 2.1.2. Fricatives 2.1.3. Nasals, laterals and rhotics 2.1.4. Affricates 2.1.5. Rhoticized plosives 2.2. Glides 2.3. Vowels 2.3.1. Monophthongs 2.3.1.1. Front vowels 2.3.1.2. Central vowels 2.3.1.3. Back vowels 2.3.2. Complex vowels: diphthong and triphthong 2.3.2.1. Rising diphthongs with /j/ 2.3.2.2. Rising diphthongs with /ɥ/ 2.3.2.3. Rising diphthongs with /w/ 2.3.2.4. Falling diphthongs and triphthong 2.3.3. Vowel lowering 2.4. The syllable 2.4.1. Syllable structure 2.4.2. Phonotactics 2.5. Segmental changes 2.5.1. Changes in vowels 2.5.1.1. Centralization of vowels 2.5.1.2. Vowel fusion 2.5.1.3. Nasalization 2.5.1.4. Glide epenthesis 2.5.1.5. Trill substitution 2.5.2. Changes in consonants 2.5.2.1. Voicing/Aspiration change 2.5.2.2. Glottaling 2.5.2.3. Change of voiceless nasals Chapter Three: The Suprasegmentals 3.1. Surface tones on monosyllabic words 3.2. Tones of polysyllabic words 3.2.1. Disyllabic words 3.2.2. Trisyllabic words 3.2.3. Tetrasyllabic words 3.3. The phonological system of tone 3.3.1. The melody-tone system 3.3.2. Extra-prosodicality 3.4. Suprasegmental changes 3.4.1. Regular tone change in clitic groups 3.4.2. Tone change in prefixed verbs 3.4.3. Tone change in reduplication 3.4.4. Tone change in compounds 3.4.5. Tone change in numeral-classifier compounds 3.4.6. Tone change under the influence of intonation Chapter Four: Lexical Categories 4.1. Relation between lexical categories: an overlapping approach 4.2. Open lexical categories 4.2.1. Verbs 4.2.2. Nouns 4.2.3. Adjectives 4.2.4. Overlap among open lexical categories 4.3. Closed lexical categories 4.3.1. Auxiliary verbs 4.3.2. Demonstratives 4.3.3. Pronouns 4.3.4. Numerals 4.3.5. Classifiers 4.3.6. Ideophones 4.3.7. Adverbs 4.3.8. Onomatopes and Interjections 4.3.9. Postpositions 4.3.9.1. Locational postpositions: khʉ, po, wu, lo, and dʒe 4.3.9.2. Non-locational postpositions: ni, bo, õ, and ki 4.3.9.3. Versatile postpositions: be ‘at/to/from’ and to ‘on/than’ Chapter Five: Morphology 5.1. Nominal affixation 5.2. Verb morphology 5.2.1. Directional prefixes 5.2.2. Derivation with affixes 5.2.2.1. From verbs to nouns/nominals: -dĩ, -mi, and -ji 5.2.2.2. From verbs to verbs: -ʒɑw 5.2.2.3. Deriving antonyms: mɑ- 5.2.3. Derivation of controllable verbs 5.2.4. Inflection for agreement 5.3. Reduplication 5.4. Compounding 5.4.1. Lexical categories of compounds 5.4.2. Modifier-modified compounds 5.4.3. Noun-adjective compounds and Verb-complement compounds 5.4.4. Co-ordinate compounds 5.4.5. Reduplicated compounds 5.4.6. Structure of compounds Chapter Six: Grammatical Functions of Noun Phrase 6.1. Semantic roles 6.1.1. Agent-marking and Instrumental-marking 6.2. Core versus oblique functions 6.2.1. The core functions: S, A, P, and R 6.2.2. Types of oblique function: complement and adjunct 6.3. Grammatical relations 6.3.1. The issue of ‘subject’ 6.3.2. The system of grammatical relations 6.4. Pragmatic functions 6.4.1. Topic and Frame-setter 6.4.2. Focus marker Chapter Seven: Structure of Noun Phrases 7.1. The modificator 7.1.1. The modificatory clitic 7.1.2. The genitive expression 7.1.3. The restrictive expression/relative clause 7.1.3.1. Basic properties of relative clauses 7.1.3.2. A brief comparison to English relative clauses 7.1.3.3. Modificatory marking and nominalization 7.1.4. Relational and temporal expressions 7.2. Nominal clitics 7.2.1. Number clitics: ɹə and dzɑ̃ 7.2.2. Discourse clitics 7.2.2.1. ne and njɑ 7.2.2.2. nõ 7.3. Structure of noun phrase: a layered analysis Chapter Eight: Grammatical Categories of Verbs 8.1. Aspect and Modality 8.1.1. Aspect 8.1.1.1. Experiential tʉ 8.1.1.2. Perfective: si/sjɛ̃/sĩ 8.1.1.3. Imperfective: ɹõ/ɹu/ɹĩ and ɹju 8.1.1.4. Durative nõ 8.1.1.5. Perfectivity and directional prefixes 