# A grammar of Japhug

Guillaume Jacques

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Guillaume Jacques. A grammar of Japhug. Language Science Press, 2021, Comprehensive Grammar Library, 978-3-96110-305-8. hal-03190627

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
A grammar of
Japhug

Guillaume Jacques

Comprehensive Grammar Library 1

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

language
science
press
Comprehensive Grammar Library

Editor: Martin Haspelmath

In this series:

1. Jacques, Guillaume. A grammar of Japhug.

This series grew out of the grammars published in *Studies in Diversity Linguistics*, which are
proudly mentioned:

4. Berghäll, Liisa. A grammar of Mauwake.

5. Wilbur, Joshua. A grammar of Pite Saami.

7. Schackow, Diana. A grammar of Yakkha.

8. Liljegren, Henrik. A grammar of Palula.

9. Shimelman, Aviva. A grammar of Yauyos Quechua.

11. Kluge, Angela. A grammar of Papuan Malay.

12. Kieviet, Paulus. A grammar of Rapa Nui.

22. Döhler, Christian. A grammar of Komnzo.

23. Yakpo, Kofi. A grammar of Pichi.
A grammar of
Japhug

Guillaume Jacques

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

language
science
press
Jacques, Guillaume. 2021. *A grammar of Japhug* (Comprehensive Grammar Library 1). Berlin: Language Science Press.

This title can be downloaded at:

http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295

© 2021, Guillaume Jacques

Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0):

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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ISBN: 978-3-96110-305-8 (Digital)

978-3-98554-001-3 (Hardcover)

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4548232

Source code available from www.github.com/langsci/295

Collaborative reading: paperhive.org/documents/remote?type=langsci&id=295

Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort

Typesetting: Guillaume Jacques

Proofreading: Anton Antonov, Curtis Bartosik, Aimée Lahaussois, Laura

Arnold, Tom Bossuyt, Michael Daniel, Valérie Guérin, Ariel Gutman, Andreas

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Pour mon amour, Mirabelle

题献给爱妻米哈
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# Contents

Acknowledgments xxiii

Abbreviations xxv

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Japhug language 1

1.2 The Japhug corpus 2

1.3 Structure of the grammar 4

1.4 Language and culture 4

2 A grammatical sketch 7

2.1 Phonology and word structure 7

2.2 Parts of speech 8

2.3 Nominal morphology 9

2.3.1 Non-attested nominal morphological categories 9

2.3.2 Number 9

2.3.3 Case marking 11

2.3.4 Possession 12

2.3.5 Compounding 15

2.3.6 Derivations 15

2.4 Verbal morphology 16

2.4.1 Overview 16

2.4.2 Indexation 17

2.4.3 Orientation preverbs and TAME 21

2.4.4 Non-finite verb forms 24

2.4.5 Associated motion 28

2.4.6 Voice 28

2.4.7 Denominal derivations 33

2.5 Core and oblique arguments 33

2.5.1 Neutral alignment 34

2.5.2 Nominative-accusative alignment 34

2.5.3 Subjecthood 34
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>2.5.4</td><td>Objecthood</td><td>35</td></tr><tr><td>2.5.5</td><td>Absolutive-ergative alignment</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td>2.5.6</td><td>Ditransitive verbs</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>2.6</td><td>Word order</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>2.7</td><td>Subordination</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.7.1</td><td>Relative clauses</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.7.2</td><td>Complement clauses</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.7.3</td><td>Other subordinate clauses</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td>2.8</td><td>Remarkable features</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.1</td><td>Consonant clusters</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.2</td><td>Direct-inverse</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.3</td><td>Inflectionalization</td><td>42</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.4</td><td>Prefixal chain</td><td>42</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.5</td><td>Hybrid indirect speech</td><td>43</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.6</td><td>The expression of degree and comparison</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.7</td><td>Japhug morphology and Trans-Himalayan comparative linguistics</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Phonology</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>3.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>3.2</td><td>Consonants</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.1</td><td>Onsets</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.2</td><td>Codas</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>3.3</td><td>Vowels and rhymes</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.1</td><td>Vowels</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.2</td><td>Rhymes</td><td>54</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.3</td><td>Historical phonology</td><td>55</td></tr><tr><td>3.4</td><td>Syllabic constraints</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.1</td><td>Rhotic dissimilation</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.2</td><td>Uvular harmony</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>3.5</td><td>Neutralization, quasi-neutralization and free variation</td><td>59</td></tr><tr><td>3.5.1</td><td>The contrast between /-oŋ/ and /-aŋ/</td><td>59</td></tr><tr><td>3.5.2</td><td>The contrast between /w/ and /i/ after palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>3.5.3</td><td>The contrast between /r/ and /e/ after palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants</td><td>65</td></tr><tr><td>3.5.4</td><td>The contrast between /r/ and /a/</td><td>65</td></tr><tr><td>3.6</td><td>Speech errors and self-corrections</td><td>66</td></tr><tr><td>3.7</td><td>Suprasegmentals</td><td>68</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>3.8</td><td>Word structure</td><td>68</td></tr><tr><td>3.8.1</td><td>Wordhood</td><td>68</td></tr><tr><td>3.8.2</td><td>Non-final syllables</td><td>70</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Consonant clusters and partial reduplication</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td>4.1</td><td>Partial Reduplication</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td>4.2</td><td>Inventory of consonant clusters</td><td>72</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.1</td><td>Preinitials</td><td>72</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.2</td><td>Medials</td><td>87</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.3</td><td>Summary</td><td>99</td></tr><tr><td>4.3</td><td>Sandhi</td><td>104</td></tr><tr><td>4.4</td><td>Tibetan script-based orthography</td><td>105</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Nominal morphology</td><td>107</td></tr><tr><td>5.1</td><td>Possessive prefixes</td><td>107</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.1</td><td>Possessive paradigm</td><td>107</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.2</td><td>Inalienably possessed nouns</td><td>114</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.3</td><td>Indefinite vs. generic possessor</td><td>132</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.4</td><td>Prenominal modifiers</td><td>135</td></tr><tr><td>5.2</td><td>Unpossessible nouns</td><td>137</td></tr><tr><td>5.2.1</td><td>Place names</td><td>137</td></tr><tr><td>5.2.2</td><td>Colour nouns</td><td>140</td></tr><tr><td>5.2.3</td><td>Other unpossessible nouns</td><td>141</td></tr><tr><td>5.3</td><td>Personal names</td><td>142</td></tr><tr><td>5.3.1</td><td>Vocative</td><td>142</td></tr><tr><td>5.3.2</td><td>Tibetan names</td><td>143</td></tr><tr><td>5.3.3</td><td>Alienably possessed or unpossessible nouns?</td><td>144</td></tr><tr><td>5.3.4</td><td>Personal names and modifiers</td><td>145</td></tr><tr><td>5.4</td><td>Bound state</td><td>147</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.1</td><td>Vowel alternations in non-final members of compounds</td><td>147</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.2</td><td>Other alternations</td><td>148</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.3</td><td>Final member of compounds</td><td>151</td></tr><tr><td>5.5</td><td>Compound nouns</td><td>153</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.1</td><td>Noun-Noun compounds</td><td>153</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.2</td><td>Verb-Verb compounds</td><td>156</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.3</td><td>Noun-Ideophone compounds</td><td>158</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.4</td><td>Adverb-Verb compounds</td><td>158</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.5</td><td>Noun-Verb compounds</td><td>159</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.6</td><td>Verb-Noun compounds</td><td>166</td></tr></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>5.6</td><td>Noun class prefixes</td><td>167</td></tr><tr><td>5.6.1</td><td>Uvular animal name prefix</td><td>167</td></tr><tr><td>5.6.2</td><td>Velar animal name prefix</td><td>167</td></tr><tr><td>5.6.3</td><td>Uvular plant name prefix</td><td>169</td></tr><tr><td>5.6.4</td><td>Other uses of the uvular class prefix</td><td>169</td></tr><tr><td>5.6.5</td><td>Body part noun prefixes</td><td>169</td></tr><tr><td>5.7</td><td>Nominal derivations</td><td>169</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.1</td><td>Privative</td><td>170</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.2</td><td>Relative location</td><td>171</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.3</td><td>Diminutive</td><td>171</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.4</td><td>Augmentative</td><td>173</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.5</td><td>Derogatory</td><td>173</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.6</td><td>Gentilic</td><td>173</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.7</td><td>Gender</td><td>174</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.8</td><td>Collective</td><td>174</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.9</td><td>Superlative</td><td>182</td></tr><tr><td>5.7.10</td><td>Unattested derivations</td><td>183</td></tr><tr><td>5.8</td><td>Denominal adverbs and postpositions</td><td>183</td></tr><tr><td>5.8.1</td><td>Comitative adverbs</td><td>183</td></tr><tr><td>5.8.2</td><td>Reduplicated perlative</td><td>187</td></tr><tr><td>5.8.3</td><td>-z suffix</td><td>187</td></tr><tr><td>5.8.4</td><td>s- prefix</td><td>187</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Pronouns</td><td>189</td></tr><tr><td>6.1</td><td>Personal pronouns</td><td>189</td></tr><tr><td>6.1.1</td><td>Honorific plural</td><td>191</td></tr><tr><td>6.1.2</td><td>Personal pronouns as possessive markers</td><td>192</td></tr><tr><td>6.2</td><td>Generic pronouns</td><td>192</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.1</td><td>tużo 'one'</td><td>192</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.2</td><td>The generic noun turme 'person'</td><td>194</td></tr><tr><td>6.3</td><td>Genitive forms</td><td>195</td></tr><tr><td>6.4</td><td>The emphatic use of pronouns</td><td>197</td></tr><tr><td>6.5</td><td>Interrogative pronouns</td><td>198</td></tr><tr><td>6.5.1</td><td>tɛ́ h̃i 'what'</td><td>198</td></tr><tr><td>6.5.2</td><td>ɛ́ u 'who'</td><td>203</td></tr><tr><td>6.5.3</td><td>tʰɛ́ stuɣ 'how many' and tʰɛ́ jtɛ́ u 'when'</td><td>204</td></tr><tr><td>6.5.4</td><td>ŋotɛ́ u 'where'</td><td>206</td></tr><tr><td>6.6</td><td>Indefinite pronouns</td><td>208</td></tr><tr><td>6.6.1</td><td>ci 'someone'</td><td>209</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>6.6.2</td>
      <td><i>tʰuːci</i> ‘something’</td>
      <td>210</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.6.3</td>
      <td><i>tsʰitsuku</i> ‘whatever’</td>
      <td>213</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.6.4</td>
      <td><i>cum>cu</i> ‘whoever, anybody’</td>
      <td>214</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.6.5</td>
      <td><i>ciscʰiz</i> ‘somewhere’</td>
      <td>214</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.6.6</td>
      <td>Interrogative pronouns used as free-choice indefinites</td>
      <td>215</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.7</td>
      <td>Quantifiers</td>
      <td>217</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.7.1</td>
      <td>Universal quantifiers</td>
      <td>217</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.7.2</td>
      <td>Partitive pronouns</td>
      <td>218</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.7.3</td>
      <td>Distributive pronouns</td>
      <td>219</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.8</td>
      <td>Identity pronoun</td>
      <td>220</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.9</td>
      <td>Demonstrative pronouns</td>
      <td>223</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.9.1</td>
      <td>Anaphoric demonstrative pronouns</td>
      <td>223</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.9.2</td>
      <td>Medial and cataphoric pronoun</td>
      <td>226</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.9.3</td>
      <td>Locative forms of the demonstrative pronouns</td>
      <td>228</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7</td>
      <td>Numerals and counted nouns</td>
      <td>233</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1</td>
      <td>Plain numerals</td>
      <td>233</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.1</td>
      <td>Numerals 1-10</td>
      <td>233</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.2</td>
      <td>Tens</td>
      <td>235</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.3</td>
      <td>Numerals 11-19 and units</td>
      <td>235</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.4</td>
      <td>Hundred and above</td>
      <td>237</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.5</td>
      <td>Ordinals</td>
      <td>238</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.6</td>
      <td>Tibetan and Chinese numerals</td>
      <td>240</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.1.7</td>
      <td>Use of the numerals</td>
      <td>243</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.2</td>
      <td>Approximate numerals</td>
      <td>244</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.3</td>
      <td>Counted nouns</td>
      <td>247</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.3.1</td>
      <td>Numeral prefixes</td>
      <td>248</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.3.2</td>
      <td>Counted nouns in quantifying function</td>
      <td>258</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.3.3</td>
      <td>Counted nouns and semantic classes</td>
      <td>268</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.3.4</td>
      <td>Counted nouns and other parts of speech</td>
      <td>270</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.4</td>
      <td>Measures</td>
      <td>276</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.5</td>
      <td>Counting time</td>
      <td>279</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.5.1</td>
      <td>Temporal counted nouns</td>
      <td>279</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.5.2</td>
      <td>Time ordinals</td>
      <td>281</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.5.3</td>
      <td>Other derived time adverbs</td>
      <td>287</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.5.4</td>
      <td>Clock time</td>
      <td>287</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.6</td>
      <td>Basic arithmetic operations</td>
      <td>289</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7.6.1</td>
      <td>Fractions</td>
      <td>290</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
Contents

