Long-distance relativization in Tibetan
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, mitcho@nus.edu.sg
National University of Singapore
Linguistic Society of America, January 2019∗

Introduction
Relativization in Tibetan involves a process of “nominalization,” resulting ina verb form with a “nominalizer” ending (-mkhan in (2)).1(1)བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་དེབ་འབྲི་གི་དུག།

(2)
bkra.shis-kyis deb ’bri-gi.dug. →Tashi-erg
book write-aux‘Tashi is writing a book.’དེབ་འབྲི་མཁན་མི ་[[RC deb ’bri-mkhan] mi]book write-mkhan person‘person who wrote/writes/is
writing a book/books’

These “nominalizations” lack the auxiliaries of finite verbal complexes (1).
Modern spoken Tibetan is known for having a complex inventory of “nominalizers.” The choice of nominalizer depends on the choice of pivot and aspect (Mazaudon 1978, Kim 1996, DeLancey 1999, Denwood 1999, Tournadre
and Sangda Dorje 2003).
(3)

Nominalizers by choice of pivot:-mkhan མཁན་ transitive subjects-sa ས་
locative arguments-yag ཡག་
instrumental arguments and imperfective objects-pa པ་
perfective objects∗ This work would not be possible without my Tibetan teachers and consultants in Dharamsala, India. I especially thank Kunga Choedon, Pema Yonden, and Yepo.
For earlier comments and discussion, I thank Nico Baier, Kenyon Branan, Seth Cable, Hadas
Kotek, Theodore Levin, David Pesetsky, Maziar Toosarvandani, Coppe van Urk, and Dr. Chokof the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. Errors are mine.
1 Abbreviations: aux = auxiliary/ies, dem = demonstrative, erg = ergative, gen = genitive. I
use the standard Wylie transliteration scheme for the Tibetan script.

1

Today• I describe strategies for long-distance relativization in Tibetan, which
informs the analysis of the “nominalizer” morphemes.
– -pa fundamentally differs in function from the other “nominalizers” in (roughly) marking the edge of the relative clause, whereas-mkhan/-sa/-yag reflects the presence of a marked, local gap.
– Verbs with “nominalizer” endings are in fact, in some sense, full
finite clauses.
• I present a proof-of-concept analysis for -mkhan/-sa/-yag as reflecting
marked derivations which bleed nominal licensing.
– This explains a restriction on head-internal relatives.
• Relativization in Tibetan cannot synchronically be reduced to nominalization.

§1 Background1§2 New data

§3 Analysis§4 A bit more new data

§5 Lessons

Background

Tibetan is SOV with scrambling. The case marker -gis/kyis/gyis/s is glossed aserg, but its distribution is more complex; see e.g. DeLancey 2011b, Famularo
et al. 2015. Objects are always unmarked (“absolutive”).
(4)བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟས་ས ོང།(5)bkra.shis-(kyis) mog.mog bzas-song.
Tashi-erg
momoeat-aux‘Tashi ate momo (dumplings).’བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཉལ་བསྡད་བཞག།

bkra.shis-(*kyis) nyal-bsdad-bzhag.
Tashi-(*erg)
sleep-stay-aux‘Tashi is sleeping.’

Auxiliaries in the verbal complex — grouped together as aux here — together
express tense/aspect/modal/evidential specifications (Tournadre and Jiatso
2001, Vokurková 2008).
2