8.1.2. Modality: hortative ɡi, volitive kɜj, and optative ʃo 8.1.3. Temporal implication from aspect and modality 8.2. Negation and Interrogativity 8.2.1. Negative clitics: general mɑ, perfective me, and deontic tjɑ 8.2.2. Interrogative clitic: ɑ 8.3. Evidentiality and Mirativity 8.3.1. Quotative evidential: tʃɨ 8.3.2. Mirative: tʃɨ/tʃjɑ 8.4. Attitudinal clitics 8.4.1. The surprisive ɡjɑ 8.4.2. The suggestive mɑ 8.4.3. The speculative pɑR 8.4.4. The assumptive mə Chapter Nine: The Copula, Existentials and Auxiliary Verbs 9.1. The copula and existentials 9.1.1. The copula dzɨF 9.1.1.1. The obligational construction -ji dzɨ 9.1.1.2. The focus-presupposition construction -mi dzɨ 9.1.2. Existentials 9.1.2.1. The potentive construction -ji ʃiR 9.2. Deontic modals 9.2.1. The admonitive mɑR=xɑL 9.2.2. The obligative khuR 9.2.3. The abilitive/permissive ʒjɛ̃R 9.3. Epistemic modals 9.3.1. The skillitive/assertive jõF 9.3.2. The successitive thõR 9.4. The verbs-to-do 9.4.1. Functions of pɑF 9.4.1.1. As an ordinary verb 9.4.1.2. Heading an adverbial clause of manner 9.4.1.3. Marking ad hoc control 9.4.1.4. Signifying a realis resultant state 9.4.1.5. Expressing emphasis 9.4.2. Functions of tʃhɨR: a comparison with pɑF 9.4.3. The semelfactive ti pɑ/ti tʃhɨ 9.5. Aspectual auxiliaries: the terminative tɑF and the inchoative tʃhjõR 9.6. Other auxiliary verbs 9.6.1. The purposives ʃɨH & ʒɨR 9.6.2. The desiderative ɹ̥õHɹ̥ĩL and the venturive waF Chapter Ten: Clauses and Sentences 10.1. The clause 10.1.1. The clause structure 10.1.2. Dependent clauses 10.1.3. Nominal clauses 10.1.4. Verbless clauses 10.2. The sentence 10.2.1. Structure of simplex sentences 10.2.2. Sentence as the smallest information unit 10.3. Clause-chaining sentences 10.3.1. The semantic role of shared arguments in clause-chaining sentences 10.3.2. Clause-chaining sentences without shared core argument Chapter Eleven: Complex Predicates 11.1. The Double-verb Predicate 11.1.1. Types of double-verb predicate 11.1.2. Constraint on the number of verbs 11.1.3. Semantic characteristics of the double-verb predicate 11.2. Causatives 11.2.1. The periphrastic causative construction 11.2.1.1. The causative auxiliary verb 11.2.1.2. The core arguments 11.2.1.3. The causative complement 11.2.2. Other causative constructions 11.3. Complementation 11.3.1. The comparative complement & the comparative construction 11.3.2. Clausal complements 11.3.2.1. Complement clause to auxiliary verbs 11.3.2.2. Complement clause to verbs of cognition Chapter Twelve: Information Structure 12.1. Types of focus structure 12.1.1. NP focus 12.1.2. Predicate focus 12.1.3. Sentence focus 12.1.4. Counter-presupposition focus 12.1.5. Sentence types and focus domains 12.2. The focus-presupposition construction -mi dzɨ 12.3. The topic-comment construction 12.3.1. Basic structure of Topic-Comment Construction 12.3.2. Double Topic Construction 12.3.3. Chained Comment Construction 12.3.4. Embedded Topic-Comment Construction APPENDIX ONE: Sample Texts Text I: The Fortune God Zzonbbaf Lha Text II: Cuckoo and Golden Pheasant APPENDIX TWO: Word list and Glossary Part A: Proper nouns Part B: Swadesh-100 list Part C: English-Prinmi glossary A–B C–D E–F G–H I–L M–O P–R S–T U–Y Part D: Prinmi-English glossary 1.1: zero-onset 1.2: j w ɥ 2.1: b p ph 2.2: d t th 2.3: g k kh 3.1: s z 3.2: ʃ ʒ 3.3: ʂ ʐ 3.4: x ɣ 4.1: m m̥ 4.2: n n̥ 4.3: l l̥ 4.4: ɹ ɹ̥ 5.1: dz ts tsh 5.2: dʒ tʃ tʃh 5.3: ɖʐ ʈʂ ʈʂh 6.1: bɹ pɹ phɹ 6.2: ɡɹ kɹ khɹ Bibliography Index to Languages General Index In A Grammar of Prinmi Picus Ding provides the first in-depth description of a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Pumi Nationality and the Zàng Nationality in southwest China. Prinmi is closely related to the extinct language of Tangut