<table><tr><td>8</td><td>Postpositions and relator nouns</td><td>293</td></tr><tr><td>8.1</td><td>Absolutive</td><td>293</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.1</td><td>Intransitive subject</td><td>293</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.2</td><td>Transitive subject</td><td>294</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.3</td><td>Object</td><td>294</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.4</td><td>Sole argument of predicates of natural forces</td><td>295</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.5</td><td>Semi-object</td><td>296</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.6</td><td>Theme</td><td>297</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.7</td><td>Essive</td><td>298</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.8</td><td>Goal</td><td>302</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.9</td><td>Location</td><td>302</td></tr><tr><td>8.2</td><td>Postpositions</td><td>303</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.1</td><td>Independent words vs. clitics</td><td>303</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.2</td><td>Ergative</td><td>304</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.3</td><td>Genitive</td><td>313</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.4</td><td>Locative</td><td>323</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.5</td><td>Comitative</td><td>331</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.6</td><td>Additive</td><td>333</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.7</td><td>Standard marker</td><td>334</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.8</td><td>Exceptional</td><td>336</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.9</td><td>Terminative</td><td>337</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.10</td><td>Egressive</td><td>338</td></tr><tr><td>8.2.11</td><td>Other temporal postpositions</td><td>340</td></tr><tr><td>8.3</td><td>Relator nouns</td><td>344</td></tr><tr><td>8.3.1</td><td>Dative</td><td>345</td></tr><tr><td>8.3.2</td><td>Secutive</td><td>348</td></tr><tr><td>8.3.3</td><td>Deputative</td><td>349</td></tr><tr><td>8.3.4</td><td>Locative relator nouns</td><td>351</td></tr><tr><td>8.3.5</td><td>Temporal relator nouns</td><td>361</td></tr><tr><td>8.3.6</td><td>Semi-grammaticalized relator nouns</td><td>363</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>9</td><td>The noun phrase</td><td>367</td></tr><tr><td>9.1</td><td>Noun modifiers and determiners</td><td>367</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.1</td><td>Number</td><td>367</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.2</td><td>Demonstratives</td><td>374</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.3</td><td>Quantifiers</td><td>380</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.4</td><td>Indefinite and definite markers</td><td>387</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.5</td><td>Topic markers</td><td>392</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.6</td><td>Focus markers</td><td>400</td></tr></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>9.1.7</td><td>Identity modifiers</td><td>412</td></tr><tr><td>9.1.8</td><td>Attributes</td><td>414</td></tr><tr><td>9.2</td><td>Noun coordination</td><td>420</td></tr><tr><td>9.2.1</td><td>Coordination or embedded phrase</td><td>420</td></tr><tr><td>9.2.2</td><td>Bare coordination</td><td>421</td></tr><tr><td>9.2.3</td><td>Disjunction</td><td>424</td></tr><tr><td>9.3</td><td>Word order in the noun phrase</td><td>425</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>Expressive words and sentence final particles</td><td>427</td></tr><tr><td>10.1</td><td>Ideophones</td><td>427</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.1</td><td>Ideophonic stem morphology</td><td>427</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.2</td><td>Regular derivations</td><td>428</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.3</td><td>Semantic categories</td><td>435</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.4</td><td>Irregularities</td><td>436</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.5</td><td>The phonology of ideophonic roots</td><td>438</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.6</td><td>The genesis of ideophones</td><td>442</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.7</td><td>Syntax of ideophones</td><td>445</td></tr><tr><td>10.1.8</td><td>Discourse function</td><td>450</td></tr><tr><td>10.2</td><td>Other expressive words</td><td>451</td></tr><tr><td>10.2.1</td><td>Interjections</td><td>451</td></tr><tr><td>10.2.2</td><td>Calling and chasing sounds</td><td>454</td></tr><tr><td>10.2.3</td><td>Deonomatopoeic expressive nouns</td><td>456</td></tr><tr><td>10.3</td><td>Speech fillers</td><td>457</td></tr><tr><td>10.4</td><td>Sentence final particles</td><td>458</td></tr><tr><td>10.4.1</td><td>Particles used in commands</td><td>458</td></tr><tr><td>10.4.2</td><td>Particles used in polar questions</td><td>460</td></tr><tr><td>10.4.3</td><td>Hearsay particle</td><td>463</td></tr><tr><td>10.4.4</td><td>Particles expressing epistemic modality</td><td>464</td></tr><tr><td>10.4.5</td><td>Particles expressing speaker attitude</td><td>468</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>The structure of the Japhug verb</td><td>471</td></tr><tr><td>11.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>471</td></tr><tr><td>11.2</td><td>The prefixal chain</td><td>471</td></tr><tr><td>11.2.1</td><td>Outer prefixes</td><td>471</td></tr><tr><td>11.2.2</td><td>Inner prefixes</td><td>474</td></tr><tr><td>11.2.3</td><td>Stress</td><td>476</td></tr><tr><td>11.2.4</td><td>Phonotactic constraints</td><td>476</td></tr><tr><td>11.3</td><td>The suffixal chain</td><td>477</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>11.4</td><td>The peg circumfix</td><td>479</td></tr><tr><td>11.4.1</td><td>Morphology</td><td>479</td></tr><tr><td>11.4.2</td><td>Optionality of the suffixal element</td><td>480</td></tr><tr><td>11.4.3</td><td>Functions of the peg circumfix</td><td>480</td></tr><tr><td>11.5</td><td>Templatic vs. layered morphology</td><td>483</td></tr><tr><td>11.6</td><td>Wordhood</td><td>484</td></tr><tr><td>11.6.1</td><td>Criteria for wordhood</td><td>484</td></tr><tr><td>11.6.2</td><td>Enclitics</td><td>485</td></tr><tr><td>11.6.3</td><td>Bipartite verbs</td><td>487</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>Non-concatenative verbal morphology</td><td>493</td></tr><tr><td>12.1</td><td>Onset alternations</td><td>493</td></tr><tr><td>12.2</td><td>Stem alternations</td><td>493</td></tr><tr><td>12.2.1</td><td>Stem II</td><td>494</td></tr><tr><td>12.2.2</td><td>Stem III</td><td>495</td></tr><tr><td>12.2.3</td><td>Frozen -t suffix</td><td>498</td></tr><tr><td>12.3</td><td>Vowel contraction</td><td>499</td></tr><tr><td>12.4</td><td>Partial reduplication in verbal morphology</td><td>502</td></tr><tr><td>12.4.1</td><td>Initial reduplication</td><td>502</td></tr><tr><td>12.4.2</td><td>Verb stem reduplication as secondary exponence</td><td>508</td></tr><tr><td>12.4.3</td><td>Emphatic reduplication</td><td>510</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>Negation</td><td>513</td></tr><tr><td>13.1</td><td>Negative prefixes</td><td>513</td></tr><tr><td>13.1.1</td><td>Allomorphy</td><td>513</td></tr><tr><td>13.1.2</td><td>Suppletive negative verbs</td><td>515</td></tr><tr><td>13.1.3</td><td>Verbs requiring the negative prefixes</td><td>516</td></tr><tr><td>13.1.4</td><td>Lexicalized negation</td><td>517</td></tr><tr><td>13.2</td><td>Periphrastic negation</td><td>518</td></tr><tr><td>13.3</td><td>Double negation</td><td>519</td></tr><tr><td>13.4</td><td>Negation and parts of speech other than verbs</td><td>521</td></tr><tr><td>13.4.1</td><td>Nouns</td><td>521</td></tr><tr><td>13.4.2</td><td>Pronouns</td><td>521</td></tr><tr><td>13.4.3</td><td>Adverbs</td><td>522</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>Person indexation and argument structure</td><td>525</td></tr><tr><td>14.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>525</td></tr><tr><td>14.2</td><td>Intransitive verbs</td><td>525</td></tr><tr><td>14.2.1</td><td>The intransitive paradigm</td><td>525</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>14.2.2 Irregular intransitive verbs</td><td>529</td></tr><tr><td>14.2.3 Semi-transitive verbs</td><td>530</td></tr><tr><td>14.2.4 Intransitive verbs with oblique arguments</td><td>534</td></tr><tr><td>14.2.5 Semi-transitive verbs with additional oblique arguments</td><td>535</td></tr><tr><td>14.2.6 Intrinsically non-singular subjects</td><td>535</td></tr><tr><td>14.2.7 Invariable intransitive verbs</td><td>538</td></tr><tr><td>14.3 Transitive verbs</td><td>540</td></tr><tr><td>14.3.1 The morphological marking of transitivity in Japhug</td><td>540</td></tr><tr><td>14.3.2 Polypersonal indexation and direction marking</td><td>543</td></tr><tr><td>14.3.3 The function of the direct/inverse contrast in non-local configurations</td><td>564</td></tr><tr><td>14.3.4 Transitive irregular verbs</td><td>575</td></tr><tr><td>14.3.5 Transitive verbs with dummy subjects</td><td>577</td></tr><tr><td>14.4 Ditransitive verbs</td><td>579</td></tr><tr><td>14.4.1 Indirective</td><td>579</td></tr><tr><td>14.4.2 Secundative</td><td>581</td></tr><tr><td>14.4.3 Causative of transitive verbs</td><td>583</td></tr><tr><td>14.4.4 Causative of semi-transitive verbs</td><td>586</td></tr><tr><td>14.5 Labile verbs</td><td>586</td></tr><tr><td>14.5.1 Transitive-intransitive labile verbs</td><td>586</td></tr><tr><td>14.5.2 Transitive-intransitive labile verbs with oblique arguments</td><td>593</td></tr><tr><td>14.5.3 Semi-transitive labile verbs</td><td>594</td></tr><tr><td>14.5.4 Ditransitive-monotransitive lability</td><td>595</td></tr><tr><td>14.6 Additional questions on the generic and number indexation</td><td>596</td></tr><tr><td>14.6.1 Agreement mismatch</td><td>596</td></tr><tr><td>14.6.2 Generic person vs. 3PL indexation</td><td>604</td></tr><tr><td>14.7 Person indexation on non-finite predicative words</td><td>608</td></tr><tr><td>14.7.1 Phatic expressions</td><td>608</td></tr><tr><td>14.7.2 Exclamative expressions</td><td>610</td></tr><tr><td>14.8 Historical perspectives</td><td>611</td></tr><tr><td>14.8.1 Indexation suffixes, pronouns and possessive prefixes</td><td>612</td></tr><tr><td>14.8.2 The inverse prefix</td><td>615</td></tr><tr><td>14.8.3 The origin of portmanteau prefixes</td><td>616</td></tr><tr><td>15 Orientation and associated motion</td><td>621</td></tr><tr><td>15.1 Orientation preverbs</td><td>621</td></tr><tr><td>15.1.1 Morphology</td><td>621</td></tr><tr><td>15.1.2 Orientable verbs</td><td>632</td></tr><tr><td>15.1.3 The tridimensional system</td><td>641</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>15.1.4</td><td>Extended uses of orientations</td><td>652</td></tr><tr><td>15.1.5</td><td>Lexicalized orientations</td><td>662</td></tr><tr><td>15.2</td><td>Associated motion</td><td>682</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.1</td><td>AM prefixes: morphology</td><td>682</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.2</td><td>Argument of motion</td><td>688</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.3</td><td>Motion verbs and AM prefixes</td><td>690</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.4</td><td>Orientation and AM</td><td>691</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.5</td><td>Round trips</td><td>693</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.6</td><td>The nature of the motion</td><td>694</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.7</td><td>Goal</td><td>696</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.8</td><td>Echo phenomena</td><td>698</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.9</td><td>The verb <i>ru</i> 'fetch, bring'</td><td>701</td></tr><tr><td>15.2.10</td><td>Associated motion vs. motion verb construction</td><td>705</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>Non-finite verbal morphology</td><td>713</td></tr><tr><td>16.1</td><td>Participles</td><td>713</td></tr><tr><td>16.1.1</td><td>Subject participles</td><td>714</td></tr><tr><td>16.1.2</td><td>Object participles</td><td>732</td></tr><tr><td>16.1.3</td><td>Oblique participles</td><td>745</td></tr><tr><td>16.2</td><td>Infinitives</td><td>762</td></tr><tr><td>16.2.1</td><td>Velar infinitives</td><td>762</td></tr><tr><td>16.2.2</td><td>Bare infinitives</td><td>774</td></tr><tr><td>16.2.3</td><td>Dental infinitives</td><td>776</td></tr><tr><td>16.3</td><td>Degree nominals</td><td>778</td></tr><tr><td>16.3.1</td><td>Polarity prefixes</td><td>780</td></tr><tr><td>16.3.2</td><td>Argument structure</td><td>780</td></tr><tr><td>16.3.3</td><td>Nominal predicates</td><td>781</td></tr><tr><td>16.3.4</td><td>Degree construction</td><td>782</td></tr><tr><td>16.3.5</td><td>Complementation</td><td>782</td></tr><tr><td>16.4</td><td>Action nominals and abstract noun</td><td>783</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.1</td><td><i>tu</i>- action nominals</td><td>783</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.2</td><td><i>tr</i>- abstract nouns</td><td>784</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.3</td><td>Simultaneous</td><td>787</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.4</td><td>Denominalization of action nominals</td><td>788</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.5</td><td>Lexicalized action nominals</td><td>789</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.6</td><td>Inalienably possessed bare action nominals</td><td>791</td></tr><tr><td>16.4.7</td><td>Action nominal compounds</td><td>794</td></tr><tr><td>16.5</td><td>Other deverbal nouns</td><td>797</td></tr><tr><td>16.5.1</td><td>Nominalization -<i>z</i> suffix</td><td>797</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>16.5.2 Nominalization γ-/x- prefix</td><td>799</td></tr><tr><td>16.6 Converbs</td><td>800</td></tr><tr><td>16.6.1 Gerund</td><td>800</td></tr><tr><td>16.6.2 Purposive</td><td>806</td></tr><tr><td>16.6.3 Immediate</td><td>808</td></tr><tr><td>16.6.4 Adverb from finite verb</td><td>810</td></tr><tr><td>16.7 Defective verbs</td><td>811</td></tr><tr><td>16.8 Historical perspectives</td><td>811</td></tr><tr><td>16.8.1 Velar non-finite prefixes</td><td>811</td></tr><tr><td>16.8.2 Sigmatic non-finite prefixes</td><td>814</td></tr><tr><td>16.8.3 Dental non-finite prefixes</td><td>815</td></tr><tr><td><b>17 Valency-increasing derivations</b></td><td><b>819</b></td></tr><tr><td>17.1 Introduction</td><td>819</td></tr><tr><td>17.2 Sigmatic causative</td><td>819</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.1 Regular allomorphy</td><td>819</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.2 Irregular allomorphs</td><td>822</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.3 Lexicalized sigmatic causatives</td><td>828</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.4 Morphosyntax</td><td>830</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.5 Semantics of the causative</td><td>838</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.6 Stative verbs</td><td>846</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.7 Recursion</td><td>847</td></tr><tr><td>17.2.8 Compatibility with other derivations</td><td>848</td></tr><tr><td>17.3 Velar causative</td><td>849</td></tr><tr><td>17.3.1 Irregular allomorphs</td><td>851</td></tr><tr><td>17.3.2 Morphosyntax</td><td>853</td></tr><tr><td>17.3.3 Semantics</td><td>856</td></tr><tr><td>17.3.4 Compatibilities with other derivations</td><td>858</td></tr><tr><td>17.4 Applicative</td><td>859</td></tr><tr><td>17.4.1 The syntactic and semantic functions of the promoted argument</td><td>860</td></tr><tr><td>17.4.2 Allomorphy</td><td>866</td></tr><tr><td>17.4.3 Lexicalized applicatives</td><td>866</td></tr><tr><td>17.4.4 Applicatives and other derivations</td><td>868</td></tr><tr><td>17.5 Tropative</td><td>868</td></tr><tr><td>17.5.1 Allomorphy</td><td>870</td></tr><tr><td>17.5.2 Past imperfective</td><td>870</td></tr><tr><td>17.5.3 Lexicalized tropatives</td><td>871</td></tr><tr><td>17.5.4 Compatibility with other derivations</td><td>872</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tr><td>17.5.5</td><td>Other tropative constructions</td><td>874</td></tr><tr><td><b>18</b></td><td><b>Valency-decreasing derivations</b></td><td><b>875</b></td></tr><tr><td>18.1</td><td>Passive</td><td>875</td></tr><tr><td>18.1.1</td><td>The interaction of the Passive derivation with Dynamicity and TAME</td><td>877</td></tr><tr><td>18.1.2</td><td>Lexicalized passives</td><td>878</td></tr><tr><td>18.1.3</td><td>Agent demotion</td><td>880</td></tr><tr><td>18.1.4</td><td>Passive from ditransitive verbs</td><td>884</td></tr><tr><td>18.1.5</td><td>Reduplicated passive</td><td>884</td></tr><tr><td>18.1.6</td><td>Compatibility with other derivations</td><td>885</td></tr><tr><td>18.2</td><td>Rogative</td><td>887</td></tr><tr><td>18.3</td><td>Reflexive</td><td>888</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.1</td><td>The reflexive prefix: form and basic function</td><td>888</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.2</td><td>Reflexive vs. anticausative</td><td>893</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.3</td><td>Lexicalized reflexives</td><td>895</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.4</td><td>Reflexive causative</td><td>896</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.5</td><td>Reflexive and autive</td><td>900</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.6</td><td>Reflexive, tropative and applicative</td><td>901</td></tr><tr><td>18.3.7</td><td>Historical origin</td><td>902</td></tr><tr><td>18.4</td><td>Reciprocal</td><td>903</td></tr><tr><td>18.4.1</td><td>Reduplicated reciprocal</td><td>903</td></tr><tr><td>18.4.2</td><td>Reciprocal amu- prefix</td><td>910</td></tr><tr><td>18.4.3</td><td>Reciprocal andzu- prefix</td><td>915</td></tr><tr><td>18.4.4</td><td>Verbs of co-participation</td><td>915</td></tr><tr><td>18.5</td><td>Anticausative</td><td>916</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.1</td><td>Morphology</td><td>916</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.2</td><td>Function</td><td>920</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.3</td><td>Anticausative and dummy subject constructions</td><td>922</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.4</td><td>Collocation</td><td>923</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.5</td><td>Volitionality</td><td>924</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.6</td><td>Compatibility with other derivations</td><td>926</td></tr><tr><td>18.5.7</td><td>Other cases of voicing alternation</td><td>929</td></tr><tr><td>18.6</td><td>Antipassive</td><td>929</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.1</td><td>ry- antipassive</td><td>929</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.2</td><td>sy- antipassive</td><td>933</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.3</td><td>Lexicalized antipassive</td><td>934</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.4</td><td>Antipassive forms of ditransitive verbs</td><td>936</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.5</td><td>Reduplicated antipassive</td><td>939</td></tr></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>18.6.6</td><td>Antipassive and past imperfective</td><td>940</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.7</td><td>The uses of the antipassive derivations</td><td>941</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.8</td><td>Other strategies used to express indefinite patients</td><td>946</td></tr><tr><td>18.6.9</td><td>Compatibility with other derivations</td><td>948</td></tr><tr><td>18.7</td><td>Distributed property</td><td>950</td></tr><tr><td>18.8</td><td>Proprietive</td><td>953</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.1</td><td>Allomorphy</td><td>955</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.2</td><td>Proprietive derivation and generic marking</td><td>955</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.3</td><td>Proprietive derivations from semi-transitive verbs</td><td>957</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.4</td><td>Proprietive derivations from transitive verbs</td><td>958</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.5</td><td>Lexicalized proprietive</td><td>959</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.6</td><td>Compatibility with other derivations</td><td>960</td></tr><tr><td>18.8.7</td><td>Relationship with other derivations</td><td>961</td></tr><tr><td>18.9</td><td>Facilitative</td><td>961</td></tr><tr><td>18.9.1</td><td>Subject-oriented facilitative</td><td>961</td></tr><tr><td>18.9.2</td><td>Object-oriented facilitative</td><td>964</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>Other verbal derivations</td><td>967</td></tr><tr><td>19.1</td><td>Autive</td><td>967</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.1</td><td>The autive prefix and verb transitivity</td><td>967</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.2</td><td>Position in the verbal template and allomorphy</td><td>968</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.3</td><td>Autobenefactive/self-affectedness function</td><td>970</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.4</td><td>Spontaneous function</td><td>973</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.5</td><td>Permansive function</td><td>977</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.6</td><td>Lexicalized autives</td><td>979</td></tr><tr><td>19.1.7</td><td>Historical relationship with other derivations</td><td>982</td></tr><tr><td>19.2</td><td>Vertitive</td><td>982</td></tr><tr><td>19.3</td><td>Abilitative</td><td>984</td></tr><tr><td>19.3.1</td><td>Lexicalized abilitatives</td><td>986</td></tr><tr><td>19.3.2</td><td>Historical origin</td><td>986</td></tr><tr><td>19.4</td><td>Distributed action</td><td>987</td></tr><tr><td>19.4.1</td><td>Lexicalized distributed action verbs</td><td>992</td></tr><tr><td>19.4.2</td><td>Irregular partial reduplication</td><td>994</td></tr><tr><td>19.4.3</td><td>Compatibilities with other derivations</td><td>995</td></tr><tr><td>19.5</td><td>Auto-evaluative</td><td>995</td></tr><tr><td>19.6</td><td>Attenuative reduplication</td><td>996</td></tr><tr><td>19.7</td><td>Fossil affixes and marginal derivations</td><td>997</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.1</td><td>Volitional mu- prefix</td><td>997</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.2</td><td>Applicative -t suffix</td><td>998</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>19.7.3</td><td>Antipassive -t suffix</td><td>1000</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.4</td><td>Other detransitive prefixes</td><td>1002</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.5</td><td>rъ- prefix</td><td>1002</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.6</td><td>yuu-/γъ- prefix</td><td>1004</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.7</td><td>a- prefix</td><td>1005</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.8</td><td>Abilitative j- prefix</td><td>1006</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.9</td><td>Prenasalization</td><td>1006</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.10</td><td>Comparative derivation?</td><td>1007</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.11</td><td>Reduplication</td><td>1008</td></tr><tr><td>19.7.12</td><td>Vowel alternation</td><td>1009</td></tr><tr><td><b>20</b></td><td><b>Denominal derivations</b></td><td><b>1011</b></td></tr><tr><td>20.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>1011</td></tr><tr><td>20.1.1</td><td>Morphological properties of denominal prefixes</td><td>1012</td></tr><tr><td>20.1.2</td><td>Denominal derivations and light verb constructions</td><td>1012</td></tr><tr><td>20.2</td><td>Contracting prefixes</td><td>1014</td></tr><tr><td>20.2.1</td><td>Stative a-</td><td>1014</td></tr><tr><td>20.2.2</td><td>Similative aru-</td><td>1016</td></tr><tr><td>20.2.3</td><td>Proprietive arъ-</td><td>1018</td></tr><tr><td>20.2.4</td><td>Proprietive ayuu-</td><td>1019</td></tr><tr><td>20.2.5</td><td>Collective andzi-</td><td>1024</td></tr><tr><td>20.3</td><td>Sigmatic denominal prefixes</td><td>1025</td></tr><tr><td>20.3.1</td><td>Proprietive sъ-</td><td>1025</td></tr><tr><td>20.3.2</td><td>Causative/instrumental sV-</td><td>1027</td></tr><tr><td>20.4</td><td>Rhotic denominal prefixes</td><td>1031</td></tr><tr><td>20.4.1</td><td>Intransitive denominal verbs</td><td>1031</td></tr><tr><td>20.4.2</td><td>Transitive denominal verbs</td><td>1034</td></tr><tr><td>20.4.3</td><td>Pairing with other denominal prefixes</td><td>1036</td></tr><tr><td>20.5</td><td>Velar denominal prefixes</td><td>1038</td></tr><tr><td>20.5.1</td><td>Intransitive denominal verbs</td><td>1038</td></tr><tr><td>20.5.2</td><td>Transitive denominal verbs</td><td>1040</td></tr><tr><td>20.5.3</td><td>Pairing with other denominal prefixes</td><td>1042</td></tr><tr><td>20.6</td><td>Labial nasal denominal prefixes</td><td>1043</td></tr><tr><td>20.7</td><td>Dental nasal denominal prefixes</td><td>1046</td></tr><tr><td>20.7.1</td><td>Intransitive</td><td>1046</td></tr><tr><td>20.7.2</td><td>Transitive</td><td>1050</td></tr><tr><td>20.7.3</td><td>Pairing with other denominal prefixes</td><td>1052</td></tr><tr><td>20.8</td><td>Other denominal verbs</td><td>1053</td></tr><tr><td>20.8.1</td><td>Zero-derivation or backformation?</td><td>1053</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>20.8.2</td><td>Vowel alternation</td><td>1055</td></tr><tr><td>20.9</td><td>Deideophonic verbs</td><td>1055</td></tr><tr><td>20.9.1</td><td>γγ̃- and sγ̃- deideophonic verbs</td><td>1056</td></tr><tr><td>20.9.2</td><td>nũ- deideophonic verbs</td><td>1057</td></tr><tr><td>20.9.3</td><td>a- and nγ̃- deideophonic verbs</td><td>1058</td></tr><tr><td>20.10</td><td>The denominal origin of voice prefixes</td><td>1059</td></tr><tr><td>20.10.1</td><td>The origin of the rγ̃- antipassive prefix</td><td>1060</td></tr><tr><td>20.10.2</td><td>The proprietive and antipassive sγ̃- prefixes and their tropative counterpart</td><td>1064</td></tr><tr><td>20.10.3</td><td>Applicative, sigmatic causative and passive</td><td>1065</td></tr><tr><td>20.11</td><td>Loan verbs</td><td>1066</td></tr><tr><td>20.12</td><td>Compound verbs</td><td>1067</td></tr><tr><td>20.13</td><td>Incorporation</td><td>1069</td></tr><tr><td>20.13.1</td><td>Incorporation and denominal derivation</td><td>1070</td></tr><tr><td>20.13.2</td><td>Incorporation and other derivations</td><td>1075</td></tr><tr><td>20.13.3</td><td>Syntactic function of the incorporated word</td><td>1075</td></tr><tr><td>20.13.4</td><td>Incorporation and other constructions</td><td>1078</td></tr><tr><td>21</td><td>Tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality</td><td>1081</td></tr><tr><td>21.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>1081</td></tr><tr><td>21.1.1</td><td>Preverbs</td><td>1082</td></tr><tr><td>21.1.2</td><td>Stem alternation</td><td>1085</td></tr><tr><td>21.1.3</td><td>Other affixes</td><td>1086</td></tr><tr><td>21.1.4</td><td>Evidentiality and person</td><td>1087</td></tr><tr><td>21.2</td><td>Imperfective</td><td>1087</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.1</td><td>Morphology</td><td>1088</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.2</td><td>Use in periphrastic TAME categories</td><td>1089</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.3</td><td>Use in temporal clauses</td><td>1093</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.4</td><td>Use in complement clauses</td><td>1094</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.5</td><td>Hortative</td><td>1095</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.6</td><td>Inchoative</td><td>1096</td></tr><tr><td>21.2.7</td><td>Perception verbs</td><td>1097</td></tr><tr><td>21.3</td><td>Non-past categories</td><td>1100</td></tr><tr><td>21.3.1</td><td>Factual Non-Past</td><td>1100</td></tr><tr><td>21.3.2</td><td>Sensory</td><td>1104</td></tr><tr><td>21.3.3</td><td>Egophoric Present</td><td>1112</td></tr><tr><td>21.3.4</td><td>Tripartite contrast</td><td>1117</td></tr><tr><td>21.4</td><td>Modal categories</td><td>1118</td></tr><tr><td>21.4.1</td><td>Irrealis</td><td>1118</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tr><td>21.4.2 Imperative</td><td>1126</td></tr><tr><td>21.4.3 Prohibitive</td><td>1130</td></tr><tr><td>21.4.4 Dubitative</td><td>1133</td></tr><tr><td>21.5 Past categories</td><td>1134</td></tr><tr><td>21.5.1 Aorist</td><td>1134</td></tr><tr><td>21.5.2 Inferential</td><td>1143</td></tr><tr><td>21.5.3 Past Imperfective and Inferential Imperfective</td><td>1152</td></tr><tr><td>21.5.4 Archaic form</td><td>1157</td></tr><tr><td>21.6 Secondary Aspectual categories</td><td>1158</td></tr><tr><td>21.6.1 Progressive</td><td>1158</td></tr><tr><td>21.6.2 Proximative</td><td>1165</td></tr><tr><td>21.7 Secondary Modal categories</td><td>1168</td></tr><tr><td>21.7.1 Apprehensive</td><td>1168</td></tr><tr><td>21.7.2 Probabilitative</td><td>1172</td></tr><tr><td>21.7.3 Rhetorical interrogative</td><td>1175</td></tr><tr><td>21.7.4 Interrogative</td><td>1179</td></tr><tr><td>21.7.5 Periphrastic modal constructions</td><td>1180</td></tr><tr><td>21.7.6 Pseudo-concessive</td><td>1181</td></tr><tr><td>21.8 Non-verbal TAME markers</td><td>1182</td></tr><tr><td>21.8.1 TAME adverbs</td><td>1182</td></tr><tr><td>21.8.2 Sentence-final particles</td><td>1182</td></tr><tr><td>21.8.3 Nouns and the expression of modality</td><td>1182</td></tr><tr><td>22 Simple clauses</td><td>1187</td></tr><tr><td>22.1 Word order</td><td>1187</td></tr><tr><td>22.1.1 Basic word order</td><td>1187</td></tr><tr><td>22.1.2 Overt and non-overt arguments</td><td>1193</td></tr><tr><td>22.1.3 Right dislocation</td><td>1197</td></tr><tr><td>22.2 Sentential adverbs</td><td>1199</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.1 Tense and aspect</td><td>1200</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.2 Quantification</td><td>1203</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.3 Identity</td><td>1208</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.4 Adverbial Intensifiers</td><td>1208</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.5 Epistemic modality</td><td>1210</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.6 Orientation adverbs</td><td>1210</td></tr><tr><td>22.2.7 Postverbal elements</td><td>1213</td></tr><tr><td>22.3 Non-verbal predicates</td><td>1214</td></tr><tr><td>22.4 Noun-verb collocations and light verb constructions</td><td>1216</td></tr><tr><td>22.4.1 Intransitive verbs</td><td>1216</td></tr></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>22.4.2</td><td>Transitive verbs</td><td>1222</td></tr><tr><td>22.4.3</td><td>Frozen collocations</td><td>1236</td></tr><tr><td>22.5</td><td>Copulas and existential verbs</td><td>1241</td></tr><tr><td>22.5.1</td><td>Basic functions</td><td>1242</td></tr><tr><td>22.5.2</td><td>Possessive constructions</td><td>1245</td></tr><tr><td>22.5.3</td><td>Postverbal copulas</td><td>1248</td></tr><tr><td>22.5.4</td><td>Postverbal negative existential verb</td><td>1253</td></tr><tr><td>22.5.5</td><td>Verb doubling</td><td>1255</td></tr><tr><td>22.5.6</td><td>Other constructions</td><td>1256</td></tr><tr><td>23</td><td>Relative clauses</td><td>1257</td></tr><tr><td>23.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>1257</td></tr><tr><td>23.2</td><td>Subtypes of relative clauses</td><td>1257</td></tr><tr><td>23.2.1</td><td>Participial relative clauses</td><td>1257</td></tr><tr><td>23.2.2</td><td>Finite relative clauses</td><td>1258</td></tr><tr><td>23.2.3</td><td>Genitival relative</td><td>1259</td></tr><tr><td>23.2.4</td><td>Relator nouns</td><td>1260</td></tr><tr><td>23.2.5</td><td>Interrogative pronouns and correlative constructions</td><td>1261</td></tr><tr><td>23.3</td><td>Morphosyntactic specificities of relative clauses</td><td>1263</td></tr><tr><td>23.3.1</td><td>Resumptive pronouns</td><td>1263</td></tr><tr><td>23.3.2</td><td>Totalitative reduplication</td><td>1264</td></tr><tr><td>23.3.3</td><td>Genitive possessor</td><td>1265</td></tr><tr><td>23.3.4</td><td>Possessive prefix neutralization</td><td>1266</td></tr><tr><td>23.3.5</td><td>Determiners</td><td>1267</td></tr><tr><td>23.3.6</td><td>Postverbal elements</td><td>1269</td></tr><tr><td>23.4</td><td>Position of the relativized element</td><td>1270</td></tr><tr><td>23.4.1</td><td>Headless</td><td>1271</td></tr><tr><td>23.4.2</td><td>Prenominal</td><td>1271</td></tr><tr><td>23.4.3</td><td>Head-internal</td><td>1271</td></tr><tr><td>23.4.4</td><td>Postnominal</td><td>1274</td></tr><tr><td>23.5</td><td>Function of the relativized element</td><td>1275</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.1</td><td>Intransitive subject</td><td>1275</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.2</td><td>Transitive subject</td><td>1277</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.3</td><td>Object</td><td>1278</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.4</td><td>Quasi-objects</td><td>1281</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.5</td><td>Goal and locative</td><td>1284</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.6</td><td>Instrument</td><td>1287</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.7</td><td>Comitative</td><td>1288</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.8</td><td>Dative</td><td>1289</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>23.5.9</td><td>Time adjuncts</td><td>1289</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.10</td><td>Possessor</td><td>1290</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.11</td><td>Relativization out of complement clause</td><td>1294</td></tr><tr><td>23.5.12</td><td>Constraints on relativizability</td><td>1298</td></tr><tr><td>23.6</td><td>Relative clauses and focalization</td><td>1299</td></tr><tr><td>23.6.1</td><td>Pseudo-cleft constructions</td><td>1299</td></tr><tr><td>23.6.2</td><td>Non-equative pseudo-cleft</td><td>1301</td></tr><tr><td>23.7</td><td>Quantification</td><td>1302</td></tr><tr><td>23.8</td><td>Relative vs. complement clauses</td><td>1304</td></tr><tr><td>23.8.1</td><td>Ambiguity (finite clauses)</td><td>1304</td></tr><tr><td>23.8.2</td><td>Ambiguity (non-finite clauses)</td><td>1306</td></tr><tr><td>23.8.3</td><td>Participial clauses in core argument function</td><td>1307</td></tr><tr><td>23.8.4</td><td>Relativized complement clauses</td><td>1308</td></tr><tr><td>24</td><td>Complement clauses</td><td>1311</td></tr><tr><td>24.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>1311</td></tr><tr><td>24.2</td><td>Complement types</td><td>1311</td></tr><tr><td>24.2.1</td><td>Velar infinitive clauses</td><td>1312</td></tr><tr><td>24.2.2</td><td>Bare infinitives and dental infinitives</td><td>1314</td></tr><tr><td>24.2.3</td><td>Finite complements</td><td>1316</td></tr><tr><td>24.2.4</td><td>Multiclausal complements</td><td>1320</td></tr><tr><td>24.2.5</td><td>Reported speech</td><td>1322</td></tr><tr><td>24.3</td><td>Morphosyntactic properties of complement clauses</td><td>1327</td></tr><tr><td>24.3.1</td><td>Word order and constituency</td><td>1327</td></tr><tr><td>24.3.2</td><td>Case marking</td><td>1327</td></tr><tr><td>24.3.3</td><td>Determiners</td><td>1329</td></tr><tr><td>24.3.4</td><td>Restrictive and additive focus</td><td>1330</td></tr><tr><td>24.3.5</td><td>Raising of preverb orientation</td><td>1330</td></tr><tr><td>24.4</td><td>Complementation strategies</td><td>1333</td></tr><tr><td>24.4.1</td><td>Relative clauses in core argument function</td><td>1333</td></tr><tr><td>24.4.2</td><td>Participial clauses</td><td>1334</td></tr><tr><td>24.4.3</td><td>Action nominals</td><td>1340</td></tr><tr><td>24.4.4</td><td>Coordination</td><td>1344</td></tr><tr><td>24.5</td><td>Complement-taking verbs</td><td>1345</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.1</td><td>Causative verbs</td><td>1346</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.2</td><td>pa 'do'</td><td>1352</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.3</td><td>Modal verbs</td><td>1352</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.4</td><td>Verbs of cognition</td><td>1359</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.5</td><td>Verbs of perception</td><td>1362</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>24.5.6</td><td>Phasal verbs and other aspectual auxiliaries</td><td>1364</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.7</td><td>Similative verbs</td><td>1369</td></tr><tr><td>24.5.8</td><td>Complement-taking adjectival verbs</td><td>1371</td></tr><tr><td>24.6</td><td>Complement-taking nouns</td><td>1372</td></tr><tr><td>24.6.1</td><td>Complement-taking nouns and denominal verbs</td><td>1372</td></tr><tr><td>24.6.2</td><td>Adnominal complement clause and possessor</td><td>1373</td></tr><tr><td>24.6.3</td><td>Overview of complement-taking nouns</td><td>1374</td></tr><tr><td>24.6.4</td><td>Relative clauses as a complementation strategy</td><td>1379</td></tr><tr><td>24.7</td><td>Syntactic errors</td><td>1381</td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>Other types of multiclausal constructions</td><td>1383</td></tr><tr><td>25.1</td><td>Classification of multiclausal constructions</td><td>1383</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.1</td><td>Marked subordinate clauses</td><td>1383</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.2</td><td>Correlative clauses</td><td>1384</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.3</td><td>Periphrastic tenses and subordination</td><td>1385</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.4</td><td>Unmarked embedded clauses</td><td>1386</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.5</td><td>Serial verb constructions</td><td>1387</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.6</td><td>Coordination and parataxis</td><td>1387</td></tr><tr><td>25.1.7</td><td>Tail-head linkeage</td><td>1388</td></tr><tr><td>25.2</td><td>Conditional constructions</td><td>1389</td></tr><tr><td>25.2.1</td><td>Real conditionals</td><td>1390</td></tr><tr><td>25.2.2</td><td>Necessary condition</td><td>1392</td></tr><tr><td>25.2.3</td><td>Concessive conditional</td><td>1392</td></tr><tr><td>25.2.4</td><td>Counterfactuals</td><td>1397</td></tr><tr><td>25.3</td><td>Temporal clauses</td><td>1398</td></tr><tr><td>25.3.1</td><td>Iterative coincidence</td><td>1398</td></tr><tr><td>25.3.2</td><td>Precedence</td><td>1398</td></tr><tr><td>25.3.3</td><td>Subsequence</td><td>1401</td></tr><tr><td>25.3.4</td><td>Concurrence</td><td>1403</td></tr><tr><td>25.4</td><td>Manner clauses</td><td>1406</td></tr><tr><td>25.4.1</td><td>Serial verb construction</td><td>1406</td></tr><tr><td>25.4.2</td><td>Manner converbs</td><td>1410</td></tr><tr><td>25.5</td><td>Causality</td><td>1411</td></tr><tr><td>25.5.1</td><td>Consequence</td><td>1411</td></tr><tr><td>25.5.2</td><td>Cause</td><td>1412</td></tr><tr><td>25.5.3</td><td>Prerequisite</td><td>1415</td></tr><tr><td>25.5.4</td><td>Purposive clauses</td><td>1415</td></tr><tr><td>25.5.5</td><td>Justification clauses</td><td>1418</td></tr><tr><td>25.5.6</td><td>Precautioning clauses</td><td>1419</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>25.6</td><td>Other constructions</td><td>1420</td></tr><tr><td>25.6.1</td><td>Adversative</td><td>1420</td></tr><tr><td>25.6.2</td><td>Addition</td><td>1424</td></tr><tr><td>25.6.3</td><td>Exceptive</td><td>1428</td></tr><tr><td>25.6.4</td><td>Disjunction</td><td>1430</td></tr><tr><td>26</td><td>Degree and comparison</td><td>1431</td></tr><tr><td>26.1</td><td>Absolute degree and intensifiers</td><td>1431</td></tr><tr><td>26.1.1</td><td>Degree adverbs</td><td>1431</td></tr><tr><td>26.1.2</td><td>Degree nominals</td><td>1436</td></tr><tr><td>26.1.3</td><td>Serial verb construction</td><td>1440</td></tr><tr><td>26.1.4</td><td>Exceptive</td><td>1440</td></tr><tr><td>26.2</td><td>Comparative</td><td>1441</td></tr><tr><td>26.2.1</td><td>The postpositions syz and kuw</td><td>1441</td></tr><tr><td>26.2.2</td><td>Intensifier tsa 'a little'</td><td>1443</td></tr><tr><td>26.2.3</td><td>The negative verb neg+zu 'not) just be'</td><td>1444</td></tr><tr><td>26.2.4</td><td>The egressive postposition caŋtaŋ 'up from'</td><td>1445</td></tr><tr><td>26.2.5</td><td>Negative existential verbs</td><td>1445</td></tr><tr><td>26.3</td><td>Equative and similative</td><td>1446</td></tr><tr><td>26.3.1</td><td>Entity equative</td><td>1446</td></tr><tr><td>26.3.2</td><td>Property equative</td><td>1450</td></tr><tr><td>26.3.3</td><td>Similative</td><td>1451</td></tr><tr><td>26.4</td><td>Superlative</td><td>1453</td></tr><tr><td>26.4.1</td><td>Degree adverb</td><td>1453</td></tr><tr><td>26.4.2</td><td>Possessed participle</td><td>1454</td></tr><tr><td>26.4.3</td><td>Negative existential</td><td>1455</td></tr><tr><td>27</td><td>Kinship</td><td>1457</td></tr><tr><td>27.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>1457</td></tr><tr><td>27.2</td><td>Kinship terms by generations</td><td>1459</td></tr><tr><td>27.2.1</td><td>Ascending generations</td><td>1459</td></tr><tr><td>27.2.2</td><td>Siblings</td><td>1462</td></tr><tr><td>27.2.3</td><td>Cousins</td><td>1463</td></tr><tr><td>27.2.4</td><td>Descending generations</td><td>1465</td></tr><tr><td>27.2.5</td><td>Spouses and affines</td><td>1469</td></tr><tr><td>27.3</td><td>Marriage rules</td><td>1470</td></tr><tr><td>27.4</td><td>Lineages</td><td>1471</td></tr><tr><td>27.5</td><td>Omaha skewing</td><td>1472</td></tr><tr><td>27.5.1</td><td>Skewing rules and merging rules</td><td>1472</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tr><td>27.5.2 Cross-cousin lineages</td><td>1476</td></tr><tr><td>27.5.3 Maternal parallel cousin lineages</td><td>1478</td></tr><tr><td>27.5.4 Application</td><td>1478</td></tr><tr><td><strong>References</strong></td><td><strong>1481</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Index</strong></td><td><strong>1503</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Name index</td><td>1503</td></tr><tr><td>Index of Japhug forms</td><td>1507</td></tr><tr><td>Subject index</td><td>1551</td></tr></table>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>
Acknowledgments

This grammar has been written with the help of colleagues, friends and family. I
wish to thank in particular:

• Tshendzin 陈珍 and Dpalcan 柏尔青, who taught me Japhug.