1.1 Relativization and nominalization
Relativization in Tibeto-Burman languages has been studied almost exclusively under the umbrella of nominalization, a major topic of study in T-B linguistics; see e.g. Matisoff 1972, Herring 1991, Noonan 1997, Bickel 1999, DeLancey
2002, Noonan 2008, Genetti et al. 2008, Genetti 2011, DeLancey 2011a.
(6)-pa event nominalization:བ ོད་སྐད་ཤེ ས་པ་དེ་གལ་ཆེ ན་པ ོ་རེ ད།(Tournadre and Sangda Dorje 2003:282)[[bod.skad
shes-pa] de] gal
chen.po red.
Tibetan language know-pa dem importance great
cop.aux‘Knowing Tibetan is very important.’
From this perspective, nominalizations as in (7) simply represent another useof these nominalizations, as verbal argument nominalizations.
(7)-pa patient nominal:(8)པད་མས་བཟས་པ་དེ
ོ་
pad.ma-s bzos-pa dePema-erg make-pa dem‘what Pema made’-pa object relative:པད་མས་བཟས་པའི
ོ་མ ོག་མ ོག་དེ་
[pad.ma-s bzos-pa]-’i mog.mog dePema-erg make-pa-gen momodem‘the momo that Pema made’ -pa’i > -pe

DeLancey 1999:231: “In Tibetan, relativization is simply one function of nominalization, that is, relative clauses are simply dependent or appositive NPs.”2(9)

Relativization = argument nominalization modifier + NP:
argument nominalizationi (=gen)3 + NPi (based on Noonan 1997:383)

Semantically, we could cash out this intuition with intersective modificationalsemantics: J(9)K = Jargument nominalizationK ∩ JNPK

2 See also Matisoff 1972 for a similar claim for Lahu. DeLancey 2002 and Noonan 2008 claimthat this view extends to most or all of the Bodic language family.
But to be fair, DeLancey 1999 also states (p. 232): “TB languages do, of course, have relative
clauses in the usual linguist’s sense of a clausal modifier of a noun, where clause means a verb
carrying its full array of arguments, and they are far from alone in adopting the nominalization
strategy for accomplishing this function.”
3 The genitive marker is strongly preferred for all pre-nominal non-subject relatives. In subject relatives, after -mkhan, DeLancey 1999 reports that the genitive marker is never used, butsome of my speakers volunteered pre-nominal subject relatives with -mkhan followed by a genitive. Similar data with -mkhan-gen is found in Seth Cable’s field notes.

3Historical evidence supports the view that the non-pa nominalizers originated as various nominal endings, with their function later extended to productive relative clauses (DeLancey 2002).
• In Classical Tibetan, -mkhan had only one use, as a derivational suffix
for trades and professions: shing-mkhan = wood-mkhan ‘carpenter’• The locative nominalizer -sa derives from the root sa ‘place.’
Instead, Classical Tibetan used -pa for all relative clauses.
 But a question remains: Are “relative clauses” synchronically adjoined argument nominalizations (9)?
(Spoiler: No.)

1.2

The “nominalizers”(10)

Nominalizers by choice of pivot: (=3)-mkhan མཁན་-sa ས་
-yag ཡག་
-pa པ་

transitive subjects
locative arguments
instrumental arguments and imperfective objects
perfective objects• For intransitive subjects, there is variation and apparent optionality between -mkhan and -pa; see e.g. DeLancey 1999:237–238. I set them aside
today.
• I also set aside the interaction with aspect in object relatives, but you
can ask me about it.
(11)-mkhan subject relative:མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་མཁན་མི
ོ
་དེ་
[RC

mog.mog bzo-mkhan] midemomo
make-mkhan person dem‘the person that made/makes momo’
As DeLancey 1999:239–242 notes, the use of -mkhan (roughly) correlates withthe availability of ergative (-gis) for the gap position, but -mkhan is also used
for relativization over dative (-la) possessor subjects of verbs of possession.
4

(12) -sa locative relative:པད་མས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་སའིོ ་ས་ཆ་དེ་
[RC pad.ma-s
Pema-erg

mog.mog bzo-sa]-’isa.cha demomo
make-sa-gen place dem‘the place that Pema made/makes momo’-sa’i > -pe-sa reflects a locative (-la) or ablative (-nas) gap.
(13) -yag instrumental relative:པད་མས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་ཡགའི
ོ་མ ོག་ཟངས་དེ་
[RC pad.ma-s
Pema-erg

mog.mog bzo-yag]-’imog.zangs de
momo
make-yag-gen steamer
dem‘the steamer that Pema made/makes momo with’-yag’i > -ye