• Andzin, Ayang/Kunbzang Mtsho, Tshering Skyid, for telling me stories in Japhug.

• Norbu 罗尔武 and Pengfeng 彭锋, for their help and support during my stays in Mbarkham.

• Jackson T.-S. Sun 孙天心 and Lin Youjing 林幼菁, from whom I have learnt a lot, especially during our time together doing fieldwork in Mbarkham and Chengdu.

• Laurent Sagart, for his invaluable help for preparing my first fieldwork trip, and for teaching me Chinese historical phonology.

• Yang Dongfang 杨东方 and Chang Yueh-chin 张月琴, for their help during my first stay in Mbarkham in 2002, and for introducing me to Tshendzin.

• My former PhD students Lai Yunfan 赖云帆, Gong Xun 龚勋 and Zhang Shuya 章舒娅, for their challenging questions and comments, and for helping recording some of the texts in the corpus.

• Alexis Michaud, Boyd Michailovksy and Séverine Guillaume, without whom I would not have made my Japhug texts available on the Pangloss archive.

• Céline Buret, Rémi Bonnet, Benjamin Galliot, who helped producing several versions of the Japhug-French-Chinese dictionary.

• Alexander Delaporte, for writing a program to add doi links automatically.

• Martin Haspelmath, for accepting this manuscript in the series 'Studies in Diversity Linguistics' and for organizing the evaluation process.
Acknowledgments

• Thomas Pellard and Sebastian Nordhoff, for their guidance with LATEX.

• Anton Antonov, Curtis Bartosik and Aimée Lahaussois, each of whom provided detailed corrections on half a dozen chapters.

• the other LSP reviewers: Laura Arnold, Tom Bossuyt, Michael Daniel, Valérie Guérin, Ariel Gutman, Andreas Hölzl, Katarzyna Janic, Seppo Kittilä, Joseph Lovestrand, Lachlan Mackenzie, Bruno Olsson, Bastian Persohn, Yvonne Treis, Jeroen van de Weijer and Ye Jingting 叶婧婷.

• Li Shang 李上, Theo Yeh 葉庭英, Roland Pooth and Marc Miyake, who provided useful corrections on the draft.

• Archi and Mira, for being there.
Abbreviations

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>1</td>
    <td>first person</td>
    <td>FACIL</td>
    <td>facilitative</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>2</td>
    <td>second person</td>
    <td>FACT</td>
    <td>factual non-past</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>3</td>
    <td>third person</td>
    <td>GEN</td>
    <td>genitive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>[II], [III]</td>
    <td>stem II, stem III</td>
    <td>GENR</td>
    <td>generic</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>ABIL</td>
    <td>abilitative</td>
    <td>GER</td>
    <td>gerund</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>ACAUS</td>
    <td>anticausative</td>
    <td>HORT</td>
    <td>hortative</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>ADD</td>
    <td>additive</td>
    <td>HUM</td>
    <td>human</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>AFF</td>
    <td>affirmative</td>
    <td>IDPH:X</td>
    <td>pattern X ideophone</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>ANTHR</td>
    <td>anthroponym</td>
    <td>IFR</td>
    <td>inferential</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>AOR</td>
    <td>aorist</td>
    <td>IMM</td>
    <td>immediate</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>APASS</td>
    <td>antipassive</td>
    <td>IMP</td>
    <td>imperative</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>APPL</td>
    <td>applicative</td>
    <td>INDEF</td>
    <td>indefinite</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>APPR</td>
    <td>apprehensive</td>
    <td>INF</td>
    <td>infinitive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>AUTO</td>
    <td>autive</td>
    <td>INF:II</td>
    <td>dental infinitive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>AUX</td>
    <td>auxiliary</td>
    <td>INTERJ</td>
    <td>interjection</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>BARE.INF</td>
    <td>bare infinitive</td>
    <td>INV</td>
    <td>inverse</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>CATAPH</td>
    <td>cataphoric</td>
    <td>IPFV</td>
    <td>imperfective</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>CAUS</td>
    <td>causative</td>
    <td>IRR</td>
    <td>irrealis</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>CISL</td>
    <td>cislocative</td>
    <td>LNK</td>
    <td>linker</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>COLL</td>
    <td>collective</td>
    <td>NEG</td>
    <td>negative</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>COMIT</td>
    <td>comitative</td>
    <td>NMLZ</td>
    <td>nominalization</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>COMP</td>
    <td>standard of comparison</td>
    <td>OBJ</td>
    <td>object</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>COND</td>
    <td>conditional</td>
    <td>OBL</td>
    <td>oblique</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>CONV</td>
    <td>converb</td>
    <td>PASS</td>
    <td>passive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>DAT</td>
    <td>dative</td>
    <td>PCP</td>
    <td>participle</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>DEG</td>
    <td>degree</td>
    <td>PEG</td>
    <td>peg circumfix</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>DEM</td>
    <td>demonstrative</td>
    <td>PL</td>
    <td>plural</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>DU</td>
    <td>dual</td>
    <td>POSS</td>
    <td>possessive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>DUB</td>
    <td>dubitative</td>
    <td>PROB</td>
    <td>probabilitative</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>EMPH</td>
    <td>emphatic</td>
    <td>PROG</td>
    <td>progressive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>ERG</td>
    <td>ergative</td>
    <td>PROP</td>
    <td>proprietive</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td></td>
    <td>PROX</td>
    <td>proximal</td>
  </tr>
</table>
Abbreviations

<table><tr><td>PROXM</td><td>proximative</td></tr><tr><td>PRS</td><td>egophoric present</td></tr><tr><td>PST</td><td>past</td></tr><tr><td>PURP</td><td>purposive</td></tr><tr><td>QU</td><td>question</td></tr><tr><td>RECIP</td><td>reciprocal</td></tr><tr><td>REFL</td><td>reflexive</td></tr><tr><td>RH.Q</td><td>rhetorical interrogative</td></tr><tr><td>ROG</td><td>rogative</td></tr><tr><td>SENS</td><td>sensory</td></tr><tr><td>SFP</td><td>sentence final particle</td></tr><tr><td>SG</td><td>singular</td></tr><tr><td>STAT</td><td>stative</td></tr><tr><td>SUBJ</td><td>subject</td></tr><tr><td>TOTAL</td><td>totalitative reduplication</td></tr><tr><td>TOPO</td><td>toponym</td></tr><tr><td>TR</td><td>transitive</td></tr><tr><td>TRAL</td><td>translocative</td></tr><tr><td>TROP</td><td>tropative</td></tr><tr><td>UNEXP.DEG</td><td>unexpected degree</td></tr><tr><td>†XXX</td><td>incorrect form</td></tr><tr><td>*XXX</td><td>reconstructed form</td></tr><tr><td>X*</td><td>Kleene star</td></tr></table>
# 1 Introduction

## 1.1 The Japhug language

The Japhug language (local name *kuruskýt*) is spoken by several thousand speakers in Mbarkhams county (in Chinese *Maerkang* 马尔康), Rngaba prefecture, Sichuan province, China, in the 乡 <xiāng> ‘townships’ of 西durgýt (གདོང་བརྒྱད་ gdoŋ.-brg'ad, 龙尔甲 lóng'ěrjiǎ), sarndzu (གསར་རྫོང་ gsar.rdzon, 沙尔宗 shāěrzōng) and tatsʰi (༥༦༤ da.tsʰanj, 大藏 dàzàng), collectively called tɛ́rɛ́pʰu or tɛ́hɛ́pʰu (from which the name Japhug is taken).<fnref n="1" /> All speakers of Japhug are classified as ethnic Tibetans (藏族 zàngzú).<fnref n="2" />

This work focuses almost exclusively on the dialect of *kyŋŋu* village (干木鸟 gānmùniǎo, 32° 12′ 43″ N, 101° 57′ 42″ E), henceforth written as Kamnyu.

Japhug is one of the four Core Gyalrong languages (Sun 2000a), Tshobdun, Zbu and Situ, represented in Figure 1.1. It is particularly closely related to the West Gyalrongic languages: Khroskyabs, Stau and Tangut (Sun 2000b; Jacques et al. 2017).

Core Gyalrong and West Gyalrongic form the Gyalrongic group (Sun 2000b), itself a subbranch of Burmo-Gyalrongic (Jacques & Michaud 2011) and possibly the larger Tibeto-Gyalrongic group (Sagart et al. 2019).

Japhug is in contact with both Standard Mandarin and a local variety of Sichuanese. Since no study has focused on the Sichuan Mandarin as spoken by Gyalrong speakers in Mbarkham, the present work represents all Chinese words in Standard Mandarin and pinyin (between chevrons), except for highly nativized Chinese words, presented in IPA.

Situ Gyalrong and Amdo Tibetan used to be the two dominant languages in the area, and many speakers of Japhug also have a passive understanding of Situ,

<footnote n="1">¹The township of Gdongrbyad is however not traditionally included under the name *tɛ́rɛ́pʰu*, and is referred instead by the term *svŋu*.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²The language can be referred to as 茶堡话 *chápùhuà* in Chinese, reading the character 堡 as pù rather than the more usual *bǎo*. In Western languages, the ‘ph’ should be pronounced as a stop rather than labiodental fricative, and the ‘g’ read as a voiceless stop. In French for instance, I call the language [dʒapuk].</footnote>
# 1 Introduction

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1.1: A map of Gyalrong languages</figcaption></figure>

and sometimes also of Tshobdun and Zbu. There is no immediate intercomprehensibility between Gyalrong languages, and speakers of Japhug reportedly need several months to acquire basic conversational skills in Tshobdun.<fnref n="3" />

# 1.2 The Japhug corpus

With the exception of a chapter in Lin (1993: 468–486) on phonology and a few articles by Lin Youjing (Lin & Luoerwu 2003; Lin 2011) (all on the Tatshi dialect), the available data on Japhug are essentially from my own fieldwork, based on nine trips (July-August 2002, April-July 2003, July-August 2005, July 2010, July-August 2012, April-May 2014, July-August 2015, July-August 2016, May 2018) and constant contact by phone with my main language consultants. Some texts have been recorded with the help of my former PhD students Gong Xun and Lai Yun-fan.

A short grammar (Jacques 2008), some texts (Jacques & Chen 2010) and a dictionary (Jacques 2015b) have previously been made available, to which a corpus

<footnote n="3">³See for example (145) (§8.2.9), (35) (§23.3.6) and (126) (§24.5.3.1), where Tshendzin recounts her experience as a teacher in Tshobdun village, where she had to learn Tshobdun to make herself understood by the pupils' parents.</footnote>
of transcribed stories on the Pangloss archive (Michailovsky et al. 2014; Michaud et al. 2016) can be added, available on https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Japhug.

My main consultant is Tshendzin (Chenzhen 陈珍, female, born 1950), a retired schoolteacher (a native speaker of Japhug, bilingual in Sichuan Mandarin since childhood), whose speech and grammaticality judgements are taken as the norm of this grammar.

Stories have also been collected from her husband *χpγltcin* Dpalcan 柏尔青, her maternal uncle Andzin, her nephew (sister's child) Ayang/Kunbzang Mtsho, and other Kamnyu people, in particular Tshering Skyid. Most traditional stories are typical of Tibetan folklore and not specific to Japhug-speaking areas, but some procedural texts, descriptions of local plants and animals, as well as accounts of local topography, include unique insight into local culture. In addition, a few conversations have been recorded.

The majority of examples in this grammar (except in the grammar sketch in chapter 2) are taken from texts or conversations rather than elicited. Most of the texts cited are already available on Pangloss. Temporal synchronization between transcription and audio was automatically accomplished using forced alignment (Macaire 2020), and whenever available, a hyperlink to the doi of the segment (Vasile et al. 2020) is provided for each example sentence in the grammar.<fnref n="4" />

In addition, I indicate for all examples a title in ASCII characters: Hill (2017: 305) reports that this citation format is sufficient to find the relevant data.

Conversations are not included in the archive at the moment of writing, but individual sound files of the sentences quoted in this grammar are preserved in a private database. In addition, a certain number of sentences have been noted down during participant observation, and lack recordings.

Since speakers I have worked with only recount a limited number of traditional stories (some of which in any case are from written sources; in particular, the story 'The fox' {0004087} told by Kunbzang Mtsho is clearly adapted from the Grimm fairy tale 'Der goldene Vogel'), I have resorted to translation from Chinese to collect a larger corpus. Tshendzin provided surprisingly idiomatic renderings of various storybooks for children (including Grimm tales, Andersen tales, Liaozhai zhiyi 聊斋志异, Arabian nights and Xiyouji 西游记). These documents are not given the same value as more spontaneous texts, and are systematically indicated by adding the extension "-zh" to the document name. Systematic comparison with the original text is offered whenever any suspicion of calque from

<footnote n="4">⁴The doi were semi-automatically added using the program *DOI-Mercy* written by Alexander Delaporte. Only the informative part of the URL is indicated. To obtain the complete URL, the string https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss- has to be prefixed to it.</footnote>
Chinese exists. However, the immense morphosyntactic difference between Chinese and Japhug makes it necessary to completely rework the structure of the sentences in most cases (see for instance 263, §21.7.1.2), so that even if there is undoubtedly influence from Chinese, even the way Chinese is adapted into Japhug is itself an interesting topic of research.

## 1.3 Structure of the grammar

Rather than being intended as the final word on Japhug grammar, this book is conceived as a tool for exploring the Japhug corpus and learning the language.

The reader is invited to start with the grammar sketch (chapter 2). The rest of the grammar contains two chapters on phonology (3, §4), five on nouns and noun phrases (5 to 9), eleven on verbal morphology (11 to 21), five on syntax (§22 to 26), as well as a chapter 10 on expressives and another one 27 on kinship.

In writing this grammar I have always preferred to abstain from definite judgment rather than provide incorrect data, and the description remains thus incomplete in many aspects, in particular in accounting for minute semantic differences between similar constructions, or on the grammaticality of borderline sentences (about which speakers sometimes change their mind). There are many points of uncertainty in many aspects of the morphosyntax (and even in some topics of phonology), and further research on finer points of phonology, morphosyntax and historical linguistics are much needed, with additional data from different speakers.

## 1.4 Language and culture

This work focuses on the grammar of the language, and only contains a single chapter (27, on the kinship system) dedicated to ethnology. However, the corpus that has been collected contains many traditional stories, as well as procedural texts describing the traditional life before massive sinicization. Examples from these texts are found on nearly all the pages of this grammar, and their interest is not purely linguistic. Thus, the section on place names presents a mythological story explaining the origin of a name (79, §5.2.1), the chapter on orientation pre-verbs contains an account of the traditional living-room/kitchen (§15.1.4.4) and an introduction to weaving (§15.1.4.5), and the section on antipassive derivations includes a passage on rain-calling and mountain tutelary spirits (see example 161, §18.6.7.3). In this sense, traditional culture permeates this grammar from beginning till end.
Further ethnographical work is necessary, in particular on kinship (Zhang & Fan 2020), traditional houses (Dong 2018), weaving and ethnobotany, and it is hoped that this grammar (together with the dictionary) will make it possible to properly describe local culture through the medium of Japhug rather than Chinese.
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>
## 2 A grammatical sketch

This chapter offers a short introduction to the phonology and morphosyntax of the Japhug language. It is written for typologists and comparative linguists wanting to get a quick general picture of this language, before delving into the core of the grammar.

Morphosyntactic phenomena are illustrated mainly using simplified elicited examples rather than examples gleaned from texts and conversations as in the rest of the grammar.

### 2.1 Phonology and word structure

Japhug has 8 vowels (§3.3.1) and 50 consonant phonemes (§3.2.1), which can be combined into more than 400 biconsonantal or triconsonantal clusters in the onset (§4.2). Additional clusters are attested across syllable boundaries (§4.2.3.1). In coda position, only 12 consonants are found, and no clusters are possible: several phonological contrasts are neutralized (§3.2.2).

The IPA-based transcription in this grammar is a spelling system that is not strictly phonological: it uses different symbols to represent the allophones of some phonemes (in particular /w/, §3.2.1, §4.2.1.1). An alternative Tibetan-based orthography for use by native speakers (§4.4) is also provided.

Japhug is very far removed from the isolating, tonal and “monosyllabic” type once considered to be typical of Sino-Tibetan languages. Japhug lacks tonal contrasts (§3.7), and monosyllabic and monomorphemic words are a minority (§11.6). Words of six syllables or more are not rare in the corpus, as shown by the verb form (1) below.

(1) a-ky-tu-nu-ryzi-nu
IRR-PFV-2-AUTO-stay-PL
‘May you stay (here).’

Non-final syllables have strong phonotactic constraints at least in the native vocabulary (§3.8.2). The last syllable of verbal and nominal stems generally receives stress (as the syllable -zi- in 1, §3.7) and allows the maximal number of vowel and consonant contrasts.
## 2.2 Parts of speech

Unlike other Trans-Himalayan languages such as Sinitic, where the identification of word classes requires extensive syntactic analysis (von der Gabelentz 1881; Chao 1968), most parts of speech in Japhug can be straightforwardly defined on the basis of morphology.

Japhug has open and closed parts of speech. The three main open parts of speech are *nouns*, *verbs* and *ideophones*.

Nouns can in their turn be subdivided into four classes with different morphological properties. First, inalienably possessed nouns (§5.1.2) require the presence of a possessive prefix (§5.1.1). Second, alienably possessed nouns allow a possessive prefix, but do not require it. Third, counted noun (§7.3) take numeral prefixes (§7.3.1). Fourth, unpossessible nouns cannot be prefixed (§5.2).

Verbs are at the core of Japhug grammar, and have the richest morphology of all parts of speech – no less than nine chapters (from 11 to 21), about half of the grammar, is devoted to verbal morphology. Unlike other Trans-Himalayan languages such as Khaling, whose verbs are a closed class (Jacques et al. 2012), Japhug has a productive system of denominal and deideophonic morphology (§20), allowing a constant creation of new verbs. Apart from a handful of defective verbs (§14.2.2, §14.3.4), all verbs require orientation preverbs (§15.1) in most finite forms, and are the only part of speech compatible with these preverbs. Person indexation morphology (§14.2.1) is also a criterion for identifying verbs, but it is not always applicable since some verbs only occur in 3SG with no indexation affixes (§14.2.7), and since a few predicative words have adopted number indexation suffixes by analogy with verbs (§14.7).

Ideophones (§10.1) can also be distinguished from other parts of speech by specific morphological patterns (§10.1.2).

There is no specific class of “adjective” in Japhug. Words describing properties belong to three different parts of speech: adjectival stative verbs, which can be distinguished from other stative verbs by their ability to undergo the tropative derivation (§17.5), ideophones, and also property nouns, a subclass of inalienably possessed nouns (§5.1.2.7).

Closed parts of speech comprise numerals (§7.1) and pronouns (chapter 6), which also have specific morphology, and invariable words including postpositions (§8.2), determiners (§9.1), adverbs (§22.2, §26.1.1), linkers (§25.1.6, §9.1.5.5), interjections and calling sounds (§10.2) and sentence final particles (§10.4).
### 2.3 Nominal morphology

This section presents nominal inflection, derivation as well as grammatical categories expressed by syntactic rather than morphological means within noun phrases and postpositional phrases.

#### 2.3.1 Non-attested nominal morphological categories

There is no gender, definiteness, obviation, negation and tense-aspect-modality-evidential inflection or derivation on nouns in Japhug.

The whole category of gender is completely absent from Japhug grammar; there are only suffixes for male and female animals, and even these are borrowed from Tibetan (§5.7.7).

There is no dedicated marker of definiteness (§9.1.4.3), but the aforementioned topic marker iɛqʰa only occurs on definite referents (§9.1.5.2). Indefiniteness can be marked by the indefinite article ci (§9.1.4.1) derived from the numeral ‘one’ (§7.1.1).

While an obviative/proximative contrast is reflected by some uses of the inverse prefix in the inflection of transitive verbs (§14.3.3.2), Japhug lacks obviative morphology on nouns (§5.1.1.3), unlike Algonquian languages (for instance Valentine 2001: 183).

Polarity and Tense-aspect-modality-evidentiality, which are prominently encoded by verbal morphology (§13.1, chapter 21), even on nominalized verb forms (§16.1.1.2), are completely absent from nominal morphology, and various types of participial clauses have to be used instead (§5.7.10).

#### 2.3.2 Number

Number can be indicated by the dual ni (§9.1.1.1) and plural ra (§9.1.1.2) determiners. These determiners are not mutually incompatible with numerals, as shown by (2), where the redundant ɛnɛuɛ 'two' can be added (these redundant forms, though grammatical, are not very common). The fact that numerals (and other postnominal modifiers, including relative clauses) can be inserted between nouns and number determiners show that they are not analyzable as number suffixes.

(2) jla (ɛnɛuɛ) ni
male.hybrid.yak two du
'The two male hybrid yaks' {0003660#S7}
<table><caption>Table 2.1: Numeral prefixes of counted nouns</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Numeral</th><th>-ṣṇi 'day'</th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>ci</td><td>tu-ṣṇi</td><td>'one day'</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>ynuz</td><td>ynu-ṣṇi</td><td>'two days'</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>χsum</td><td>χsu-ṣṇi</td><td>'three days'</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>kuβde</td><td>kuβde-ṣṇi, kuβdγ-ṣṇi</td><td>'four days'</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>kumηu</td><td>kumηu-ṣṇi, kumηγ-ṣṇi</td><td>'five days'</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>kutγγγ</td><td>kutγ-ṣṇi</td><td>'six days'</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>kuçnuz</td><td>kuçnu-ṣṇi</td><td>'seven days'</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>kurcat</td><td>kurcγ-ṣṇi</td><td>'eight days'</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>kungut</td><td>kungu-ṣṇi</td><td>'nine days'</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>sqi</td><td>squ-ṣṇi</td><td>'ten days'</td></tr></tbody></table>

Some nouns however do have an inflectional number category, expressed by a prefixal paradigm partially illustrated in Table 2.1 (§7.3.1).

This type of nouns corresponds to the category called ‘classifiers’ (Chao 1968: 518, Aikhenvald 2000) (量词 <liàngcí> in Chinese) in works on the grammar of Chinese, Japanese and other languages of East Asia. However, this terminology is particularly clumsy in the case of Japhug. Unlike in languages such as Chinese or Thai, nouns in Japhug do not require a ‘classifier’ to be used with a numeral, as shown by (3)<fnref n="1" /> and (4).

(3) tcʰeme ci
girl one/INDEF
‘A/one girl’

(4) tcʰeme χsum
girl three
‘Three girls’

When occurring as postnominal modifiers (5), the two main functions of nouns with numerals prefixes are partitive ('one of the X') and distributive ('each X') depending on the constructions where they appear (§7.3.2).

(5) tcʰeme tu-rdov
girl one-piece
‘One of the girls’; ‘Each girl...’; ‘One girl’ {0004053#S36}

<footnote n="1">¹The numeral ci ‘one’ is grammaticalized as an indefinite marker (§9.1.4.1).</footnote>
In addition, although a handful of ‘classifiers’ are indeed specific to a particular semantic category of nouns (§7.3.3), the generic ‘classifier’ *tu-rdoš* ‘one piece’ can be used as modifier with nearly all referents.

For these reasons, this grammar favours the term *counted noun* based on morphology, rather than “classifier” (an extremely marginal function of these words) or “quantifier” (not specific enough, since there are many quantifiers that are not counted nouns, §9.1.3) to refer to nouns with numeral prefixes such as *tu-sn̥i* ‘one day’ or *tu-rdoš* ‘one piece’.

### 2.3.3 Case marking

Japhug lacks case inflection, but has a few regular adverbializing derivations (§5.8), whose functions resemble that of oblique cases: the comitative *kṛ-* (§5.8.1) and the perrelative (§5.8.2).

Grammatical relations on noun phrases are encoded by postpositions such as the ergative *ku* (§8.2.2), the genitive *yu* (§8.2.3) and the comitative *cʰo* (§8.2.5), as well as relator nouns (§8.3) such as the dative *u-čki* or *u-pʰe* (§8.3.1). With the sole exception of the genitive forms of a few pronouns such as *aẓuy* 1SG:GEN (from *aẓo* ‘1SG’ and *yu*, §6.3), the postpositions do not merge phonologically with the previous word. As shown by (6) and (7), they are located at the end of the noun phrase, further away from the head noun than all determiners, including number markers.

(6) [[*u-pi* ni] *ku*] *pya* *nuw* *pa-mto-ndzi*
3SG.POSS-elder.sibling *DU ERG* bird *DEM* 3→3′:AOR-see-DU
‘His two elder siblings saw the bird.’

(7) [[*twrme ra*] *yu*] *nw-fsaparw*
person *PL GEN* 3PL.POSS-cattle
‘People’s cattle’

In addition, it is possible to make a pause between the noun and the postposition *ku* or *yu* that follows: the postposition can be procliticized to the following word. A considerable number of examples can be found in the corpus (§8.2.1).

While Situ Gyalrong does have locative suffixes (Lin 1993: 325–331), Japhug only uses postpositions (§8.2.4.1) and/or relator nouns (§8.3.4.5) to express location, goal and source of motion. The only traces of the proto-Gyalrong suffixes are the locative postposition *zu*, which was degrammaticalized from a suffix *-s* (§8.2.4.1), and a few isolated lexicalized forms (§8.2.4.4, §8.3.4.5).
### 2.3.4 Possession

The main nominal morphosyntactic category expressed by an inflectional paradigm in Japhug is possession, encoded by a series of possessive prefixes (§5.1.1).

#### 2.3.4.1 Possessive paradigm

<table><caption>Table 2.2: Possessive paradigms</caption><thead><tr><th>Person</th><th>Prefix</th><th><i>tu-ku</i> 'head'</th><th><i>kʰa</i> 'house'</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1SG</td><td><i>a-</i></td><td><i>a-ku</i></td><td><i>a-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>2SG</td><td><i>n</i></td><td><i>nir-ku</i></td><td><i>nir-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>3SG</td><td><i>u-</i></td><td><i>u-ku</i></td><td><i>u-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>1DU</td><td><i>tçi-</i></td><td><i>tçi-ku</i></td><td><i>tçi-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>2/3DU</td><td><i>ndzi-</i></td><td><i>ndzi-ku</i></td><td><i>ndzi-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>1PL</td><td><i>ji-</i></td><td><i>ji-ku</i></td><td><i>ji-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>2/3PL</td><td><i>nu-</i></td><td><i>nu-ku</i></td><td><i>nu-kʰa</i></td></tr><tr><td>indefinite</td><td><i>tu-/tir-/ta-</i></td><td><b><i>tu-ku</i></b></td><td><b><i>kʰa</i></b></td></tr><tr><td>generic</td><td><i>tu-</i></td><td><i>tu-ku</i></td><td><i>tu-kʰa</i></td></tr></tbody></table>

The possessive paradigm is nearly the same for all nouns (Table 2.2), but some nouns such as *tu-ku* ‘head’ require a indefinite possessor prefix *tu-*, *tir-* or *ta-* when no definite possessor is present, while other nouns like *kʰa* ‘house’ can occur in bare stem form. The former are *inalienably possessed nouns*, comprising in particular body parts (§5.1.2.3) and kinship terms (§5.1.2.4), while the latter are *alienably possessed nouns*. Some inalienably possessed nouns have been grammaticalized as relator nouns (§8.3) marking the syntactic function of noun phrases. Furthermore, a handful of nouns have become TAME markers (§21.8.3.1).

Possessors are obligatorily indicated by possessive prefixes. An overt possessor can be optionally added. For instance, the meaning ‘my cow’ can be expressed by the noun form *a-nuŋa* with a simple possessive prefix, but this noun can be additionally preceded by the genitive pronoun *aẓuŋy* (8) or even by the absolutive *aẓo*.

(8) (*aẓuŋy*) *a-nuŋa*
1SG 1SG.POSS-COW
‘My cow’
The possessive prefix cannot be elided, even in the case of alienably possessed nouns like *nuŋa* ‘cow’. In (8), removing the *a-* prefix would result in an agrammatical form (*d̂aẓuɣu nuŋa*).

The phrase expressing the possessor always precedes the possessum. Genitive marking on the possessor is optional: in (9), the genitive postposition *y̤u* (§8.2.3.1) can be elided.

(9) [a-mu a-wa ni] (y̤u) ndʒi-nuŋa
1SG.POSS-mother 1SG.POSS-father DU GEN 3DU.POSS-COW
‘My parents’ cow’

The person and number of the possessive prefix on the possessum is the same as that of the noun phrase or pronoun marking the possessor: in (9) for instance, the third dual possessive prefix *ndʒi-* agrees in number with the dual possessor phrase *a-mu a-wa ni*. Number agreement mismatch is only attested in very restricted contexts (§5.1.1.2).

### 2.3.4.2 Alienabilization

Nouns can only take one single possessive prefix, except when inalienably possessed nouns are turned into alienably possessed nouns (§5.1.2.9), by stacking a definite possessor prefix (any of the prefixes in Table 2.2 except the indefinite ones) on the indefinite possessive form. For instance, the possessed form *u-lu* (10a) of *tɔ-lu* ‘milk’ without prefix stacking is used when the possessor is the cow producing the milk, but the alienabilized possessive forms *u-tɔ-lu* ‘his/her/its milk, the milk for him/her/it’ (10b) or *a-tɔ-lu* ‘my milk’ (10c), expressing the person or animal drinking the milk as possessor, have a combination of two prefixes.

(10) a. *nuŋa (y̤u) u-lu*
    *cow* GEN 3SG.POSS-milk
    ‘(The/a) cow’s milk’

b. *luŋu (y̤u) u-tɔ-lu*
    *cat* GEN 3SG.POSS-INDEF.POSS-milk
    ‘The milk for the cat (i.e. given to the cat to drink)’

c. *(azo) a-tɔ-lu*
    1SG 1SG.POSS-INDEF.POSS-milk
    ‘My milk (i.e. for me to drink)’

Stacking of two definite possessor prefixes, or of a numeral prefix with a definite possessor prefix, are not grammatical.
### 2.3.4.3 Generic possessors

The indefinite possessor prefix has three allomorphs *tu*- (as in *tu-ku* ‘head’), *tɔ́*- (as in *tɔ́-se* ‘blood’) or *ta*- (as in *ta-ma* ‘work’). It has to be distinguished from the generic possessor prefix *tu*- (§5.1.3). Generic possessors are identical with indefinite possessors in the case of inalienably possessed nouns selecting the *tu*-prefix, for instance *tu-ku* can either mean ‘head’ or ‘one’s head’. With inalienably possessed nouns selecting the *tɔ́-* or *ta-* allomorphs, a contrast is found between *tɔ́-se* ‘blood’ and *tu-se* ‘one’s blood’ (11) for instance.

(11) *qajusmynba ku* *tu-se* ku-tsʰi ŋu

leech ERG GENR.POSS-blood IPFV-drink be:FACT

‘The leech drinks people’s (i.e. one’s) blood.’

The generic possessor prefix can also occur on alienably possessed nouns, as in *tu-kʰa* ‘one’s house’.

No more than one generic referent is possible per clause, so that if a noun with generic possessor prefix is found in the same clause as a verb with generic indexation, there is obligatory co-reference (§14.3.2.5), as in (12) between the possessor of *tu-rpu* ‘one’s mother’s brother’ (indefinite form *tɔ́-rpu*, §5.1.2.4) and the transitive subject of the verb *tu-ku-ti* ‘one says’ (§14.3.4).

(12) **tu-rpu** yu̯ w-rzaβ w-cki tce

**GENR.POSS-mother's.brother** GEN 3SG.POSS-wife 3SG.POSS-DAT LOC

“a-łaу” tu-ku-ti ŋu

1SG.POSS-aunt IPFV-GENR-say be:FACT

‘One*ic* calls one*ic*'s mother’s brother’s wife ‘my aunt’ (i.e. one says ‘my aunt’ to one’s mother’s brother’s wife).’

### 2.3.4.4 Possessive existential construction

Predicative possession can be expressed by the verb *aro* ‘own’ (§14.2.3, §22.5.2), encoding the possessor as subject, but the most frequent construction involves an existential verb (§22.5.1.2) with the possessum as subject and the possessor marked by a possessive prefix on the possessum, optionally with a genitive phrase (§22.5.2.1). The construction is the same for alienably (13a) and inalienably (13b) possessed nouns.

(13) a. kuβka ra yu ṉu-nuŋa ku-dv̱ n. pjy-tu

noble PL GEN 3PL.POSS-COW SBJ:PCP-be.many IFR.IPFV-exist

‘The nobles had many cows.’
b. *kwṇbka ra yu ṇu-tc̣u* **χsẉm pj̣-tu**

noble PL GEN 3PL.POSS-SON three IFR.IPFV-exist

‘The nobles had three sons.’

In this construction, the existential verbs rarely agree in number with the possessum: in both (13a) and (13b), the singular verb form *pj̣-tu* is by far more commonly used than its plural counterpart (§14.6.1.1).

### 2.3.5 Compounding

Compounding can be realized by the simple concatenation of noun (or verb) stems.

In compounds comprising two noun stems (§5.5.1), whose order is modifier-modified, no possessive prefixes occur between the nominal stems, even if the second noun is inalienably possessed. For instance, the compound built from *kuru* ‘Tibetan’ and the inalienably possessed *tu-ŋga* ‘clothes’ is *kuru-ŋga* ‘Tibetan clothes’, rather than †*kuru-tuŋga*.

In many cases, the non-final elements of the compound appear in a bound form, the bound state (§5.4), which is characterized by a vocalic change to either -r or -u (§5.4.1) For instance, compounding *tu-ku* ‘head’ with *tr-rme* ‘hair’ yields *tr-ktr-rme* ‘head hair’ with the bound state *kr-* from *-ku*. The compound inherits the allomorph *tr-* of the indefinite possessor prefix of the head of the compound *tr-rme* ‘hair’.

### 2.3.6 Derivations

Some suffixal nominal derivations come from compounds with a grammaticalized noun as second element, in particular the diminutive suffixes (§5.7.3). The recent origin of these suffixes can be shown by the fact that a free form still coexists with the corresponding compound in some cases. For instance, the compound *χpun-pu* ‘little monk’ from *χpun* ‘monk’ with the diminutive *-pu* occurs in free variation with the phrase (14), in which the main noun is followed by the alienably possessed property noun *u-pu* ‘little one’ (§5.1.2.7) derived from *tr-pu* ‘offspring, young’.

<footnote>(14) *χpun u-pu*
monk 3SG.POSS-little.one
‘(The/a) little monk’</footnote>
Not all suffixal derivations have transparent origins. For instance, the privative
-lu suffix (§5.7.1) is not related to any independently attested nominal or verbal
root. It turns an inalienably possessed noun into a non-possessible one mainly
used as postnominal modifier (§9.1.8.1), removing possessive prefixes and subject-
ing the nominal stem to bound state alternation (*tu-ku* ‘head’ → *k*-lu ‘headless’).

Prefixal nominal derivations, however, do not originate from elements of com-
pounds, but rather from participial forms of denominal verbs (§20.2.4, §20.2.5).

The social relation collective *kъndzi-* prefix (§5.7.8.1) occurs on the bare stem
of kinship terms and a few other terms of social relationship to indicate a group
of people. When the group members are related to each other by a symmetri-
cal relationship (*tr-xtry* 'brother' (of a male) → *kъndzi-xtry* 'group of brothers'),
the social relation collective is based on only one nominal stem, but when the
relationship is asymmetrical, *kъndzi-* can be prefixed to two compounded noun
stems, as in *kъndzi-wnmu-snom* 'group of siblings' from *tr-wnmu* 'brother' (of a
female) and *tr-snom* 'sister' (of a male).

The comitative derivation (§5.8.1) is built by adding the prefixes *къ*- or *къгу*- to
reduplicated noun stems. It derives an adverb meaning ‘together with X’ which
can have scope over the whole clause, or be restricted to a noun phrase. It can
apply to both inalienably possessed nouns (*tu-nga* ‘clothes’ → *къ-ŋgu-ŋga* ‘to-
gether with his/her clothes’) or alienably possessed ones (*jla* ‘male hybrid yak’
→ *къ-jlu-jla* ‘together with the/his/her hybrid yak’). Comitative derivation can
preserve the indefinite possessor prefix of inalienably possessed nouns, causing
alienabilization (§2.3.4.2, §5.1.2.9). For instance, *tr-rte* ‘hat’ has two comitative
forms: *къ-rtu-rte* ‘together with his/her hat’ (wearing it) and *къ-tr-rtu-rte* ‘to-
gether with a/the hat’ (not wearing it).

2.4 Verbal morphology

2.4.1 Overview

Verbs have a considerably more elaborate morphology than all other parts of
speech (§11.1). Verbal morphology is strongly prefixal (§11.2), with some vowel
contractions (§12.3). Non-concatenative morphology includes stem alternations
(§12.2) as well as infixation (§11.2.2, §14.2.2, §19.1.2).

Japhug verbal morphology is considerably more regular than that of other
Gyalrong languages, in particular Zbu (Sun 2004; Gong 2018) and Situ (Zhang
2018). Most alternations are productive and predictable, and irregular verbs are
limited in number (§14.2.2, §14.3.4).
As illustrated by (15), a verb form can comprise six inflectional prefixes (in blue) arranged in a rigid template (§11.2.1) and several derivational prefixes (in red).

(15) a⁻⁶-mɣ⁻⁵-ɣu⁻⁴-nu⁻³-tú⁻²-wɣ⁻¹-z-nɣ-re
IRR⁻⁶-NEG⁻⁵-CISL⁻⁴-PFV⁻³-2⁻²-INV⁻¹-CAUS-DENOM-laughter

‘Don’t let him come and make you laugh.’

The suffixal chain (§11.3) only includes inflectional suffixes, with a maximal number of four slots (16).

(16) umɣ⁻⁶-pw⁻³-ku⁻²-mto-t⁺¹-a⁺²-ndzi⁺³-ci⁺⁴
PROB⁻⁶-AOR⁻³-PEG⁻²-see-PST:TR⁺¹-1SG⁺²-DU⁺³-PEG⁺⁴

‘It looks like I have seen the two of them.’

Numerous non-adjacent dependencies (§11.5) are observed across the prefixal and the suffixal chains.

Inflectional verbal morphology encodes person and number of one or two core arguments (chapter 14, §2.4.2.2), orientation (§15.1), associated motion (§15.2), negation (§13.1) and Tense-Aspect-Modality-Evidentiality (chapter 21).

### 2.4.2 Indexation

All finite verb forms in Japhug have obligatory person indexation. Since the 3SG has zero marking as in many languages of the world (Benveniste 1966b: 227–236), indexation is not conspicuous on intransitive verbs requiring a 3SG subject (§14.2.7), but indirectly observable even on transitive dummy verbs (§14.3.5) due to the presence of stem alternation (§12.2.2).

Transitive and intransitive verbs are clearly distinguished by a series of seven morphological parameters (§14.3.1). Intransitive verbs only index one argument (the intransitive subject, S), and transitive verbs index two arguments (the transitive subject A and the object O). Semi-transitive verbs have intransitive indexation (§14.2.3), but select a second core argument (§8.1.5). Only a handful of verbs are labile, and can be conjugated either transitively or intransitively (§14.5).

#### 2.4.2.1 The intransitive paradigm

Person indexation in Japhug is best introduced with the intransitive paradigm (§14.2.1), since it is considerably smaller than the transitive one. The regular paradigm is illustrated in Table 2.3 with the verb *mbyom* ‘be in a hurry’ in the Factual Non-Past, the only TAME without orientation preverb (§21.3.1).
## 2 A grammatical sketch

<table><caption>Table 2.3: The intransitive indexation paradigm</caption><thead><tr><th>Person</th><th>Form</th><th>Example</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1SG</td><td>Σ-a</td><td>mbyom-a</td></tr><tr><td>1DU</td><td>Σ-tçi</td><td>mbyom-tçi</td></tr><tr><td>1PL</td><td>Σ-ji</td><td>mbyom-i</td></tr><tr><td>2SG</td><td>tu-Σ</td><td>tu-mbyom</td></tr><tr><td>2DU</td><td>tu-Σ-ndzi</td><td>tu-mbyom-ndzi</td></tr><tr><td>2PL</td><td>tu-Σ-nu</td><td>tu-mbyom-nu</td></tr><tr><td>3SG</td><td>Σ</td><td>mbyom</td></tr><tr><td>3DU</td><td>Σ-ndzi</td><td>mbyom-ndzi</td></tr><tr><td>3PL</td><td>Σ-nu</td><td>mbyom-nu</td></tr></tbody></table>

The intransitive paradigm has different forms for singular, dual and plural. First persons have dedicated suffixes encoding both person and number; there is no inclusive/exclusive contrast. Second and third person forms are distinguished by the second person *tu-* prefix (on the historical significance of this prefix, see Jacques 2012a and DeLancey 2014). There is no overt third person marker on intransitive verbs. Number markers are shared by second and third person forms: absence of suffix for the singular, -ndzi for the dual and -nu for the plural. Slightly different forms are found in dialects of Japhug other than Kamnyu (§14.8.1). In addition to the paradigm in Table 2.3, a generic person *ku-* prefix also occurs on intransitive verbs (§14.3.2.5).

A handful of intransitive verbs infix rather than prefix the second person (§14.2.2). It is the only irregularity related to person indexation in intransitive verbs in Japhug.

### 2.4.2.2 The transitive paradigm

The transitive paradigm is too large to be described in this introductory chapter in its entirety (§14.3.2). Table 2.4 presents the singular forms of the paradigm of the transitive verb *sat* ‘kill’ (a verb lacking stem alternations) in the Factual Non-Past, which are sufficient to illustrate its basic structure. In this table, the columns represent the objects (O), and the rows the subjects (A). The shaded cells indicate configurations with coreferent subject and object, which are expressed by the reflexive derivation (§18.3) and do not belong to the transitive paradigm.
<table><caption>Table 2.4: The transitive paradigm (singular forms) of the non-alternating verb *sat* ‘kill’ in the Factual Non-Past</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>1O</th><th>2O</th><th>3O</th><th>3'O</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>1A</th><td></td><td><strong>ta-sat</strong></td><td><strong>sat-a</strong></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>2A</th><td><strong>ku-sat-a</strong></td><td></td><td><strong>tu-sat</strong></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>3A</th><td><strong>yú-sat-a</strong></td><td><strong>tú-wy-sat</strong></td><td></td><td><strong>sat</strong></td></tr><tr><th>3'A</th><td></td><td></td><td><strong>yú-sat</strong></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The comparison of Tables 2.3 and 2.4 shows that the 1SG -a suffix and the second person *tu*- prefix have neutral alignment: they can index intransitive subject, transitive subject or object. In the following, the person configurations are referred to by $X \to Y$, where X represents the subject and Y the object (for instance $1 \to 3$ means ‘first person subject, third person object’). The eight non-shaded cells of the paradigm in Table 2.4 can be divided into three groups.

First, $1 \to 3$, $2 \to 3$ and $3 \to 3'$ are the *direct* configurations with a third person object, whose forms resemble the 1, 2 and 3 forms of the intransitive paradigm (at least in the Factual Non-Past).

Second, $3 \to 1$, $3 \to 2$ and $3' \to 3$ are the *inverse* configurations, which have the same prefixes or suffixes as the corresponding intransitive and direct forms (at least in this paradigm), but take in addition the inverse prefix *yu-/wy-* (the allo-morphy of this prefix is explained in §14.3.2.7).

Third, $1 \to 2$ and $2 \to 1$ (without third person) are the *local* configurations (§14.3.2.3). They are characterized by the presence of the portmanteau *ta-* and *ku-* prefixes (§14.8.3) not found in the intransitive paradigm.

The reasons for using the terms “direct” and “inverse” to describe the transitive paradigm are discussed in §14.3.2.8.

When both arguments are third person (§14.3.2.2), there is a contrast between direct $3 \to 3'$ and inverse $3' \to 3$ configurations, whose meaning is not entirely straightforward (§14.3.3). The subject of the direct configuration, and object of the inverse one is called *proximate* (3), and the other argument *obviative* (3'). The direct $3 \to 3'$ configuration is by far the most common one in narratives and conversation. The inverse $3' \to 3$ is more restricted; it occurs in particular to index a generic subject with a third person object (§14.3.2.5), and also when the subject is inanimate and the object animate (§14.3.3.1).

The majority of transitive verbs (all verbs ending in closed syllables or with front vowels) are non-alternating like *sat* ‘kill’. However, about a third of all transitive verbs (those ending in -a, -u, -o and -w) have stem alternation in the *direct*
configurations with a singular subject in the Factual Non-Past and a few other tenses (§12.2.2).

<table><caption>Table 2.5: The transitive paradigm (singular forms) of the alternating verb *bndu* ‘hit’ in the Factual Non-Past</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>1O</th><th>2O</th><th>3O</th><th>3'O</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>1A</th><td></td><td>ta-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td><td>wn<sub>d</sub>-a</td><td></td></tr><tr><th>2A</th><td>k<u>w</u>-wn<sub>d</sub>w-a</td><td></td><td>t<u>w</u>-wn<sub>d</sub>i</td><td></td></tr><tr><th>3A</th><td>γ<u>ú</u>-wn<sub>d</sub>w-a</td><td>t<u>ú</u>-wγ-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td><td></td><td>wn<sub>d</sub>i</td></tr><tr><th>3'A</th><td></td><td></td><td>γ<u>ú</u>-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 2.5 illustrates the singular forms of the alternating verb *bndu* ‘hit’, which has additional stem -wn<i>d</i>i in the 1SG→3, 2SG→3 and 3SG→3' configurations (with blue colouring), which are thus different from the corresponding intransitive forms.

In the Aorist (§21.5.1.1), a slightly different paradigm is found, illustrated in Table 2.6 with the *bndu* ‘hit’. Unlike the Factual Non-Past shown in the previous tables, the Aorist requires an orientation preverb (§15.1.1.1), here the *UPWARDS* *ty*-. There is no stem alternation marking the direct forms, but all verbs have a different series of preverbs (here *ta*-) in the direct 3→3' forms (§21.5.1.1, §15.1.1.1). In addition, the 1SG→3 and 2SG→3 forms require a -t suffix which redundantly encodes both person and tense-aspect (§11.3).

<table><caption>Table 2.6: The transitive paradigm (singular forms) of the verb *bndu* ‘hit’ in the Aorist</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>1O</th><th>2O</th><th>3O</th><th>3'O</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>1A</th><td></td><td>ty-ta-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td><td>ty-wn<sub>d</sub>w-t-a</td><td></td></tr><tr><th>2A</th><td>ty-k<u>w</u>-wn<sub>d</sub>w-a</td><td></td><td>ty-tu-wn<sub>d</sub>w-t</td><td></td></tr><tr><th>3A</th><td>tý-wγ-wn<sub>d</sub>w-a</td><td>ty-tú-wγ-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td><td></td><td>ta-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td></tr><tr><th>3'A</th><td></td><td></td><td>tý-wγ-wn<sub>d</sub>w</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

There is no ambiguity in person indexation in Japhug (unlike for instance in Khaling where 2→1 and 3→1 configurations are identical, Jacques et al. 2012), but there are strong restrictions on number indexation: unless the 1SG suffix is present, only one of the two arguments can be indexed for both person and num-
ber, the subject in direct configurations, and the object in inverse and local configurations. Double number indexation only occurs in forms with the 1SG -a suffix, to which additional number suffixes can be added (§14.3.2.6), for instance *yú-ndu-a-nu* ‘they will hit me’ (3PL→1SG) where the plural morpheme -nu, indexing the number of the subject, follows the 1SG.

### 2.4.2.3 Person indexation and finiteness

Person indexation markers (including person-indexing stem alternation and orientation preverbs) are not found on participles, infinitives and other non-finite verb forms (chapter 16). A handful of phatic and exclamative words of nominal origin have however developed the ability to take number suffixes (§2.8.3, §14.7). Apart from these, words belonging to parts of speech other than verbs are incompatible with the indexation affixes described in this section.

### 2.4.3 Orientation preverbs and TAME

This section focuses on morphology. Since the use of the TAME categories involve sometimes subtle semantic nuances, and have to be explained on the basis of examples with a clear context, the discussion of the semantic function of each category is deferred to chapter 21.

#### 2.4.3.1 The morphology of orientation preverbs

The main morphological exponents of tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality (henceforth TAME) in Japhug are the orientation preverbs (§15.1). All regular finite verb forms require *one and only one* preverb (§11.2.1), except the Factual Non-Past (§21.3.1) which does not take any preverb. The stacking of two or more preverbs is ungrammatical. Only a handful of irregular defective verbs are incompatible with orientation preverbs (§14.2.2, §14.3.4).

Preverbs encode one out of seven orientations (Table 2.7), divided into three dimensions: vertical (§15.1.3.1), riverine (§15.1.3.2) and solar (§15.1.3.3), to which an unspecified orientation is added. This tridimensional system is not restricted to verbal morphology: locative relator nouns (§8.3.4.1), egressive postpositions (§8.2.10) and locative adverbs (§15.1.1.4) have similar systems with six orientations, built from morphemes that are historically related to the preverbs.

There are four series of preverbs (Table 2.7 includes two of them, the series A and B) in the Kamnyu dialect, used in different TAME categories (§15.1.1.1). Some dialects of Japhug have a slightly different system (§15.1.1.3).
## 2 A grammatical sketch

<table><caption>Table 2.7: Orientation preverbs in Kamnyu Japhug</caption><thead><tr><th>Dimension</th><th>Orientation</th><th>A</th><th>B</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Vertical</td><td>Up</td><td><i>tγ-</i></td><td><i>tu-</i></td></tr><tr><td>Down</td><td><i>pu-</i></td><td><i>pju-</i></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Riverine</td><td>Upstream</td><td><i>lγ-</i></td><td><i>lu-</i></td></tr><tr><td>Downstream</td><td><i>tʰu-</i></td><td><i>cʰu-</i></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Solar</td><td>Eastwards</td><td><i>kγ-</i></td><td><i>ku-</i></td></tr><tr><td>Westwards</td><td><i>nu-</i></td><td><i>nu-</i></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Unspecified</td><td><i>jγ-</i></td><td><i>ju-</i></td></tr></tbody></table>

Orientable verbs (§15.1.2) are compatible with all orientations; this includes in particular motion verbs like *yi* ‘come’ and *łoł* ‘come out’ (§15.1.2.1). With this type of verbs, the preverbs indicate either the absolute direction of the motion (§15.1.3), for instance *UPWARDS* in (17) or have extended meanings (§15.1.4), such as the illative function (§15.1.4.2) of the *UPSTREAM* preverb in (18).

(17) *tγηe tγ-łoł*
sun AOR:UP-come.up
‘The sun rose.’

(18) *u-ŋgw* *lγ-yi*
3SG.POSS-in IMP:UPSTREAM-come
‘Come in! (for instance, inside a house)’ {0003884#S90}

Non-orientable verbs only select a restricted number of lexically determined orientations, sometimes only one (§15.1.5). For instance, the verb *ndza* ‘eat’ and *mto* ‘see’ require the *UPWARDS* (§15.1.5.4) and *DOWNWARDS* (§15.1.5.9) preverbs, respectively.

### 2.4.3.2 The morphology of TAME categories

There are eleven primary TAME categories, which can be divided into four main groups: Non-Past (Factual Non-Past, Egophoric Present, Sensory, §21.3), Imperfective (§21.2), Past (Aorist, Inferential, Past Imperfective, and Inferential Imperfective, §21.5) and Modal (Irrealis, Imperative, Prohibitive, Dubitative, §21.4) categories.
In the finite TAME categories, the B-type preverbs are found in the Imperfective (§21.2) and the A-type preverbs in the Imperative (§21.4.2.1), the Irrealis (§21.4.1.1) and the Aorist (§21.5.1), though with slightly different vowel contraction rules (§12.3). In the Aorist paradigm of transitive verbs, another series of preverbs (C) is found in the direct 3→3' forms (§2.4.2.2), based on the A-type preverbs but with -a vocalism instead of -u and -r (originating from fusion with another prefix, §15.1.1.3). For instance, the 2PL→3 Aorist of *ndza* 'eat' is *tr-tu-ndza-nu* (*AOR:UP-2-eat-PL* 'you pl ate it') with the *UPWARDS* A-type *tr-* preverb, but the corresponding 3PL→3' form is *ta-ndza-nu* (*AOR:3→3':UP-eat-PL* 'they ate it') with the C-type preverb *ta-*. It is the only case when an orientation preverb encodes person in addition to TAME.

The Inferential (§21.5.2) has a series of preverbs (series D) based on series B, but with -o and -r vocalism instead of -u and -w, respectively (§15.1.1.3). For instance, the *UPWARDS* and *DOWNWARDS* D-type preverbs are *to-* and *pjor-*, corresponding to the B-type *tu-* and *pjuu-*, respectively (§15.1.1.1).

Five TAME categories neutralize the orientation contrast, and require the same marker for all verbs: the Sensory evidential *nuu-* (§21.3.2), from the B-type *WESTWARDS* preverb (Table 2.7), the Egophoric Present *ku-* (§21.3.3), the Dubitative *ku-* (§21.4.4), from the B-type *EASTWARDS* preverb, the Past Imperfective *puu-* from the A-type *DOWNWARDS* preverb (§21.5.3.1, Lin 2011), and the Inferential Imperfective *pjor-* from the D-type *DOWNWARDS* preverb (§21.5.3.1).

In addition to orientation preverbs, TAME categories are marked by several morphological exponents, including stem alternations (§12.2), allomorphy of negative prefixes (§13.1.1) and additional affixes: the Irrealis *a-* prefix (§11.2.1) and the Past transitive -t suffix (§11.3).

In the Non-Past, Imperfective and Modal categories (all except Past), transitive alternating verbs have a specific stem in direct configurations with a singular subject (see Table 2.5 above and §12.2.2). Another stem is found in the Aorist of a handful of verbs (§12.2.1).

Some of the primary categories can be combined with the copula *ru* ‘be’ to form periphrastic TAME categories (§21.2.2), for instance the Periphrastic Past Imperfective (§21.5.3.5) illustrated in (19), built from the Imperfective (*tu-ndze-a*, with the B-type *UPWARDS* preverb *tu-*, the alternating stem *ndze* from *ndza* ‘eat’ and the 1SG suffix) and the Past Imperfective of the copula *puu-ru*.

<footnote>(19) *tr-mtʰum*   *tu-ndze-a*   *puu-ru*
INDEF.Poss-meat IPFV-eat[III]-1SG PST.IPFV-be
'I was eating meat/I used to eat meat.'</footnote>
## 2 A grammatical sketch

In addition, primary TAME categories can be combined with prefixes expressing secondary aspectual (§21.6) or modal (§21.7) meanings.

There is a robust contrast between Past and Non-Past tenses in Japhug, but no grammaticalized future tense. Future events in main clauses are mainly expressed by the Factual Non-Past (§21.3.1.2) or the Irrealis (§21.4.1.2).

The tripartite evidential system between Egophoric Present, Sensory (or Testimonial) and Factual observed in the non-past is structurally very similar to that found in some Tibetic languages (Tournadre 2008; Hill & Gawne 2017).

### 2.4.3.3 Stative vs. dynamic verbs

TAME morphology presents a contrast between *stative* and *dynamic* verbs. In the Imperfective (§21.2.6), the Aorist (§21.5.1.3) and the Inferential (§21.5.2.4), stative verbs have an inchoative meaning, different from their meaning in Non-Past tenses.

For example, the verb *zri* ‘be long’ means ‘become long(er)’ in the Imperfective (*tu-zri* IPFV:UP-be.long ‘it becomes longer’) or the Aorist (*ty-zri* AOR:UP-be.long ‘(when) it became longer’). By contrast, in the Sensory (*nu-zri* SENS-be.long ‘it is long’) and the other Non-Past tenses, it retains its basic stative meaning.

Stative verbs also differ from most dynamic verbs in being compatible with Past Imperfective and Inferential Imperfective in all contexts (*pu-zri* PST.IPFV-be.long ‘it was/used to be long’), while dynamic verbs generally require the periphrastic Past Imperfective instead (§21.5.3.5), except in some limited contexts (§21.5.3.4).<fnref n="2" />

The stative/dynamic contrast is not completely independent from transitivity (§14.3.1). Only *intransitive* stative verbs have a distinctive morphological marking: the *ku*- infinitive appears in some contexts (§16.2.1.1). Transitive stative verbs include in particular verbs derived from adjectival stative verbs by the tropative derivation (§17.5.2).

## 2.4.4 Non-finite verb forms

Finiteness can be defined in Japhug by the ability of a given verb form to occur in the person indexation paradigms (§2.4.2). Non-finite verbs forms cannot take indexation affixes, though some of them can mark the person and number of at most *one* argument by means of possessive prefixes like nouns (§2.3.4.1). The distinction between finite and non-finite verbal forms is categorical: there are

<footnote n="2">²This criterion is however not absolute, since a few atelic dynamic verbs can occurs in the non-periphrastic Past Imperfective (§21.5.3.1).</footnote>
no intermediate semi-finite forms, unlike in Situ (Sun & Lin 2007) where some participles take person indexation in specific contexts.

The main verb of a complete sentence has to be in a finite form, and non-finite verbs are restricted to subordinate clauses (including relative and complement clauses).

### 2.4.4.1 Participles

There are three types of participle in Japhug: subject, object and oblique, respectively marked by the prefixes ku- (20a), k- (20b) and sγ/z- (20c). They are fully productive, and only a handful of defective verbs lack participles (§14.2.2, §14.3.4).

(20) a. nγ-ku-qur
2SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-help
‘The one/someone who helps you’

b. nγ-ky-qur
2SG.POSS-OBJ:PCP-help
‘The one/someone that you help’

c. a-sγ-tʰu
1SG.POSS-OBL:PCP-ask
‘The one whom I ask’

Participles can take a possessive prefix (§16.1.1.1, §16.1.2.1, §16.1.3.3), marking either the subject (20b and 20c) or the object (20a).

Participles can in addition be combined with negative, orientation and associated motion prefixes (§16.1.1.2, §16.1.2.2), as shown by (21).

(21) w-mys-pjw-ku-nu-fkaβ
3SG.POSS-NEG-IPFV:DOWN-SBJ:PCP-AUTO-cover
‘The one/those who do(es) not cover it’ (from example 20, §16.1.1.2)
{0003604#S20}

One of the main function of participles is to build participial relative clauses (§23.2.1). Participial clauses can relativize core arguments (§16.1.1.4, §16.1.2.4) and various oblique arguments and adjuncts (§16.1.1.5, §16.1.2.4, §16.1.3.5, §16.1.3.6, §16.1.3.7).

In particular, the Japhug equivalent of attributive adjectives are adjectival stative verbs in subject participle form (§9.1.8.3, §23.5.1), occurring in generally head-internal (§23.4.3.2) relative clauses as in (22).
## 2 A grammatical sketch

(22) tcʰemɛ k(201, 196, 452, 222],

The subjects of both intransitive (§23.5.1) and transitive (§23.5.2) verbs are relativized by means of a participial relative clause in ku-. Subject participles of transitive verbs take an obligatory possessive prefix coreferent with the object (unless another prefix is present) as in (20a) and (23a), while those of intransitive verbs lack possessive prefixes as in (23b),<fnref n="3" /> except in very restricted cases (§16.1.1.1).

(23) a. u-ku-rɛt
3SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-write
‘The one/someone who writes it’

b. ku-rɛ-rɛt
SBJ:PCP-APASS-write
‘The one/someone who writes things, a writer.’

Another important function of participles is to build the purposive complements of motion verbs (§16.1.1.6, §24.4.2.1, §15.2.10), as in (24) (see also 27b in §2.4.5 below).

(24) a-ku-rto 私 jy-ye
1SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-look AOR-come[II]
‘S/he came to see me.’

Participles have several additional morphosyntactic functions, presented in §24.4.2.

### 2.4.4.2 Infinitives and converbs

The infinitives in ku- and k-, called “velar infinitives” in this grammar, serve as the citation forms of verbs (§16.2.1.4). They occur in some complement clauses as in (25) (§16.2.1.5, §24.2.1) and also serve as converbs (§16.2.1.7, §25.4.2). They are easily confused with subject or object participles (§16.2.1.1).

(25) kty-ta 私 rga-a
INF-weave like:FACT-1SG
‘I like to weave.’

<footnote n="3">³The verb r-y-rɛt in (23b) is the antipassive derivation (§18.6.1) from rɛt ‘write, draw’ (23a).</footnote>
In addition to velar infinitives, two other types of infinitives are attested: the bare (§16.2.2) and the dental (§16.2.3) infinitives. These forms are only used in the complement clauses of a handful of verbs such as *za* 'begin' (§24.2.2, §24.5.6, §24.5.1.3). Bare and dental infinitives are in complementary distribution (§14.3.1): the former is found with transitive verbs (26a), and the latter with intransitive ones (26b).

(26) a. *u-ndza* to-za
3SG.POSS-BARE.INF:eat IFR:UP-start
'S/he/it started eating it.'

b. *tw-rjʌv* pjy-za
INF:II-dance IFR:DOWN-start
'S/he started dancing.'

In this construction (and a few other ones), the complement-taking verb takes the orientation that is lexically selected by the verb in the complement clause (§24.3.5), for instance *UPWARDS* like *ndza* 'eat' in (26a) and *DOWNWARDS* like *rjʌv* 'dance' in (26b). In addition to the infinitives, three converbs are attested: the reduplicated gerund *sv-* (§16.6.1) expressing temporal simultaneity (§25.3.4.2), the purposive converb (§16.6.2, §25.5.4) and the converb of immediate subsequence (§16.6.3, §25.3.3.2), which stands out in having a perfective meaning 'as soon as ...' (for instance *pjuu-tu-mto* 'as soon as X saw Y') while selecting the B-type preverbs which usually mark Imperfective and Non-Past tenses. Despite the existence of these converbs, temporal (§25.3), manner (§25.4) and causal (§25.5) subordinate clauses mainly select finite verb forms in Japhug narratives and conversations.

### 2.4.4.3 Other nominalizations

Several productive abstract nominalizations are found in Japhug. The degree nominals (§16.3), combining a *tu-* with a possessive prefix coreferent with the subject (for example *a-tu-mtsur* 1SG-NMLZ:DEG-be.hungry 'my degree of hunger'), are highly common and occur in degree and equative constructions (§26.1.2).

Action nominals (§16.4.1) and abstract nouns (§16.4.2) can be formed by prefixation of *tu-* and *t*, for instance the noun *tu-rjʌv* 'dance' from the intransitive verb *rjʌv* 'dance', and *t v̱ -mtsur* 'hunger' from *mtsur* 'be hungry'. These derivations are not rare, but not fully productive either. The *tu-* and *t v̱ -* prefixes here are not analyzable as indefinite possessor prefixes with which they are homophonous (§5.1.1), as they cannot be replaced by definite possessor prefixes.
2.4.5 Associated motion

Japhug and other Gyalrong languages stand out in Trans-Himalayan by having
a system of associated motion clearly different from orientation markers (Jac-
ques et al. 2021). Unlike Arandic (Koch 1984) or Tacanan (Guillaume 2009), the
category of associated motion in Japhug only comprises two different prefixes
(§15.2.1) marking either cislocative or translocative motion of the subject (§15.2.2)
prior to the action expressed by the verb root.

Although associated motion prefixes (27a) seems at first glance semantically
similar to motion verbs with a purposive clause (27b), there are systematic dif-
ferences between these two constructions (§15.2.10), both in terms of presuppo-
sitions (§15.2.10.1) and in syntactic constraints of relativization (§15.2.10.6).

(27) a. c-tr-χtw-t-a
TRAL-AOR-buy-PST:TR-1SG
'I went and bought it.'

b. w-kur-χtw jy-ari-a
3SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-buy AOR-go[II]-1SG
'I went to buy it.'

2.4.6 Voice

2.4.6.1 Overview

The rich and redundant morphological expression of transitivity (§14.3.1) and the
rarity of labile verbs (§14.5) in Japhug are correlated with a highly productive
system of voice derivations, treated in chapters 17, 18 and 19. There are eleven
fully productive valency-changing prefixes,<fnref n="4" /> summarized in Table 2.8, to which a
certain number of non-productive derivations such as the applicative *nuu-* (§17.4)
and the anticausative (§18.5) can be added.

All productive voice derivations are marked by prefixes (§11.2.2). Only fossil
traces of derivational suffixes are found (in particular the applicative -t, §19.7.2).
The anticausative is marked not by a prefix, but by an alternation whereby un-
voiced obstruents are converted into their voiced prenasalized counterparts (see
§18.5.1).

There are, in addition, productive verbal derivations that do not change va-
lency, such as the autive *nuu-* (§19.1) and the distributed action derivation (§19.4).

<footnote n="4">⁴These derivations are not fully productive in the sense that they can be applied to any verb (since there are transitivity and semantic restrictions on their uses), but in the sense that some recent loanwords can be subjected to them.</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 2.8: Productive valency-changing verbal derivations in Japhug</caption><thead><tr><th>Voice</th><th>Prefix</th><th>Section</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Sigmatic causative</td><td><i>su</i>(y)-/z-</td><td>§17.2</td></tr><tr><td>Velar causative</td><td>y̥r-</td><td>§17.3</td></tr><tr><td>Tropative</td><td>n̥r(y)-</td><td>§17.5</td></tr><tr><td>Passive</td><td>a-</td><td>§18.1</td></tr><tr><td>Reciprocal</td><td>a-+reduplication</td><td>§18.4.1</td></tr><tr><td>Reflexive</td><td>z̥y̥-</td><td>§18.3</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Antipassive</td><td>r̥-</td><td>§18.6.1</td></tr><tr><td>s̥-</td><td>§18.6.2</td></tr><tr><td>Proprietive</td><td>s̥-</td><td>§18.1</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Facilitative</td><td>y̥r-</td><td>§18.9.1</td></tr><tr><td>n̥uyu-</td><td>§18.9.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

The following sections present a representative sample of voice derivations and their main morphosyntactic functions.

### 2.4.6.2 Causative

There are two productive causative derivations, the stigmatic causative (which has four productive allomorphs *su*-, *suɣ*-, *s-* and *z-* depending on the phonological and morphological context, §17.2.1) and the velar causative *y̥r-* (from *w̥r-*, a form still found in some Japhug dialects).

The latter is restricted to a subset of stative verbs. Some stative verbs are compatible with both causative derivations: for instance *zbaak* ‘be dry’ can be causativized as both *y̥r-zbaak* or *su-zbaak*. The semantic contrast between the two causatives in this context remains unclear (§17.3.3.2).

The stigmatic causative is the most productive derivation in Japhug. It is compatible with intransitive, transitive and even ditransitive verbs (§14.4.3), and has a wide range of meanings (§17.2.5), from coercion (§17.2.5.2) as in (28) to indirect causation (§17.2.5.6).

(28) *rjɛ́lpu kwa w-ma*      *nwa mkʰy̥rmag ra tu-z-nvme*
king ERG 3SG.POSS-work DEM people PL IPFV-CAUS-do[III]
*pjy-ηu*
IFR.IPFV-be
‘The king used to make the people do work for him.’ {0006248#S5}
## 2 A grammatical sketch

The sigmatic causative is also used to mark instruments (§17.2.5.8), for example in (29), where the instrument *taqaβ* ‘needle’ receives ergative marking (§8.2.2.4) like a causee (§8.2.2.6): the construction literally means ‘s/he made the needle sew the clothes’.

(29) **ki** *taqaβ ki* **kw** *tw-ŋga* $c^{hγ-su̱-tʃu̱β}$
DEM.PROX needle DEM.PROX ERG INDEF.POSS-clothes IFR-CAUS-sew
‘S/he sewed the clothes with this needle.’

In addition to the productive causatives, there are irregular causative forms (§17.2.2, §17.3.1), some of which co-exist with their regular counterparts, but with a more lexicalized meaning. For instance, the verb *tsʰi* ‘drink’ has the irregular causative *jtsʰi* ‘give to drink’ (§17.2.2.5) as opposed to the regular one *su̱-tsʰi* ‘make drink, drink with’.

The sigmatic causative prefix can be combined with nearly all other derivative prefixes (§17.2.8). It can precede the velar causative, as in *z-y̱-mpja* ‘heat up *X* with *Y*, make/let *Y* heat up *X*’ from *y̱-mpja* ‘heat up’, causative of *mpja* ‘be warm’.

It is also the only prefix that can occur more than once in a single verb form,<fnref n="5" /> as shown by examples such as *su̱-su̱-spo̱k* ‘make a hole with’ from *su̱-spo̱k* ‘make a hole’, causative of the intransitive verb *spo̱k* ‘have a hole’ (§17.2.7).

### 2.4.6.3 Tropative

The tropative *nɛ̱-* prefix (§17.5), like a causative derivation, turns an intransitive verb into a transitive, but its meaning differs: the added argument is not a causer, but an experiencer feeling/perceiving the state expressed by the base verb. For instance, the tropative of *mpcɛr* ‘be beautiful’ is *nɛ̱-mpcɛr* ‘find beautiful’, with the experiencer encoded as subject and the stimulus (corresponding to the intransitive subject of the base verb) as object, as shown by (30).

(30) *nɔ̱-ta-*nɛ̱-*mpcɛr*
SENS-1→2-TROP-be.beautiful
‘I find you very beautiful.’

The tropative can be used to define *adjectives* as a sub-class of stative verbs: only adjectival stative verbs can undergo this derivation, unlike for example existential verbs and copulas (§22.5).

<footnote n="5">⁵A double reciprocal form is attested (§18.4.2.5), but not with the same reciprocal prefixes.</footnote>
### 2.4.6.4 Antipassive

When the object of a morphologically transitive verb (thus excluding labile verbs in intransitive conjugation, §14.5) is non-overt, it is necessarily interpreted as definite (§22.1.2.1). For instance, example (31a) can only be used if the referent that has been sewn has been previously mentioned or is retrievable from the context, and cannot be understood as ‘sewed something’ with an indefinite object. To express this meaning, several strategies are possible, including the antipassive *rɣ*- derivation (§18.6.1).

(31) a. tcʰemɛnɔkɔ cʰɣ-tṣɔβ
    girl DEM ERG IFR-sew
    ‘The girl sewed it.’

b. tcʰemɛnɔ cʰɣ-rɣ-tṣɔβ
    girl DEM IFR-APASS-sew
    ‘The girl sewed / did sewing.’

The *rɣ*- turns a transitive verb into an intransitive one, whose only argument is semantically the agent, but does not take ergative marking (31b).

### 2.4.6.5 Reflexive and reciprocal

Japhug has a dedicated reflexive prefix *zɣr*- (§18.3), different from other valency-decreasing derivations. The reflexive verb is conjugated intransitively, as shown by (32)<fnref n="6" />

(32) tʰu-zɣr-rku-a
AOR:DOWNSTREAM-REFL-put.in-1SG
‘I put myself (in the bag).’

The reflexive is frequently combined with the sigmatic causative (§18.3.4) to express an unintentional indirect causation affecting oneself (33).

(33) tɣ-zɣr-su-mpca-a
AOR-REFL-CAUS-scold-1SG
‘I got myself scolded.’

<footnote n="6">⁶If the verb in (32) were transitive, a past transitive -t suffix would be inserted (§11.3, §14.3.2.1) and the expected form would be ḫtʰu-zɣr-rku-t-a.</footnote>
## 2 A grammatical sketch

The reciprocal derivation (§18.4.1), entirely different from the reflexive, is built by prefixing *a-* and reduplicating the verb stem (§4.1). For instance the transitive verb *rqoъ* ‘hug’ yields *a-rqu~rqoъ* ‘hug each other’. Reciprocal verbs generally require a non-singular intransitive subject, and can also select a comitative post-positional phrase (§8.2.5).

### 2.4.6.6 Autive

The autive *nw-* (§19.1) is a highly productive derivation, which does not affect verbal transitivity unlike the previous ones (§19.1.1).

Its most basic function is self-affectedness or autobenefactive (§19.1.3). In particular, the autive on transitive verbs taking a inalienably possessed object can be used to specify that the subject and the possessor of the object are coreferent (34a), whereas the absence of the autive is generally interpreted as indicating the absence of coreference (34b). This is not an absolute syntactic rule, however, since the Autive has additional unrelated uses (see below and §19.1.4, §19.1.5) which can interfere with this particular function.

(34) a. *wzo kw w-sroъ ko-nw-ri*
3SG ERG 3SG.POSS-life IFR-AUTO-save
'S/heᵢ saved his/herᵢ own life.'

b. *wъo kw w-sroъ ko-ri*
3SG ERG 3SG.POSS-life IFR-Save
'S/heᵢ saved his/herⱼ life.'

Another function of the Autive is to indicate spontaneous or non-volitional actions (§19.1.4), occurring for example by mistake, as illustrated by the minimal pair between (35a) and (35b).

(35) a. *tx-rye pw-nw-prat-a*
INDEF.POSS-necklace AOR-AUTO-break-1SG
'I broke the pearl necklace (by mistake).'

b. *tx-rye pw-prat-a*
INDEF.POSS-necklace AOR-break-1SG
'I broke the pearl necklace (on purpose).'

The third main function of the Autive is to express permansive aspect (§19.1.5).
### 2.4.7 Denominal derivations

Verbalizing denominal (chapter 20) and deidephonic (§20.9) derivations are rich and productive in Japhug.

A considerable number of denominal prefixes can be identified. Some of them have a well-identifiable meaning, for instance the proprietive *ayu-* (§20.2.4) deriv-ing verbs meaning ‘having a lot of X’ or ‘producing a lot of X’ (such as *ayulu* ‘pro-ducing a lot of milk’ (of a cow) from *ty-lu* ‘milk’) or the similative *aru-* (§20.2.2). For the prefixes *ruw/*y*- (§20.4), *nuw/*y*- (§20.7) and *yuw/*y*- (§20.5), several different functions have to be postulated, since these prefixes can derive both intransitive (§20.4.1, §20.7.1, §20.5.1) and transitive (§20.4.2, §20.7.2, §20.5.2) verbs.

Some denominal derivations occur in pairs (§20.7.3, §20.4.3). For instance, when a noun has both *ru/*y-* and *nu/*y-* denominal verbs, the former is usually dynamic intransitive, and the latter transitive, as illustrated by the pair comprising the in-transitive verb *ry-ma* ‘do (some) work’ and its transitive counterpart *ny-ma* ‘do (a work)’, both from the noun *ta-ma* ‘work’.

Denominal derivations compete with light verb constructions to turn nouns into predicates (§20.1.2, §22.4). For instance, the meaning ‘tell lies, cheat’ from the noun *kʰramba* ‘lie’ can be expressed either by a collocation with the light verb *βzu* ‘make’ (§22.4.2.1) or by the denominal verbs *rukʰramba* ‘tell lies’ (§20.4.1, intransitive) and *nukʰramba* ‘cheat’ (§20.7.2, transitive).

An important proportion of voice prefixes originate from the reanalysis of denominal derivations from bare nominalized forms (§20.10), most clearly in the case of the *ry-* antipassive (§20.10.1, Jacques 2014b).

When applied to noun-verb compounds (§5.5.5, §16.4.7), denominal derivations can serve to build incorporating verbs (§20.13.1). For instance, the intransitive verb *yusupʰut* ‘cut firewood’ is derived by the prefix *yu-* (§20.5.1) from the com-pound *supʰut* ‘firewood cutting’, itself made from the bound state *su-* of the noun *si* ‘wood’ compounded with the transitive verb *pʰut* ‘take out, cut’, ‘cut’. A tripartite contrast exists between the basic transitive construction (*si* + *pʰut*), a light verb construction combining *βzu* ‘make’ with the corresponding action nominal compound (*supʰut* + *βzu*) and the denominal incorporating verb *yu-supʰut*, all three meaning ‘cut firewood’ (§20.13.4).

## 2.5 Core and oblique arguments

The morphosyntactic properties of arguments can be studied from the point of view of flagging (§8, §8.2, §8.3) and indexation (§14.2, §14.3.2), but also relativiza-
tion (§23.5) and coreference restrictions between complement and matrix clauses (§24.2).

Core arguments are defined as those that are indexed by the verb morphology. In the case of intransitive verbs (§14.2), the only argument indexed on the verb is the *intransitive subject*, but the argument structure of intransitive verbs can contain up to two additional oblique arguments (§14.2.5). Morphologically transitive verbs index two arguments (including in some cases a dummy one, §14.3.5). Although there are no different morphological slots for transitive subjects and objects (§2.4.2.2, §14.3.2.8), the transitive paradigm contains no ambiguity in person configurations (§14.3.2), and the person of the agentive and patientive core arguments can always be clearly identified in finite verb forms. The core argument indexed like the agentive argument of verbs of action such as *sat* ‘kill’ or *indu* ‘hit’ (as in §2.4.2.2) is called *transitive subject*, and the other one is the *object*.<fnref n="7" />

Outside of verb indexation, the three basic core arguments (intransitive subject, transitive subject and object) are encoded in various ways, and present different types of alignments.

### 2.5.1 Neutral alignment

Person indexation affixes in general have neutral alignment: for instance the 1SG suffix -a indexes the subject of intransitive verbs, and is also found in 1SG→3, 3→1SG and 2→1SG configurations (§2.4.2.2, §14.3.2.8).

The absence of strict coreference restrictions between matrix and subordinate clauses in some categories of complement clauses (§24.2.1.2, §24.5.6.1, §24.2.3.2) and in manner (§25.4.2) and temporal clauses (§25.3) could be interpreted as a type of neutral alignment, but it appears that the neutralization in those cases is not limited to the three core arguments: there can also be complete absence of coreference, or coreference with an oblique or a possessor of an argument.

### 2.5.2 Nominative-accusative alignment

#### 2.5.3 Subjecthood

Nominative-accusative alignment appears in several unrelated constructions in Japhug.

The first piece of evidence for this type of alignment in Gyalrong languages to have been proposed (Sun 2003) is the fact that the *ku*- (subject) participle

<footnote n="7">⁷The term *object* in this grammar is restricted to this particular core argument, to the exclusion of all object-like patientive arguments.</footnote>
(§16.1.1.4) is the only form that can be used to relativize both intransitive (§23.5.1) and transitive subjects (§23.5.2). However, the *ku*- participles are not exclusively used to relativize intransitive and transitive subjects: they can also relativize possessors of intransitive subjects (§23.5.10), and are the only option to do so, resulting in ambiguities (see examples 176 and 177 in §22.5.2.1).

The fact that nearly all labile verbs are subject-preserving (§14.5.1.3) could also be adduced as evidence of nominative-accusative alignment, but the existence of a handful of object-preserving labile verbs (§14.5.1.4) makes it less compelling.

Clearer cases of constructions where strict nominative-accusative alignment is observed include associated motion and complementation.

First, the argument performing the motion encoded by the associated prefixes (§15.2.1) is always the intransitive subject in the case of intransitive verbs, and the transitive subject in the case of transitive ones (§15.2.2), and can never be the object, a possessor of the subject or any oblique argument (but it can be the causee of a causative verb).

Second, several subtypes of complement clauses require coreference between the (intransitive or transitive) subjects of the complement clause and that of the main clause, in particular bare and dental infinitives (§24.2.2.2).

### 2.5.4 Objecthood

While evidence for *subjects* independent from person indexation can be identified, evidence for *objects* (as opposed to other non-subject arguments in absolute form, §8.1.5, §8.1.6, §8.1.8) is more elusive.

In subject participles of transitive verbs, the object is marked by a possessive prefix (§16.1.1.1), obligatorily if no other prefix (of orientation, negation or associated motion) is present, as in (36b).

(36) a. *spjaŋku n<u>u k<u>u ca p<u>u-ndze*
wolf DEM ERG meat SENS-eat[III]
'The wolf eats meat.'

b. *u<u>-ku<u>-ndza*
3SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-eat
'The one/someone who eats it'

However, possessive prefixes on subject participles cannot be used as evidence for objects outside of finite indexation, as they can mark other grammatical functions. For example the verb *rga* 'like' is conjugated intransitively as shown by (37b): its subject *spjaŋku* has no ergative marking, and no stem alternation is
observed on the verb (a form like †pu-rge would be expected if this verb were
transitive as in 36a, §12.2.2.1, §14.3.1). However, in addition to its subject, this
verb takes an absolutive argument (ca ‘meat’ in 37a) that cannot be indexed: the
semi-object. This argument is also marked as a possessive prefix on the subject
participle like a real object, as in (37b).

(37) a. spjankw n̥u ca p̥u-rga
wolf DEM meat SENS-like
‘The wolf likes meat.’

b. w-kw-rga
3SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-like
‘The one/someone who likes him/her/it.’

Moreover, objects do not have any relativization construction that is specific to them. They can be relativized by object participial relatives (§16.1.2.4) and finite relatives (§23.2.2), but these categories of clauses can also be used to relativize semi-objects (§23.5.4.1, §16.1.2.5) and other participants such as goals (§23.5.5.2, §23.5.5.1) and possessors of objects (§23.5.10). For instance, headless participial clauses relativizing the object of *ndza* ‘eat’ (38a) or the semi-object of *rga* ‘like’ (38b) have the same structure.

(38) a. *a-ky-ndza*
1SG.POSS-OBJ:PCP-eat
‘[The things] that I eat.’

b. *a-ky-rga*
1SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-like
‘[The things] that I like.’

2.5.5 Absolutive-ergative alignment

Although the terms “absolutive” (§8.1) and “ergative” (§8.2.2) are used in this
grammar to refer to flagging, Japhug does not display perfect absolutive-ergative
alignment in case marking.

Absolutive form (absence of postposition or relator noun) does indeed serve
to mark intransitive subjects (§8.1.1) and objects (§8.1.3) by default, and transitive
subjects normally take the ergative *ku* postposition (§8.2.2.1). However, both ab-
solutive (§8.1.5, §8.1.7, §8.1.8) and ergative forms (§8.2.2.4, §8.2.2.7) have many
functions other than marking core arguments. In addition, there is some fluid-
ity in the use of the ergative postposition: some intransitive subjects can also be
marked by it (§8.2.2.3), in particular due to anticipation of a transitive verb in the
following clauses (§8.2.2.2).

The clearest evidence of absolutive-ergative alignment in Japhug is found in
generic person indexation (§14.3.2.5): generic intransitive subjects and objects are
both indexed by kuu-, while generic transitive subjects are marked by the inverse
wy- (§14.3.2.8).

In addition, in local configurations (§14.3.2.3), the fact that the suffix closest to
the verb stem indexes the object (like an intransitive subject) can also be analyzed
as ergative alignment in this sub-part of the indexation system.

There are no cases of syntactic pivot with exclusive neutralization of intransi-
tive subject and object in complementation or relativization.

### 2.5.6 Ditransitive verbs

Most ditransitive verbs have indirective alignment (§14.4.1): the theme is indexed
(treated as the object of a monotransitive verb), and the recipient marked with the
genitive (§8.2.3) or the dative (§8.3.1). There are however a few highly common
verbs such as mbi 'give' which have secundative alignment (§14.4.2) and index
the recipient.

Causativized transitive verbs have a different indexation pattern: either the
causee or the patientive argument is indexed as object, depending on factors
such as person hierarchy (§14.4.3).

## 2.6 Word order

Japhug has a strict verb-final order, with only a limited number of exceptions:
right dislocated constituents (§22.1.3), only a few adverbs, particles (§10.4) and
ideophones (§10.1.7) can occur postverbally (§22.2.7).

When both the subject and the object of a monotransitive verb are overt as in
(39), the former is placed by default before the latter (§22.1.1.2). For ditransitive
verbs, the order between theme and recipient is not rigid (§22.1.1.3, §22.1.1.5).

(39) lulu nuu kuu pya nuu to-ndza
cat DEM ERG bird DEM IFR-eat
'The cat ate the bird.'

Noun phrases have by default (Demonstrative)-Noun-Adjective-Numeral-De-
monstrative order (§9.3) as illustrated by (40).
## 2 A grammatical sketch

(40) (kuki) tcʰemɛ kʊ-mpcɛr χswɪm kʊra
DEM.PROX girl SBJ:PCP-be.beautiful three DEM:PL
‘These three beautiful girls’

## 2.7 Subordination

### 2.7.1 Relative clauses

Japhug lacks relative pronouns, and most relative clauses are participial (§23.2.1).
Finite relative clauses are also attested (§23.2.2).

Most arguments and adjuncts are relativizable, though there are constraints
on relativizability (§23.5.12).

In the text corpus, an important proportion of relative clauses are headless
(§23.4.1). When the head noun is overt, it is either internal to the relative clause
(§23.4.3) or follows it (§23.4.2), depending in part on the syntactic function of the
relativized element and on the type of relative clause.

Example (41) illustrates a head-internal finite relative: the relativized object *pya*
‘bird’ is located between the transitive subject *lulu nu* kw and the finite verb (an
object participle *ty-ky-ndza* (AOR-OBJ:PCP-eat) would also be possible to express
the same meaning), at the position it would normally occupy in the correspond-
ing independent sentence (see 39 above).

(41) [lʊlu nʊ kw **pya** ta-ndza] nʊ
cat DEM ERG bird AOR:3→3'-eat DEM
‘The bird that the cat ate’

In (42) on the other hand, the relative clause precedes the relativized transitive
subject *lulu* ‘cat’.

(42) [pya w-ty-ku-ndza] lʊlu nʊ
bird 3SG.POSS-AOR-SBJ:PCP-eat cat DEM
‘The cat that ate the bird’

### 2.7.2 Complement clauses

Complement clauses in Japhug (chapter 24) occur in intransitive subject (43a,
§24.5.8), object (43b, §24.5.3.4) and semi-object (43c, §24.5.3.5) functions. There
are also complement-taking nouns (43d, §24.6).
(43) a. [kʰramba k-βzu] mɣ-pe
lie INF-make NEG-be.good:FACT
'Telling lies is bad.'

b.:wzo kw [kʰramba kɣ-βzu] mɣ-spe
c. [wzo kw kʰramba kɣ-βzu] mɣ-n
lie INF-make NEG-be.able[III]
'S/he is not able to tell lies.'

3SG ERG lie INF-make NEG-dare
'S/he does not dare to tell lies.'

d. [kʰramba kɣ-βzu] a-kiż mɣ-yi
lie INF-make 1SG POSS-wish NEG-come:FACT
'I do not want to tell lies.'

As shown by (43c), when the complement-taking verb is semi-transitive (and thus morphologically intransitive, §14.2.3), the verb in the complement clause is transitive and they share their subjects, the subject can take ergative case following the verb in the complement clause rather than absolutive (§24.2.1.1).

Not all complements are infinitive clauses as in (43) (§2.4.4.2, §24.2.1). Some verbs are also compatible with finite complements (§24.2.3) as in (44), with subject coreference.

(44) [p Jur-ta- swxcyt] p w-spe-a
IPFV-1 → 2-teach SENS-be.able[III]-1SG
'I am able to teach you.'

Verbs of speech also take reported speech clauses (§24.2.5), which present morphosyntactic properties different from regular finite complements (§24.2.5.2).

Aside from complement clauses proper, various complementation strategies are also found, including relative clauses in core argument function (which resemble, and can even be ambiguous with, complement clauses, §24.4.1), participial clauses (§24.4.2), action nominals (§24.4.3) and simple coordination (§24.4.4).

### 2.7.3 Other subordinate clauses

Subordinate clauses other than relative and complement clauses (treated in chapter 25) tend to be expressed by finite clauses headed by a relator noun or a postposition. For instance, clauses of temporal precedence (§25.3.2.1) require a finite verb in the Imperfective regardless of the TAME category of the verb in the main clause (§21.2.3) followed the postposition *ewŋgw* ‘before’ (§8.2.11) as in (45).
## 2 A grammatical sketch

(45) [cʰu-sta-nu cungw] tce, wzo cʰy-rγru
IPFV-wake.up-PL before LNK 3SG IFR-get.up
'S/he got up before they had woken up.' {0006065*S35}

Converbial clauses do exist (§16.6), but are all in competition with a finite clause type. For instance, the immediate converb (§16.6.3) illustrated in (46a) has a corresponding construction (46b) with a finite verb in the Aorist (§25.3.3.2).

(46) a. tu-tu-lo
IPFV:UP-IMM:CONV-come.out

b. ty-lok cimma
AOR:UP-come.out immediately-after

'As soon as it comes out / immediately after it has come out'

Some finite clauses not followed by postpositions or relator nouns still have clues of a subordinate status. In particular, periphrastic TAME constructions involving an Imperfective verb (§21.2) and a copula (§21.2.2), when they occur in chains, tend to elide the auxiliary in the non-final clauses (§25.1.3), resulting in constructions like (47), where the first clause cɛr tce tu-rγma 'it is active during the night' is incomplete (lacking the auxiliary njw-ŋu), and the copula njw-ŋu has scope over the two clauses preceding it (see also 10, §21.2.2, for a example of the same type with more than ten clauses sharing a single auxiliary).

(47) lulu nw, [cɛr tce tu-rγma], sni tce ku-nw-rŋgw njw-ŋu
cat DEM night LOC IPFV-work day LOC IPFV-AUTO-lie.down SENS-be
'The cat, active during the during the night, sleeps during the day.'
{0003576*S33}

We also find a special type of serial verb construction expressing manner (§25.4.1), in which the verb in the manner clause (with a similative verb §25.4.1.2 or a deidephonic verb §25.4.1.1) shares the same TAME, subject (and often object) as the verb in the other clause. In (48) for example, stu 'do like' and the χtci 'wash' are in Aorist 1SG→3SG form (§21.5.1.1) and share a-ŋga 'my clothes' as object (the demonstrative ki is semi-object, §14.4.2).

(48) a-ŋga nw ki ty-stu-t-a tce
1SG.POSS-clothes DEM DEM.PROX AOR-do likPST:TR-1SG LNK
nw-χtci-t-a
AOR-wash-PST:TR-1SG
'I washed my clothes like this.'
### 2.8 Remarkable features

After this overview of the core features of Japhug grammar, this section presents a selection of topics of particular interest to linguistic typology and comparative grammar in Japhug.

#### 2.8.1 Consonant clusters

The Kamnyu dialect of Japhug has over four hundred consonant clusters in onset position (§4.2, Jacques 2019c), whose internal structure can be studied through alternations in reduplication patterns (§4.1, Jacques 2007).

In addition to the size of the inventory, which in itself is significant, because Japhug is one of the languages with the greatest number of clusters in the Trans-Himalayan family. Only Khroskyabs boasts more clusters, (Lai 2017: 101). The system of clusters presents two main points of interest.

First, syllable onsets in Japhug are rich in clusters violating the *sonority sequence* principle (ssp, §4.2.3.2, Blevins 1995: 210), and in particular present cases of ssp-infringing clusters without corresponding ssp-compliant equivalents. For instance, the ssp-infringing clusters /rm-/- and /rt-/- are relatively common, while †/mr-/- and †/tr-/- are unattested (except across syllables, §4.2.3.1) due to a series of sound changes (§4.2.1.9, §4.2.2.4).

Second, some of these clusters are of considerable antiquity, as they appear to be preservations from proto-Trans-Himalayan (Jacques 2015c; Zhang et al. 2019), and thus of considerable importance for the reconstruction of syllable structure in this family in general (Hill 2019: 212) and in Old Chinese in particular (Gong & Lai 2017).

#### 2.8.2 Direct-inverse

Direct-inverse systems, while relatively well-attested in languages of the Americas (Zúñiga 2006), are very rare in the Old World. Japhug and the other Gyalrong languages (DeLancey 1981; Sun & Shidanluo 2002; Jacques 2010a; Gong 2014) are in fact the only languages in Eurasia to have a near-canonical direct-inverse indexation system (§14.3.2.8, Jacques & Antonov 2014), in particular with a direct-inverse contrast in both mixed (§14.3.2.1) and non-local domains (§14.3.3).<fnref n="8" />

<footnote n="8">⁸Inverse-like phenomena are observed in Japanese (Koga & Ohori 2008), Circassian (Arkadiev 2017) and some Trans-Himalayan languages, especially Kuki-Chin and Northern Naga (Konnerth & DeLancey 2019), but the inverse morphemes in these languages are in the process of being grammaticalized, and still retain a cislocative meaning, whereas the inverse *wy-* in</footnote>
## 2 A grammatical sketch

Moreover, Japhug is unique among Gyalrong languages in lacking inverse marking in the local 2→1 configuration (§14.3.2.3, §14.8.3, Jacques 2018b), and possibly the only known language to use the inverse marker as the sole marker of *generic transitive subject* (§14.3.2.5).

### 2.8.3 Inflectionalization

While person indexation is one of the defining properties of verbs in Japhug (§2.4.2), a handful of expressions of nominal origin have acquired the ability to take dual *-ndzi* and plural *-nu* indexation suffixes by analogy with imperative verb forms (§14.7).

For instance, the phatic expression *sṛrma* ‘good night’ (§14.7.1) has the dual *sṛrma-ndzi* ‘good night (to both of you)’ when addressing two people. This unusual phenomenon has parallels in Indo-European (Viti 2015: 113–114).

### 2.8.4 Prefixal chain

Japhug, like other Gyalrong languages, has a large prefixal template (§11.2), allowing more than seven or eight prefixes in a row (example 15, §2.4.1), while the suffixal chain is much more restricted (§11.3). It is among the rare strongly prefixal languages with strict verb-final order, alongside Ket (Werner 1997) and Athabaskan (Rice 2000).

While the verb-final word order is relatively ancient,<fnref n="9" /> there is evidence that the part of the prefixal chains in Gyalrongic languages have been recently innovated, either through grammaticalization and integration of verb roots from serial-verb constructions (Jacques 2013b), or the absorption of adverbs or clause-final particles occurring immediately before the verb into the verbal word (§21.5.4, §21.7.1.3; see also Lai accepted on Khroskyabs).

Japhug also has a few bipartite verbs, made from two verb stems with identical TAME and person indexation cliticized to each other and with elision of either the suffixal chain of the first verb as in (49), the prefixal chain of the second verb, or both (§11.6.3, Jacques 2018a).

<footnote>Japhug is dedicated to the expression of person indexation. Kiranti languages also have direct-inverse systems (in particular Bantawa and Puma, see Doornenbal 2009 and Bickel, Gaenszle, et al. 2007), but the distribution of inverse and direct markers in these languages is much less transparent than in Gyalrong (Jacques & Antonov 2014).</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹Reconstructing word-order is a notoriously difficult task, but there is no positive reason to assume any other order at least for the common ancestor of Tibeto-Gyalrongic languages (Sagart et al. 2019).</footnote>
(49) `a-ty-tu-stu=a-t-y-tu-mbat-nu`
IRR-PFV-2-try.hard(1)=IRR-PFV-2-try.hard(2)-PL

‘Do your best/try hard.’

2.8.5 Hybrid indirect speech

Reported speech in Japhug frequently presents mismatches in person indexation, with the main verb representing the point of view of the subject of the complement-taking verb, and the nouns and possessive prefixes that of the current speaker.

For instance, in (50a), the verb *rtoŭ* has 1PL indexation, reflecting the point of view of the transitive subject of the complement-taking verb *tu-nu-suso-nu* ‘you think, you want’ (the daughters-in-law, the addressee). On the other hand, the 2PL possessive prefixes on *nu-pʰama* ‘your parents’ and the other nouns correspond to the point of view of the father-in-law (the current speaker) – a 1PL possessor would be expected in the reported speech clause if no shift of point of reference had taken place, as in (50b).

Three different translations of the Japhug sentence are proposed in (50a), the first in direct speech, the second in indirect speech (with shift toward the current speaker) and the third as a merger of the two (agrammatical in English), directly reflecting the original *hybrid indirect speech* (§24.2.5.2).

(50) a. a-me ra nuzora kumx, (...) [nu-kʰa, 1SG.POSS-daughter PL 2PL also 2PL.POSS-house
nu-mu nu-pʰama ra cw-rtoŭ-i]
2PL.POSS-mother 2PL.POSS-parent PL TRAL-look:FACT-1SG
tu-nu-suso-nu cti tce jx-nu-ce-nu
2-AUTO-think:FACT-PL be.AFF:FACT LNK IMP-VERT-go-PL

Direct: 'My daughters in lawᵢ, youᵢ think "Let usᵢ go and see ourᵢ house, ourᵢ parents," so go home.'

Indirect: 'My daughters in lawᵢ, youᵢ want to go (home) and see yourᵢ house, yourᵢ parents, so go home.'

Hybrid indirect: 'My daughters in lawᵢ, youᵢ think, 'Let usᵢ go and see yourᵢ house, yourᵢ parents, so go home.' (2005 tAwakWcqraR)

b. ji-kʰa, ji-mu ji-pʰama ra 1PL.POSS-house 1PL.POSS-mother 1PL.POSS-parents PL
cw-rtoŭ-i (ra)
TRAL-look:FACT-1PL be.needed:FACT

'(Let us) go and see our houses, our mothers, our parents.'
## 2 A grammatical sketch

Hybrid indirect speech is also found in Tibetic languages (Tournadre 2008, Tournadre & Suzuki 2021: §8.4.3.8), where it has contributed to confusion around the notion of “conjunct/disjunct” marking. The presence of person indexation makes this phenomenon more easily identifiable in Japhug than in Tibetan.

### 2.8.6 The expression of degree and comparison

Japhug lacks comparative and superlative derivations, but has a rich array of constructions expressing degree and comparison (chapter 26), some of which are rather uncommon at least in this part of the world.

High degree can be marked by combining a finite adjectival stative verb with a degree adverb (§26.1.1) as in (51a) as in most languages. However, the most common construction conveying this meaning, illustrated in (51b), comprises a degree nominal (§26.1.2, §16.3) serving as the intransitive subject of a verb of degree ‘be extremely’. Thus the neutral way in Japhug to say ‘X is very intelligent’ is literally ‘X’s degree of intelligence (of being intelligent) is extreme.’

(51) a. wuma zo pn-cqraq
really EMPH SENS-be.intelligent
‘S/he is very intelligent.’ {0006380#S72}

b. w-tw-cqraq
3SG.POSS-NMLZ:DEG-be.intelligent SENS-be.extr emely
‘S/he is extremely intelligent.’ {0006380#S13}

The main comparative construction in Japhug is unusual for a different reason. In many languages including Tibetic (Zhou 2003: 239, Heine & Kuteva 2002: 29), the ergative or the ablative are used to mark the standard of comparison. In Japhug, as illustrated in (52), the standard has a dedicated postposition (§8.2.7), whereas the ergative marker ku is used to mark the *comparee* instead (§8.2.2.7, §26.2.1).

(52) [w-ki syz] [w-pi n w k]
3SG.POSS-younger.sibling COMP 3SG.POSS-elder.sibling DEM ERG
mpcyr
be.beautif ul:FACT
‘The elder sibling is more beautiful than the younger sibling.’

This observation is all the more surprising given that ku is most likely bor-
rowed from Tibetan (Jacques 2016b).
### 2.8.7 Japhug morphology and Trans-Himalayan comparative linguistics

The rich verbal and nominal morphology of Japhug and other Gyalrongic languages comprises both archaisms and innovative features illustrating interesting grammaticalization pathways.

Among innovations, many voice prefixes (§11.2.2) have been created through reanalysis of denominal derivation (§20.10). The clearest case of an innovating voice marker is the antipassive *r}*- (§18.6.1): irregular forms provide direct evidence that it originated from the intransitive denominal *r}*- (§20.4.1) applied to deverbal nouns (§20.10.1.1, Jacques 2014b). Other representative innovations include the reflexive *zy}*- from an incorporated pronoun (§18.3.7, Jacques 2010b), the associated motion prefixes grammaticalized from motion verbs (§15.2.1, Jacques 2013b), the orientation preverbs from locational adverbs or nouns (§15.1.1.4) and the comitative adverbs (§5.8.1, Jacques 2017d). While Japhug did innovate many affixes, it also preserves morphological archaisms which go further back than proto-Gyalrongic, some potentially even up to proto-Trans-Himalayan.

The antiquity of person indexation in Gyalrongic (§14.8.1) and the rest of Trans-Himalayan is a notoriously controversial topic (Bauman 1975; DeLancey 1989; LaPolla 1992; van Driem 1993b), but in any case, a paradigm comprising a second person prefix with suffixes for first person and number of third and second person should at least be reconstructed back to the common ancestor of Gyalrongic, Kiranti and probably Jinghpo (Jacques 2012a; DeLancey 2014; Jacques 2016e).

In a few cases, archaic morphology only remains as lexicalized traces in Japhug, in particular the applicative *-t* suffix, very prominent in Kiranti (Michailovsky 1985; Jacques 2015a) for instance, which is only attested in two verbs (§19.7.2), or the nominalization *-z* (§16.5.1) suffix, which has cognates in Tibetan and Chinese (Jacques 2003; 2016c).

In other cases, derivational processes that only exist as traces in most of the family are still productive in Japhug and other core Gyalrong languages, in particular the sigmatic denominal and causative prefixes (§20.3, §17.2, Sagart & Baxter 2012; Jacques 2015d), velar (§16.8.1) and sigmatic (§16.8.2) nominalization prefixes (Jacques 2014d; Konnerth 2016; Jacques 2019b), and the dental indefinite possessor prefix of inalienably possessed nouns (§5.1.3, §5.1.2).

Gyalrong data is particularly relevant to the debate regarding the voicing alternation in Old Chinese and other Trans-Himalayan languages (Handel 2012). Old Chinese and many other languages have pairs of verbs with a voicing contrast correlated with transitivity, in which the unvoiced verb is transitive and the
voiced one intransitive. It is not obvious which one is the derived form, and the
direction of derivation is still being debated (Sagart & Baxter 2012; Mei 2012).

Japhug and other Northern Gyalrong languages (Jacques 2004: 411–412, Gong 2018: 271) however provide a crucial piece of evidence showing that the direction-ality was from the transitive verb to the intransitive one (§18.5.1.2), confirming evidence from unrelated sources (Sagart 2003): the Tibetan borrowing *χt}*r ‘scatter’ (from *གཏོར་* gtor ‘scatter’) has an intransitive counterpart *ཨད}*r ‘be scattered’ (§18.5.1) with prenasalized onset without equivalent in Tibetan. This intransitivizing derivation can be described as anticausative (§18.5.2). There is further evidence that the prenasalization alternation comes from a nasal prefix, very probably a lexicalization of the autive *nu-* prefix (§19.1.7), whose spontaneous function (§19.1.4) is very close to that of anticausative verbs. Evidence for autive derivation only exists in Gyalrongic (Lai 2017: 357–368, Gong 2018). However, the presence of traces of the anticausative derivation as voicing alternations in various branches of Trans-Himalayan, for instance in Kiranti (Jacques 2015a), Old Chinese (Sagart & Baxter 2012) or Tibetan (Jacques 2012b), implies that the autive derivation by extension must also be of proto-Trans-Himalayan age, and thus represents a unique archaism of Gyalrongic.

The richness and high productivity of morphology in Japhug and other Gyal-
rong languages, comparable with that of Sanskrit in Indo-European or Meskwaki
in Algonquian, offer a framework to explore the fossil morphology of other
Trans-Himalayan languages, in particular those belonging to the Burmo-Gyalron-
gic and Tibeto-Gyalrongic branches (Jacques & Michaud 2011; Sagart et al. 2019),
but also potentially for the family as a whole.

Commenting on the irregularity of correspondences between Tibetan, Old Chi-
nese and Burmese, Hill (2019: 212) concludes that “the phonetic influence of de-
funct morphology will one day explain these complicated correspondences, but
this possibility will manifest only when more languages, particularly archaic lan-
guages such as those of the Rgyalrong and Kiranti branches, are brought within
purview.” One of the aims of this grammar is precisely to provide comparativists
with sufficient data on this language to make it systematically usable in Trans-
Himalayan etymological research, in the hope that this field can one day reach
the degree of sophistication of Indo-European (Fellner & Hill 2019).
# 3 Phonology

## 3.1 Introduction

Japhug syllables follow the template (C)(C)(C)V(C) with initial clusters containing at most three consonants, and at most one consonant in the coda. Given the complexity of possible onsets, it is not practical to provide an exhaustive list of possible syllables in the language (unlike Naish languages for instance, see Michailovsky & Michaud 2006). However, onsets and rhymes can be listed exhaustively.

This chapter, partly based on previous publications (in particular Jacques 2004 and Jacques 2019c), presents the inventory of consonants and vowels, offers a focused discussion on syllabic structure and quasi-neutralization, and describes suprasegmental phenomena and speech errors. The complete inventory of consonant clusters is listed and analyzed in §4.2 in the following chapter.

This chapter does not treat the phonology of loanwords from Chinese (except highly nativized ones). Non-nativized Chinese loanwords are represented in this grammar in pinyin (even though this system is an imperfect way of rendering Sichuanese Mandarin) between angled brackets.

## 3.2 Consonants

### 3.2.1 Onsets

There are fifty consonantal phonemes in Japhug (Table 3.1). All can occur as simple onsets. Stops and affricates have a four-way contrast between voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiced and prenasalized series.

The voiced fricatives /ɣ/ and /k/ should be classified as non-nasal sonorants (§4.2.2), alongside the glides /j/ and /w/, the lateral /l/ and the rhotic /r/.

Table 3.2 provides examples of each of these phonemes, followed whenever possible by the vowel /u/. Among these consonants, four are only attested in borrowings from Tibetan and/or ideophones: /s̥/, /dz̥/, /dż/ and /g/.

The phoneme /w/ is realized as a fricative [f] or [φ] before voiceless obstruents and as [v] or [β] before voiced ones, and can also be fricativized when it occurs as
<table><caption>Table 3.1: Consonantal phonemes</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>Bilabial</th><th>Dental/<br>Alveolar</th><th>Retroflex</th><th>Alveolo-<br>palatal</th><th>Palatal</th><th>Velar</th><th>Uvular</th><th>Glottal</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="4">Plosive</td><td>unv.</td><td>/p/</td><td>/t/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/c/</td><td>/k/</td><td>/q/</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>asp.</td><td>/pʰ/</td><td>/tʰ/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/cʰ/</td><td>/kʰ/</td><td>/qʰ/</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>voi.</td><td>/b/</td><td>/d/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/ʃ/</td><td>/g/</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>pren.</td><td>/mb/</td><td>/nd/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/ɲɲ/</td><td>/ŋŋ/</td><td>/NG/</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Affricate</td><td>unv.</td><td></td><td>/ts/</td><td>/tʃ/</td><td>/tç/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>asp.</td><td></td><td>/tsʰ/</td><td>/tʃʰ/</td><td>/tçʰ/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>voi.</td><td></td><td>/dz/</td><td>/dz/</td><td>/dʒ/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>pren.</td><td></td><td>/ndz/</td><td>/ndz/</td><td>/ndz/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Nasal</td><td></td><td>/m/</td><td>/n/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/ɲ/</td><td>/ŋ/</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Fricative</td><td>unv.</td><td></td><td>/s/</td><td>/s/</td><td>/ç/</td><td></td><td>/x/</td><td>/χ/</td><td>/h/</td></tr><tr><td>voi.</td><td></td><td>/z/</td><td></td><td>/z/</td><td></td><td>/ɣ/</td><td>/ɣ/</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Approximant</td><td></td><td>/w/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>/j/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Rhotic</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>/r/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Lateral</td><td>voi.</td><td></td><td>/l/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>unv.</td><td></td><td>/ʌ/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

coda. In the orthography used in this work, it is transcribed as <f> when followed by an voiceless stop, affricate or fricative, and as <β> when followed by a voiced one (§4.2.1.1), or in coda position (§3.2.2).

As in many languages of the Tibetan area, the /r/ is a trilled retroflex voiced fricative [r̥z] in onset position, sometimes realized as a simple voiced fricative [z]. It is devoiced to [ʃ] (with neutralization of the contrast with /ʃ/) when followed by a voiceless consonant in clusters (§4.2.1.4).

The prenasalized voiced stops and affricates /mb/, /nd/, /ndz/, /ndʒ/, /ndz/, /ɲɲ/, /ŋŋ/ and /NG/ all have voiceless and voiceless aspirated counterparts such as /mpʰ/), /ntʰ/), /ntsʰ/), /ntçʰ/), /ntṣʰ/), /ncʰ/), /ŋkʰ/) and /Nqʰ/) (§4.2.1.9). Yet, there are several pieces of evidence showing that the prenasalized voiced stops and affricates are of a different nature from the prenasalized voiceless ones.

First, the former can appear in clusters preceded by fricatives or non-nasal sonorants, as in /z̥mbr/, /jndz/ or /rṇgl/, while the latter cannot. Clusters such as */zmpʰ/r, */jntṣʰ/) or */rṇqʰ/)l/ are not permitted in Japhug. Clusters of this type may have existed, but have been removed by voicing the stop/affricate (§18.5.7).

Second, the uvular voiced prenasalized /NG/ has no simple voiced counterpart */G/, a fact which therefore precludes analyzing /NG/ as a cluster /n + G/.

There is a three-way contrast between /tç/, /c/ and /k/ before the front vowel /i/, as shown by the triplet comprising the correlative additive focus marker tçi
<table><caption>Table 3.2: Examples of the consonant phonemes</caption><tr><td>/p/ /u-pu/</td><td>'its young'</td><td>/tç/ /u-tçu/</td><td>'his boy'</td></tr><tr><td>/pʰ/ /u-pʰu/</td><td>'its price'</td><td>/tçʰ/ /totçʰu/</td><td>'it gore him/her'</td></tr><tr><td>/b/ /babu/</td><td>'blackcurrant'</td><td>/dz/ /dʒu/</td><td>'it is oily'</td></tr><tr><td>/mb/ /mbut/</td><td>'collapse'</td><td>/ndʒ/ /kondʒu/</td><td>'s/he accused him/her'</td></tr><tr><td>/m/ /tumu/</td><td>'sky'</td><td>/ç/ /çu/</td><td>'who'</td></tr><tr><td>/w/ /wuwu/</td><td>'Boletus sp.'</td><td>/z/ /mzyu/</td><td>'not only'</td></tr><tr><td>/t/ /tuboɪ/</td><td>'one group'</td><td>/c/ /cu/</td><td>'stone'</td></tr><tr><td>/tʰ/ /tʰu/</td><td>'be serious' (of a disease)</td><td>/cʰ/ /tycʰu/</td><td>'wedge'</td></tr><tr><td>/d/ /duwtu/</td><td>'turtledove'</td><td>/j/ /waju/</td><td>'earthquake'</td></tr><tr><td>/nd/ /ndu/</td><td>'appear (rainbow)'</td><td>/ŋj/ /ŋju/</td><td>'open (it)'</td></tr><tr><td>/ts/ /konytso/</td><td>'s/he hid it'</td><td>/n/ /nyŋnyŋ/</td><td>'soft and powdery'</td></tr><tr><td>/tsʰ/ /tsʰutɔ/</td><td>'kid'</td><td>/j/ /w-ju/</td><td>'its handle'</td></tr><tr><td>/dz/ /dzurdzur/</td><td>'straight'</td><td>/k/ /kuki/</td><td>'this'</td></tr><tr><td>/ndz/ /ndzupe/</td><td>'way of sitting'</td><td>/kʰ/ /kʰuna/</td><td>'dog'</td></tr><tr><td>/n/ /nuŋa/</td><td>'cow'</td><td>/g/ /gwŋy/</td><td>'very dark (sky)'</td></tr><tr><td>/s/ /swmat/</td><td>'fruit'</td><td>/ŋg/ /w-ŋgw/</td><td>'inside'</td></tr><tr><td>/z/ /zuwi/</td><td>'almost'</td><td>/ŋ/ /caŋu/</td><td>'heat (deer)'</td></tr><tr><td>/l/ /rulu/</td><td>'medicine'</td><td>/x/ /xurxur/</td><td>'round'</td></tr><tr><td>/ʌ/ /ʌuyŋʌuy/</td><td>'breathing movement'</td><td>/ɣ/ /γu/</td><td>'genitive'</td></tr><tr><td>/tʃ/ /tʃumpa/</td><td>'apron'</td><td>/q/ /qwqli/</td><td>'staring'</td></tr><tr><td>/tʃʰ/ /tʃʰuy/</td><td>'maybe'</td><td>/qʰ/ /kw-sγqʰuwqʰa/</td><td>'naughty'</td></tr><tr><td>/dz/ /dzuydzuy/</td><td>'strong (of tea)'</td><td>/ng/ /mwngu/</td><td>'Ligularia fischeria'</td></tr><tr><td>/ndz/ /ndzumbu/</td><td>'guest'</td><td>/χ/ /χuχu/</td><td>'having big nostrils'</td></tr><tr><td>/s/ /swŋswŋ/</td><td>'clear'</td><td>/ŋ/ /naŋuŋ/</td><td>'shirt'</td></tr><tr><td>/r/ /ru/</td><td>'temporary place' (nomads)</td><td>/h/ /hanwi/</td><td>'a little'</td></tr></table>

'also' (§9.1.6.2), the highly polyfunctional ci 'one' (§6.6.1, §6.8, §6.7.2, §9.1.7, §7.1.1, §9.1.4.1 and §22.2.1) and the demonstrative ki 'this' (§6.9).

The palatal stops /c/, /cʰ/, /j/ and /ŋj/ cannot be analyzed as velar+/j/ clusters, as a clear contrast exists between the palatal series and velar stops followed by /j/ (§4.2.2.2), in minimal pairs such as /ŋŋo/ 'have damages' and /ŋŋio/ 'slip', 'glide'.<fnref n="1" /> That the onsets /ŋj-/ and /ŋŋj-/ have a different syllabic structure is confirmed by their reduplication patterns (§4.1): while in the former the palatalization is present on the reduplicant *pu-nr-ŋŋu-ŋŋo* 'have damages everywhere' (in the distributed action derivation, §19.4), in the latter the /j/ is not reduplicated as *pu-nr-ŋŋu-ŋŋio* 'he slipped everywhere'.

The alveolo-palatal affricates /tç/, /tçʰ/, /dz/ and /ndz/ are also contrastive with dental affricates+j clusters, as shown by the minimal pair *ndziaŋ* 'be tight'

<footnote n="1">¹The grapheme <i>u> represents an allophone of /j/ in medial position with dental and dorsal initials (§4.2.2.2).</footnote>
(of knot) vs. ndzaš ‘swim’ (§4.2.2.2). There is also a contrast with dental stops+j, though no good minimal pairs can be found due to the rarity of these clusters.

The attested contrasts between coronal affricates and dorsal stops with and without the j medial are illustrated in Table 3.3 in combination with the vowel /o/.

<table><caption>Table 3.3: Palatalization contrasts in coronal and dorsal onsets</caption><thead><tr><td>Onset</td><td>Example</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>/ts/</td><td>txtsɔš ‘Potentilla anserina’</td></tr><tr><td>/tsj/</td><td>tx-mtsioš ‘beak’</td></tr><tr><td>/tʃ/</td><td>tʃoš ‘add water’</td></tr><tr><td>/tç/</td><td>mtçoš ‘be sharp’</td></tr><tr><td>/c/</td><td>co ‘valley’</td></tr><tr><td>/k/</td><td>ko ‘prevail over’</td></tr><tr><td>/kj/</td><td>kio ‘cause to glide’</td></tr><tr><td>/q/</td><td>rqoš ‘hug’</td></tr><tr><td>/qj/</td><td>qioš ‘vomit’</td></tr></tbody></table>

The voiceless lateral /l/ (realized by some speakers as a postaspirated lateral [lʰ]) is a marginal phoneme in Japhug, which does not appear in clusters (except heterosyllabic ones, as in /cwɣlaj/ ‘symptom in which the oral cavity becomes white’) and is very rare in the native vocabulary. Yet, its phonemic status is justified by the fact that it contrasts with /lx/. There are no minimal pairs contrasting the two, but the contrast can be indirectly illustrated by examples such as alxaj ‘not properly put’ (of clothes) and lxulxi ‘thick and cumbersome’ on the one hand, and txt ‘become old’ and tyndzī ‘ghost’ on the other hand.

### 3.2.2 Codas

The inventory of consonants in coda position in Japhug is more restricted than in initial position. In particular, the voicing and aspiration contrasts are neutralized in codas.

Only twelve consonants out of fifty appear as codas: /-p/, /-w/, /-m/, /-t/, /-z/, /-n/, /-l/, /-r/, /-j/, /-ɣ/, /-ŋ/, /-k/. The stop /-p/ is restricted to a few ideophones (§10.1.5.2), and is found neither in the inherited non-ideophonic vocabulary nor in Tibetan loanwords, except as the first element of the heterosyllabic cluster
/pt/ in the word /sqap.tuy/ ‘eleven’ (§4.2.3.1). The codas /-n/, /-l/ and /-ŋ/ are extremely rare (but not entirely absent) in the non-ideophonic native vocabulary.

A list of possible combinations between codas and vowels in Japhug is described in §3.3.2.

In word-final position, codas are voiced when followed by a word beginning with a voiced consonant or a vowel, but are devoiced in phrase-final position, before a pause or before a voiceless segment (even across word boundaries, §4.3). In isolation, word-final /-z/, /-r/, /-j/, /-ɣ/ and /-k/ in particular are realized as [s], [r], [j], [x] and [χ], respectively. The coda /-k/ can also be realized alternatively as pharyngealization of the preceding vowel.

Since the voicing contrast between the voiceless fricatives /s/, /x/, /χ/ and the voiced ones /z/, /ɣ/, /h/ is neutralized in coda position, it could seem better to argue that the fricative codas, whatever their phonetic realization, are archiphonemes {s,z}, {x,y} and {χ,k}, and that any discussion of their underlying voicing is futile (Hill 2016). However, in the case of Japhug at least, some morphophonological rules are easier to describe if one assumes that fricative codas are underlyingly voiced.<fnref n="2" />

First, when the 1SG -a suffix is added to a verb stem ending in a fricative coda, that coda is resyllabified, becoming the onset of the syllable with a as rhyme. In these cases, the voiced allophone always surfaces (§14.2.1.1): for instance the 1SG→3SG Imperfective of *ntɛ́h̃o z* ‘use’ is *tu-ntɛ́h̃o z-a*, syllabified as /tu.ntɛ́h̃o.za/. If one were to assume that the fricative coda -z were voiceless or underspecified for voicing, a context-specific voicing rule would have to be assumed to have taken place, since *Vša* is a permissible sequence in Japhug, as in *pjɛ́-w y-sat* IFR-INV-kill (see for instance example 36 in §20.4.2). It is more economical to assume that -z and the other fricative codas are underlying voiced, and become devoiced in the same contexts as the sonorants.

Second, the locative postposition *zu* (§8.2.4.1) is the result of the degrammatization of the locative *-s* suffix still attested in Situ (§8.2.1). The fact that it has a voiced, rather than an voiceless onset, suggests that the fricative was voiced when it was a suffix.

<footnote n="2">²I owe the idea that final -z is voiced to Sun (2005), where a similar analysis is implicitly proposed about Tshobdun.</footnote>
## 3.3 Vowels and rhymes

### 3.3.1 Vowels

#### 3.3.1.1 Vowel phonemes

Japhug has eight vowel phonemes, listed in Table 3.4. The mid-open unrounded vowels /r/ and /e/ are only marginally contrastive: /r/ does not occur in word-final open syllables except in unaccented clitics (like the additive nr, §8.2.6), and /e/ only occurs in the last (accented) syllable of a word. They are clearly contrastive only with the coda /-t/ (§3.3.2).

<table><caption>Table 3.4: List of vowels in Japhug</caption><thead><tr><td>Vowel</td><td>Example</td><td>Meaning</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>/a/</td><td>/qala/</td><td>'rabbit'</td></tr><tr><td>/e/</td><td>/qale/</td><td>'wind'</td></tr><tr><td>/i/</td><td>/juli/</td><td>'flute'</td></tr><tr><td>/r/</td><td>/lryw/</td><td>'radish'</td></tr><tr><td>/u/</td><td>/rulw/</td><td>'medicine'</td></tr><tr><td>/y/</td><td>/qajy/</td><td>'fish'</td></tr><tr><td>/o/</td><td>/lo/</td><td>UPSTREAM</td></tr><tr><td>/u/</td><td>/tlu/</td><td>'milk'</td></tr></tbody></table>

Not all speakers of Kamnyu Japhug have a phoneme /y/ in the native vocabulary. Even for those speakers, it is only attested in the word 'fish' and the verbs derived from it. It nevertheless contrasts with /w/ and /u/, as shown by the quasi-minimal pairs /qajy/ 'fish', /wajw/ 'earthquake' and /juli/ 'flute'. Other speakers pronounce 'fish' with a medial /w/ as /qajwi/. However, [y] is found in the speech of all Japhug speakers in Chinese loanwords such as 洋芋 <yángyù> 'potato'.

#### 3.3.1.2 Vowel assimilation

When followed by a syllable containing a rounded vowel (/u/ or /o/), the back unrounded vowels /w/ and /r/ optionally undergo rounding harmony to [u] and [o], respectively. For instance, /γγzu/ 'exist (sensory)' (§22.5.1.2) is generally pronounced as [yozu], and the reduplicated form tu~tu-dzn 'more and more' (§12.4.1.4) is realized as [tutudn].
The phoneme /r/ in prefixes tends to be pronounced more open as [e] when followed by a syllable whose main vowel is /a/, making it sometimes difficult to perceive the contrast, for instance between *ta-ma* ‘work’ and *tx-ma* ‘mother’ (honorific). In the verbal system, the 1SG -a suffix triggers obligatory regressive assimilation r → a on the preceding syllable (see Table 14.2, §14.2.1.1).

#### 3.3.1.3 Synizesis

While no true diphthongs exist in Japhug, when the 1SG -a suffix is added to a verb stem ending in an open syllable, the two syllables undergo synizesis (§14.2.1.1). When the verb stem contains the mid vowels /-e/ and /-o/, they become the corresponding high vowels /-i/ and /-u/ due to merging with *a*, and the contrasts between /e/ and /i/ on the one hand, and *o* and *u* on the other hand, are neutralized. For instance, *tso-a* [tsua] ‘I understand’ and *βze-a* [βzia] ‘I (will) do it’ are homophonous with *tsu-a* ‘I have time’ and *βzi-a* ‘I (will) be drunk’, respectively. Three pseudo-diphthongs are thus attested: *ia* (from *e-a* and *i-a*), *ua* (from *o-a* and *u-a*) and *ua* (from *u-a*).

Synizesis results in syllables homophonous to the rhymes -wa and -ja in clusters ending in -w- (§4.2.2.1) or -j- (§4.2.2.2) followed by the vowel -a. For instance, *aro-a* ‘I own’ (§14.2.3) is homophonous with *a-rwa* ‘my tent’ (§4.2.2.1).

Apart from synizesis, two other types of vowel contraction are found in Japhug. First, verb stems with initial *a*- have specific conjugation patterns, where initial *a*- merges with the immediately preceding prefix following rules that are not completely trivial (§12.3). Second, the 1SG -a suffix merges with -a stems as *a*, without vowel lengthening in Kamnyu Japhug (§14.2.1.1).<fnref n="3" />

#### 3.3.1.4 Zero onset

There are strong phonotactic restrictions on vowel-initial stems and words in Japhug.

In word-initial position, only *a*- and *u*- are found. These vowels can merge with previous open syllables (§4.3), and no glottal stop appears, unlike in many Trans-Himalayan languages such as Khaling (Jacques et al. 2012). Phonetic [u-], [o-], [i-] do appear in word-initial position, but are preferably analyzed as /wu-/, /wo-/ and /ji-/ with a glide.

The only possible stem-initial vowel in verbal stems is *a*- (§12.3). It is relatively common due to the fact that it appears in many derivational prefixes (§20.2, §18.1,

<footnote n="3">³However, vowel lengthening is found in some dialects, such as that of Sarndzu.</footnote>
§18.4, §18.7). Stem-initial *a-* undergoes vowel contraction with all preceding prefixes. By contrast, stem-initial *wu-* or *ji-* (for instance, *wum* 'gather' and *ji* 'plant') never merge with preceding prefixes.

In noun stems, initial *a-* also exists and interacts with prefixes (§5.1.1.1), but is considerably rarer.

Comparison with other Gyalrongic languages indicates that word-initial *a-* and *w-* (in the native vocabulary, excluding loanwords and interjections) are secondary. Word-initial *w-* is only attested in a few interjections (such as *utɛ̃hutɛ̃h̃u*, §10.2.1) and in the third possessive prefix (§5.1.1). The form †*ỹu-* (homophonous with the inverse prefix, §14.3.2.7) would be expected, and the unexpected form *w-* in Japhug might be due to false segmentation in sandhi (§5.1.1.5). Word-initial *a-* originates mainly from *η̃a-* (Jacques & Chen 2007), due to loss of the simple initial *η̃-* in non-stressed syllables (including *wuma* 'real, really' from ɛ̃ɔ̃η̃.ma 'real, true', but excluding monosyllabic verb stems such as *ηu* 'be' and *ηa* 'buy on credit, owe').

### 3.3.2 Rhymes

There are strong phonotactic constraints on possible rhymes in Japhug. Table 3.5 lists all attested rhymes; the coda /-w/ is transcribed as -β in the orthography used in this grammar.

<table><caption>Table 3.5: List of possible rhymes in Japhug</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>/w/</th><th>/p/</th><th>/m/</th><th>/t/</th><th>/n/</th><th>/z/</th><th>/l/</th><th>/r/</th><th>/j/</th><th>/ɣ/</th><th>/ŋ/</th><th>/k/</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>/a/</td><td>/aw/</td><td>/ap/</td><td>/am/</td><td>/at/</td><td>/an/</td><td>/az/</td><td>/al/</td><td>/ar/</td><td>/aj/</td><td></td><td>/aŋ/</td><td>/aŋ/</td></tr><tr><td>/e/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>/et/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>/i/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>/it/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/il/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>/r̥/</td><td>/r̥w/</td><td></td><td>/r̥m/</td><td>/r̥t/</td><td>/r̥t/</td><td>/r̥z/</td><td>/r̥l/</td><td>/r̥r/</td><td>/r̥j/</td><td>/r̥ɣ/</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>/u/</td><td>/uw/</td><td>/up/</td><td>/um/</td><td>/ut/</td><td>/un/</td><td>/wz/</td><td>/wl/</td><td>/ur/</td><td>/ur/</td><td>/wγ/</td><td>/wη/</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>/y/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>/yt/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>/o/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/om/</td><td>/ot/</td><td>/on/</td><td>/oz/</td><td>/ol/</td><td>/or/</td><td>/oj/</td><td></td><td>/oŋ/</td><td>/oŋ/</td></tr><tr><td>/u/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>/ut/</td><td></td><td>/uz/</td><td></td><td></td><td>/uj/</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The only coda attested with all vowels is /-t/ (Table 3.6). Among these rhymes, /-et/ and /-yt/ are only attested in verb forms with the past transitive -t suffix (§11.3, §21.1.3, §14.3.2.1), which occurs in word-final position only in 2SG→3 forms.

In closed syllables with an alveolo-palatal or a palatal consonant preceding the vowel, /w/ is fronted and its contrast with /i/ is neutralized (§3.5.2.1). It is
<table><caption>Table 3.6: Examples of closed syllable rhymes in /-t/</caption><thead><tr><th>Vowel</th><th>Rhyme</th><th>Example</th><th>Meaning/Gloss</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>/a/</td><td>/at/</td><td>/tɔ́tʊ́sɪ́lat/<br/>tɔ́-tʊ-ṣu-ɔ́la-t</td><td>'you boiled it'<br/>AOR-2-CAUS-boil-PST:TR</td></tr><tr><td>/e/</td><td>/et/</td><td>/tɔ́twnɔ́mɔ́let/<br/>tɔ́-tʊ-nɔ́mɔ́le-t</td><td>'you did it'<br/>AOR-2-do-PST:TR</td></tr><tr><td>/i/</td><td>/it/</td><td>/tɔ́tʊ́rɪ́lit/<br/>tɔ́-tʊ-rɔ́li-t</td><td>'you reimbursed it'<br/>AOR-2-reimburse-PST:TR</td></tr><tr><td>/ɪ̥/</td><td>/ɪ̥t/</td><td>/jɔ́tʊ́lɪ́t/<br/>tɔ́-tʊ-lɪ́t</td><td>'you threw it'<br/>AOR-2-release</td></tr><tr><td>/u/</td><td>/út/</td><td>/tʰútʊ́plút/<br/>tʰú-tʊ-plút</td><td>'you destroyed it'<br/>AOR-2-destroy</td></tr><tr><td>/y/</td><td>/yt/</td><td>/lótʊ́znuqajyt/<br/>lo-tn-z-nu-qajy-t</td><td>'you let him fish'<br/>IFR-2-DENOM-fish-PST:TR</td></tr><tr><td>/o/</td><td>/ot/</td><td>/nʊ́tʊ́sɪ́wlót/<br/>nʊ-tn-sɪβlo-t</td><td>'you took care of him'<br/>AOR-2-take.care-PST:TR</td></tr><tr><td>/u/</td><td>/ut/</td><td>/pʊ́tʊ́nɪ́lut/<br/>pʊ-tn-nɪ-lu-t</td><td>'you milked it'<br/>AOR-2-DENOM-milk-PST:TR</td></tr></tbody></table>

only maintained before /-t/ in forms with the past transitive -t suffix. For instance, we find the minimal pair /tɔ́-tʊ-cu-t/ 'you opened it' (AOR-2-open-PST) and /lɔ́-tʊ-cit/ 'you moved' (AOR-2-move).

With the coda /-j/, the contrasts between /u/ and /i/ on the one hand, and /ɪ̥/ and /e/ on the other hand, are neutralized. The rhyme /-aj/ is realized as [ɛ̃j] or [æ̃j].

### 3.3.3 Historical phonology

Some notions of Japhug historical phonology are useful to account for the gaps in the distribution of rhymes (§3.3.2) as well as some vowel alternations (§12.2.2.1).

Comparison of inherited vocabulary between Japhug and extra-Gyalrongic languages shows that the codas *-l, *-n and *-ŋ have been lost in the native vo-
cabulary (Table 3.7). Words with these codas are either borrowed from Tibetan or have an ideophonic origin.

<table><caption>Table 3.7: Loss of *-l, *-n and *-ŋ in Japhug</caption><thead><tr><th>Japhug</th><th>Other languages</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>qaɛpa 'frog'</td><td>སྦལ་སྡ་ sbal.pa 'frog'</td></tr><tr><td>twjpa 'snow'</td><td>Dulong tuw³¹ wǎn⁵³ 'snow' (Sun 1982)</td></tr><tr><td>twrmw 'dusk'</td><td>མུན་སྡ་ mun.pa 'darkness'</td></tr><tr><td>tw-mtsʰi 'liver'</td><td>མཁྱེན་སྡ་ mtɛʰin.pa 'liver'</td></tr><tr><td>pyo 'spin'</td><td>འཕྲང་མ་ ṁpʰaŋ.ma 'spindle'</td></tr><tr><td>ITO 'see'</td><td>མཐོང་ mtʰoŋ 'see'</td></tr><tr><td>zri 'be long'</td><td>རིང་རོ་ riŋ-po 'long'</td></tr><tr><td>tw-rmi 'name'</td><td>མིང་ miŋ 'name'</td></tr></tbody></table>

The proto-Gyalrong rhyme *-aŋ corresponds to Japhug -o (Situ -o, Tshobdun -i, Zbu -æ, Jacques 2004: 228–231); this correspondence is also found in some early loanwords. A secondary -aŋ rhyme has been created from several sources (§3.5.1), most importantly Tibetan borrowings postdating the sound change *-aŋ → -o.

A chain shift has taken place, as Proto-Gyalrong *-o has regularly changed to -u and *-u to -u (Jacques 2004: 239).

In closed syllables, rounded vowels have become unrounded in the native vocabulary. In the earliest layer of Tibetan loanwords, -od, -or, -ob, -ol and -os correspond to -rɛ, -rɔ, -rβ, -rɛl and -rɔz, respectively, but are unchanged in the later layers (Table 3.8).

This sound change did not affect rhymes with uvular codas: proto-Gyalrong *-oq remained -oq.

The rhymes *-aj, *-oj and *-uj on the other hand have merged as -e, -e and -i, respectively. These vowel fusions occurred before *-o → -u, as shown by the -u / -e alternation in Stem III (§12.2.2.1, Jacques 2004: 357, Jacques 2008: 234), which is cognate to the “transitivity marker” -jə in Tshobdun (Sun 2003: 496), as illustrated in Table 3.9.

After this sound change had removed all -j codas, secondary -oj and -uj rhymes were later analogically created by the addition of the locative *-j suffix to stems in -o and -u. A handful of examples remain in Japhug (§8.2.4.4). The origin of the rhyme -aj in Japhug is an unsolved problem, and may be due to contextual vowel breaking (Gong Xun, p.c.).
<table><caption>Table 3.8: Unrounding of vowels in Tibetan loanwords</caption><thead><tr><th>Japhug</th><th>Tibetan</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>mtṣḥrtkḥo 'house shrine'</td><td>མཆོད་ཁང་ mtṣḥod.kḥaj 'shrine, chapel'</td></tr><tr><td>pjrl 'go around, cross, avoid'</td><td>ཇོལ་ b'ol 'turn away'</td></tr><tr><td>χtvr 'scatter'</td><td>གཏོར་ gtor 'scatter'</td></tr><tr><td>slṣβkḥaj 'school'</td><td>སློབ་ཁང་ slob.kḥaj 'school'</td></tr><tr><td>tukryz 'discussion'</td><td>གྲོས་ gros 'discussion'</td></tr><tr><td>yot 'warm light'</td><td>འོད་ fiod 'light'</td></tr><tr><td>kḥanjfkot 'architect'</td><td>ཁང་བཀོད་ kḥaj.bkod 'founding a house'</td></tr><tr><td>nor 'make a mistake'</td><td>རྣོ་ nor 'make a mistake'</td></tr><tr><td>spoz 'incense'</td><td>སྨོ་ spos 'incense'</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>Table 3.9: Sound changes and stem III alternation in Japhug</caption><thead><tr><th>Stem I</th><th>Proto-form</th><th>Stem III</th><th>Proto-form</th><th>meaning</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ndza</td><td>*ndza</td><td>ndze</td><td>*ndza-j</td><td>'eat'</td></tr><tr><td>rku</td><td>*rko</td><td>rke</td><td>*rko-j</td><td>'put in'</td></tr><tr><td>βlu</td><td>*plu</td><td>βli</td><td>*plu-j</td><td>'burn'</td></tr></tbody></table>

The only other closed rhymes with o in the native vocabulary are -oz, which originates from *-aŋs, as in soz 'morning', and -ot (in the case of verb stems in -o with the past transitive -t suffix, §11.3).

## 3.4 Syllabic constraints

### 3.4.1 Rhotic dissimilation

The rhotic coda -r cannot co-occur with a rhotic or a retroflex consonant in the onset: syllables of the type †CrVr, †rCVr or †tṣVr are not attested. However, a -r preinitial can be preceded by a syllable containing a /r/ or a retroflex fricative or affricate in its onset, in reduplicated forms such as rdardul 'dust, dirt' (§5.7.8.2), or a compound like qrorni 'red ant' (§5.4.3.2). Since the /r/ sounds in /rda.rduI/ and /qro.rni/ are heterosyllabic, they do not violate the rhotic dissimilation constraint (§4.2.3.1).
3.4.2 Uvular harmony

Velars and uvulars do not coexist well within the same syllable in Japhug. There are no syllables of the type †QCVγ or †KCVk (where K and Q represent any velar and uvular initial consonant, respectively): the onset and the coda have to be both velars, or both uvulars. Thus, syllables such as *qra* ‘ploughshare’ and *krɔ}*γ ‘shear, mow’ are possible, but not †kra*�* or †qrɔ}*γ.

With preinitials and medial consonants, the constraint depends on the context. Several cases have to be distinguished.

First, the uvular coda /-k/ is compatible with the velar medial /-γ-/, as shown by examples such as *pya* ‘turn over’ (§4.2.2.5); the opposite case is not attested, but given the relative rarity of medial /-k-/, this may be accidental.

Second, the uvular preinitial /-k-/-/ is attested before velar initials in some Ti-
betan loanwords, such as *kgra* ‘enemy’ (§4.2.2.4, from Tibetan ὅτι dgra ‘enemy’).
The Tibetan preinitial *d-* normally corresponds to *r-* before velars, but the ex-
pected †*rgra* would have violated the rhotic dissimilation rule (§3.4.1).

Third, a uvular preinitial with the velar medial /-γ-/- is only found in the di-
lectal word *tu-χpyi* ‘thigh’ (§4.2.2.5).

These constraints do not apply across syllables, as shown by words such as
kómtuц ‘only after’, in which the /k/ is the preinitial of the second syllable.

The discrimination of uvulars and velars is due to a recent sound change that
occurred in Japhug and affected both native words and Tibetan loanwords, viz.
the uvularization of velar initial consonants in syllables with uvular /-k/-. This
sound change explains for instance why Japhug words such as *tu-qʰoχpa* ‘organs,
state of mind’ (phonologically /qʰoκ.pa/ with internal sandhi) from Tibetan
 kʰoŋg̑.pa ‘insides’<fnref n="4" /> has a uvular /qʰ-/ corresponding to a velar /kʰ-/ in Tibetan:
dorsal codas (transcribed as -g) are realized as uvulars after a and o in most Ti-
betan varieties (Gong 2016a), so that a correspondence of Tibetan -ag and -og to
Japhug /-aκ/ and /-oκ/ is expected. At an earlier stage, *tu-qʰoχpa* has probably
been borrowed as *tu-kʰoχpa* and the sound law *VELAR → UVULAR /_Vκ* applied
to it like in the rest of the vocabulary. In Tshobdun, there is a doublet of loan-
words corresponding to the same Tibetan etymon: *o-kʰoχpe* ‘its abdominal cavity’
(Sun & Blogros 2019: 413) without uvularization and *o-qʰɔχpe* ‘her heart’ (Sun &
Blogros 2019: 704) with uvularization.

An older example of uvular harmony is found in the noun *qʰaqʰu* ‘behind the
house’ from *kʰa* ‘house’ and *u-qʰu* ‘after, behind’: this word has a Tshobdun exact
cognate *qʰuqʰu* (Sun & Blogros 2019: 172), showing that the assimilation occurred
in the common ancestor of the two languages.

<footnote n="4">⁴See §5.1.2.3 for an account of the prefix *tu*—.</footnote>
3.5 Neutralization, quasi-neutralization and free variation

The present section discusses four particularly thorny problems of synchronic
Kamnyu Japhug phonology, which are the source of uncertainty in some tran-
scriptions. They involve quasi-neutralization and interdialectal contact, which
constitute challenging problems for phonologists (see Michaud 2006).

3.5.1 The contrast between /-oŋ/ and /-aŋ/

Inherited Japhug words never have final -ŋ (in particular, proto-Gyalrong *-aŋ
shifts to -o, see §3.3.3). Words with this coda belong to four groups: Tibetan loan-
words, ideophones, borrowings from other Gyalrong varieties (in the case of rkaŋ
‘be strong’, the corresponding inherited Japhug etymon is rko ‘be hard’) or func-
tion words with irregular syllable fusion (koŋla ‘really’ from kuŋula, see §22.2.4).

Despite some minimal pairs (caŋ ‘dammed wall’ vs. con ‘damage, loss’ from གླ་
g̈aŋ ‘dammed wall’ and གླ་ g̈oŋ ‘loss’, respectively), the contrast between /-oŋ/
and /-aŋ/ in Kamnyu Japhug has some degree of instability: some words in /-oŋ/
and /-aŋ/, but not all, allow free variation between the two pronunciations. This
free variation is presumably due to influence from neighbouring dialects of Ja-
phug such as that of Rqakyo, where words with /-oŋ/ and /-oɣ/ in Kamnyu are
pronounced with a more open vowel.

Words with stable -aŋ in final syllable include rkaŋ ‘be strong’, fsaŋ ‘fumiga-
tion’, kʰurtʰaŋ ‘administrative position’, mkʰsrmaŋ ‘people’, pra式的kʰaŋ ‘cave’, rthaŋ
‘be ancient’. In non-final position, stable -aŋ is found in particular in words whose
final syllable contains /a/, as in fsraŋma ‘protecting deity’ (as opposed to unstable
fsroŋ / fsraŋ ‘protect’, see Table 3.10).

Words with stable -oŋ in the final syllable include ɛoŋtɛa ‘timber’ (as opposed to ɛaŋβzu / ɛoŋβzu ‘carpentry’ with unstable rhyme), koŋla ‘really’, pʰoŋ ‘bottle’, qumdroŋ ‘wild goose’, ɛmbroŋ ‘wild yak’ or tu-phonbu ‘body’.

Table 3.10 presents a list of words with unstable /-oŋ/ / /-aŋ/, mostly loan-
words from Tibetan, coming either from rhymes in /a/+nasal or from rhymes
in rounded vowel+nasal. It also includes the egressive postpositions with ɛaŋ- as
first element such as ɛoŋtaɛ / ɛaŋtaɛ ‘up from’ (see §8.2.10).

For all these words, the orthography used in this work and in the corpus ge-
neralizes the -aɣ variant, which is considered by Tshendzin to be more “correct”.
<table><caption>Table 3.10: Words with free variation between /-oŋ/ and /-aŋ/ in Kamnyu Japhug</caption><thead><tr><th>/-aŋ/ variant</th><th>/-oŋ/ variant</th><th>Etymology</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>raŋri 'each'</td><td>roŋri</td><td>རང་རེ· raŋ.re 'each'</td></tr><tr><td>fsraŋ 'protect', 'save'</td><td>fsroŋ</td><td>བསྡུངས་ bsrungs 'save'</td></tr><tr><td>tšaŋka ('gold, silver) coin'</td><td>tšoŋka</td><td>ཏམ་ག བྲོ་ག བྲོ་ག tam.ka 'coin'</td></tr><tr><td>čaŋ- 'egressive'</td><td>čoŋ-</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

### 3.5.2 The contrast between /w/ and /i/ after palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants

The contrast between /w/ and /i/ is partially or completely neutralized after palatals (/c/, /cʰ/, /j/, /jʰ/, /jII/ and /j/) and alveolo-palatal (/tç/, /tçʰ/, /dʒ/, /ndʒ/, /ç/, /z/) consonants in some contexts.

In stressed open syllables, in particular in word-final position, the contrast between /w/ and /i/ is nevertheless very clear after all consonants. The existence of minimal pairs such as *cu* ‘stone’ and *ci* ‘one’ or the stem alternations between *ndžu* (stem I) and *ndzi* (stem III) in the paradigm of the verb *ndžu* ‘accuse’ (§12.2.2), show that this contrast is not neutralized after palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants in this context.

The contrast between /w/ and /i/ is completely neutralized in most closed syllables and near-neutralized in unstressed syllables, including verbal suffixes, prefixes, and non-final elements of compounds. Each of these contexts is extensively discussed below.

#### 3.5.2.1 Neutralization in closed syllables

In closed syllables, the contrast between /w/ and /i/ is almost completely neutralized after palatals (/c/, /cʰ/, /j/, /jʰ/, /jII/ and /j/) and alveolo-palatal (/tç/, /tçʰ/, /dʒ/, /ndʒ/, /ç/, /z/) consonants. The archiphoneme {w,i} is realized as [w] before -γ, -β (and the rare -p), and as [i] before -m, -r, -n and -l, as shown by Table 3.11. In the orthography adopted in the present work, the archiphoneme {w,i} is transcribed as *w* in all these contexts.

The proof that the underlying phoneme is /w/ rather than /i/ is provided by the rhyme reduplication of *mtçur* ‘turn’ in the distributed action form *nymtçurhur* ‘turn in all directions’ (§19.4.2.1): if /i/ had been the underlying vowel, a form such as †[nymtçirlir] would have been expected.
## 3.5 Neutralization, quasi-neutralization and free variation

<table><caption>Table 3.11: Realizations of the archiphoneme {u,i} following palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants in close syllables</caption><thead><tr><th>Coda</th><th>Example</th><th>Realization</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>-β/-p</td><td>cʰuβ 'ideophone of an object breaking'</td><td>[cʰuβ]</td></tr><tr><td>-ɣ</td><td>rγ 'run'</td><td>[rtyγ]</td></tr><tr><td>-m</td><td>jum 'be nice (of weather)'</td><td>[jim]</td></tr><tr><td>-n</td><td>jaftçun 'stirrup'</td><td>[jaftçin]</td></tr><tr><td>-r</td><td>mtçur 'turn'</td><td>[mtçir]</td></tr><tr><td>-l</td><td>rnyul 'wither'</td><td>[rnil]</td></tr></tbody></table>

The contrast between /w/ and /i/ used to be neutralized before the codas -z and -t, with the archiphoneme {u,i} realized as [i]. However, new rhymes -ut and -uz contrasting with -it and -iz have been reintroduced by the transitive 1/2SG→3 past suffix -t or -z (depending on the dialect of Japhug, see §11.3, §21.1.3).

Minimal pairs between open syllable -u stem verbs taking the -t suffix (such as /tɔ-tw-cu-t/ 'you opened it' AOR-2-open-PST) and -it stem verbs (/lɔ-tw-cit/ 'you moved' AOR-2-move) can easily be found (§3.3.2). Even if this contrast is extremely marginal and restricted to this morphological context, /w/ and /i/ cannot be considered to be neutralized before -z or -t (depending on the dialect of Japhug).

### 3.5.2.2 Non-final elements of compounds

In compounds and other polysyllabic stems, the contrast between /w/ and /i/ is very difficult to perceive in non-final open syllables with palatal or alveolo-palatal consonant onsets, and my main consultant Tshendzin has, during our decade-long collaboration, expressed conflicting views about whether a contrast does or does not exist in this context.

While there are no minimal pairs only distinguished by the /w/ vs. /i/ contrast in non-final syllables after palatal or alveolo-palatal consonants, it now seems clear that some words are consistently pronounced with *u* rather than *i* in this context. This unstable contrast, which does not carry much information load, is likely to differ at the idiolectal level. The orthography used in this work reflects a normalization based on Tshendzin's judgements (rechecked several times).

3.5.2.2.1 tɛʰi° vs. tɛʰu° Many nouns in Japhug have tɛʰi° or tɛʰu° as first element, in particular due to words of Tibetan origin containing ɛ tɛʰu 'water' or
མཁྱུ་ mtṣʰu ‘lip’. The variant tṣʰi° is found in the great majority of these words. In some cases like tṣʰira ‘water jar’ (from ཁྱ་རྩ་ tṣʰu.ra ‘water container’), I have used an etymologizing transcription with w (tṣʰura) in previous works (in particular Jacques 2015b), but changed my mind after careful rechecking (using for instance the stems I and III of the verb tṣʰu ‘gore, stab’ for comparison).

The variant tṣʰu° is essentially restricted to words with a cluster with a uvu-
lar or a labial fricative as first element (such as rtṣʰuksju ‘caterpillar’, tṣʰuṣpri
’salamander’, tṣʰuṣbroṣ ‘type of tsampa’), but also found in tṣʰumuy ‘water hole’
(from ཁྱ་སྟིག་ tṣʰu.mig ‘water hole’) and tṣʰuzu ‘type of weaving tool’.

The noun *tu-mtṣʰi* ‘mouth’ (from མཁྱུ་ mtṣʰu ‘lip’) has an unexpected *i* (the expected form would be ḫmtṣʰu). It is possible that it was extracted from a compound (like *tu-mtṣʰirme* ‘moustaches’) where /w/ and /i/ are neutralized as [i], and that this phonetic variant was then reinterpreted as an independent root.

3.5.2.2.2 **ndʒi°** vs. **ndʒu°** Compounds with *ndʒi*° or *ndʒu*° as non-final element are not common, but social relation collective nouns (§§5.7.8.1) containing the prefix *kVndʒi-*, are particularly numerous. Words with the variant *ndʒu*° are very rare: the two verbs *ndʒurput* ‘be numb’ and *andʒuβri* ‘protect each other’ (with the rare reciprocal prefix *andʒu-/andʒi-* of denominal origin, see §20.2.5), and the nouns *ndʒurwuz* ‘Sonchus sp’ and *ndʒumu* ‘Angelica’ (minimal pair with *ndʒi-nu* ‘their breast’, see §§3.5.2.4).

3.5.2.2.3 **ci°** vs. **cu°** Compounds comprising *cu* ‘stone’ or the root of *tu-ci*
‘water’ as non-final element are common, and the majority of these words have
the variant *ci°*, even when the noun comes from *cu* ‘stone’ (for instance *cićiz*
‘stony earth’). Exceptions include *curmbu* ‘stone heap’, *scuwzuy* ‘appearance’
(from **кн**ь **г**у**г**у**г**с** sk'e.gzugs 'physical appearance') and **у**р**с**у**к**ш**л**у**б** 'making noise (of
water when agitated)'.<fnref n="5" />

3.5.2.2.4 **cʰi°** vs. **cʰu°** Nouns with cʰi° or cʰu° include in particular Tibetan loan-
words in ཁྱ་ kʰi ‘dog’. The form cʰi° occurs in most cases (for instance cʰispu ‘rabies’
from ཁྱ་སྤྱོ་ kʰi.sm’o ‘rabies’), but exceptions include cʰumu ‘female dog’, cʰurdom
‘roaming dog’ and nucʰura ‘keep guard’ (rechecked using the minimal pair cʰi
‘be sweet’ vs. tʃ-cʰu ‘wedge’).

<footnote n="5">⁵This verb is a denominal verbalization from a noun-ideophone compound (§5.5.3).</footnote>
3.5.2.2.5 **ji**° vs. **ju**° Words containing the status constructus of *ju* ‘bamboo’ can have either the vowel /i/ (as *jispjrt* ‘person making bamboo baskets’) or /w/ (*jumgom* ‘bamboo tweezers’). Other words in *ji*° include *jiga* ‘tortuous path’ and its derived forms.

The root of *tw-rjw* ‘fortune’ commonly occur as first element of compounds, and have the vowel /w/, as in *rjwrjom* ‘coveting other people’s fortune’. The syllable -rjw- also occurs as the status constructus of *tw-rjit* ‘child’ in the word *twrjusti* ‘only child’.

3.5.2.2.6 **ji**° vs. **ju**° Compounds with non-final *ju*° are extremely rare, limited to the two Tibetan loanwords *juyi* ‘writing’ (from སྦྱོ་རྗུའི་ *jige* ‘letter’) and *pjuuru* ‘coral’ (from མྱུག་རུ་ *b'u.ru* ‘coral’).

3.5.2.3 Verbal prefixes and reduplicated forms

The vowels /w/ and /r/ are by far the most common ones in prefixes in Japhug.
In the case of verbal prefixes with palatal and alveolo-palatal onsets, the same
phonological problem as in compounds (§ 3.5.2.2) is observed, namely the ques-
tion whether the contrast between /w/ and /i/ has been neutralized or not, and
whether the vowel should be transcribed as *i* rather than as *u*.

The prefixes in which this problem arises are few, and are exhaustively listed
in Table 3.12. For prefixes in cV- and chV-, testing the vowel is possible using
minimal pairs (cw ‘who’ vs. ci ‘polar interrogative’ and chi ‘be sweet’ vs. tw-chu
‘wedge’ as in § 3.5.2.2.4). For pjV- and jV prefixes, comparison is possible with
the first syllable of the nouns juyi ‘writing’ and pjuuru ‘coral’ (§ 3.5.2.2.6).

The main consultants on the basis of whose expertise this work has been writ-
ten have presented conflicting judgments regarding the nature of the vowel in
these prefixes. After some hesitation, Tshendzin considers it to be i for all of these
prefixes (for instance, she considers the vowel of pjuuru 'coral' to be different
from that of pjw-yi 'he comes down'). I nevertheless keep here the orthographic
'etymological' transcription with the vowel w for three reasons.

First, the contrast is marginal, if existent at all, for most speakers, and given
the limited number of prefixes affected, it is possible to automatically change the
transcription from *u* to *i* only in these prefixes without loss of information (this
can be necessary for instance as a pre-treatment for the purposes of automatic
transcription training).

Second, the prefixes in Table 3.12 are affected by vowel fusion (§12.3) and co-
alescence with the inverse prefix -wy (§14.3.2.7) like other prefixes in *Cw*-, and