4-yag reflects an instrumental (-gis/kyis/gyis/s ) gap (or imperfective theme
gap).
There are reasons to suspect that -pa somehow differs from the others:
1. Classical Tibetan used only -pa. Cognates of -pa are found across the
Tibeto-Burman family (DeLancey 2002, Noonan 2008).
2. For verbs with distinct perfective and imperfective stems, -pa takes theperfective stem while all others take the imperfective stem.
‘make’: perf bsos /sö/; impf bso /so/
3. DeLancey 1999:234: -pa is “unstressed and subject to drastic phonological reduction... while the other three show compound phonology; thisis consistent with their derivational origin.”

2 Long-distance relativization
 “Long-distance” (LD) relative clauses relativize over an argument in an
embedded clause. No previous work has described LD relativization in
Tibetan — nor, to my knowledge, in any other Tibetic language.
• All uncredited data comes from fieldwork conducted in Dharamsala,India, with nine speakers.5
4 Yes that’s homophonous/homographous with ergative.
5 Most were born in Tibet and moved to India earlier in life; others were born in India. All
grew up speaking Tibetan as their first language and attended Tibetan language medium schools.

5

(14)

Embedded clause under ‘say’:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་པད་མས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟས་ས
ོོང་ལཔ་ས ོང།
bkra.shis-kyis [CP pad.ma-s mog.mog bzos-song] lap-song.
Tashi-erg
Pema-erg momo
make-aux say-aux‘Tashi said [that Pema made momo].’

LD object relatives(15)

LD object relative:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་པད་མས་བཟས་ས
ོོང་ལཔ་པའི ་མ ོག་མ ོག་དེ་ཙོ་
[RC bkra.shis-kyis [CP pad.ma-s

Tashi-erg

bzos-song] lap-pa]-’i

Pema-erg

mog.mog de-tso

make-aux say-pa-gen momo‘those momo [that Tashi said [that Pema madedem-pl]]’ -pa only goes on the outermost verb of the relative clause. The embedded clause with a gap is a regular, finite clause.
(16)

Marking on the embedded verb is ungrammatical:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་པད་མས་བཟས་པ་ལཔ་པའི
ོ་མ ོག་མ ོག་དེ་ཙོ་
bzos-pa] lap-pa]-’i*[RC bkra.shis-kyis [CP pad.ma-s

Tashi-erg

mog.mog de-tso

make-pa say-pa-gen momoPema-erg

Intended: ‘those momo [that Tashi said [that Pema madedem-pl]]’ (=15)

LD subject relatives(17)

LD subject relative:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་མཁན་ལཔ་པའི
ོ་མི ་དེ་
[RC bkra.shis-kyis [CP?

Tashi-erg

mog.mog bzo-mkhan]

momo

lap-pa]-’imidemake-mkhan say-pa-gen person dem‘the person [that Tashi said [made/makes momo]]’ For LD subject relatives, there is subject extraction marking on theembedded verb, then -pa on the outermost clause!

6

(18) Embedded clause cannot be a regular finite clause:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟས་ས
ོོང་ལཔ་པའི ་མི ་དེ་*[RC bkra.shis-kyis [CPmog.mog bzos-song] lap-pa]-’iTashi-erg

momo

mi

de

make-aux say-pa-gen person dem

Intended: ‘the person [that Tashi said [made/makes momo]]’(19) -mkhan cannot be on the outermost clause:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟས་ས
ོོང་ལཔ་མཁན་མི ་དེ་*[RC bkra.shis-kyis [CPmog.mog bzos-song] lap-mkhan] mi

momoTashi-erg

demake-aux say-mkhan person dem

Intended: ‘the person [that Tashi said [made/makes momo]]’

LD locative relatives(20) LD locative relative:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་པད་མས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་ས་ལཔ་པའི
ོ་ས་ཆ་དེ་
mog.mog bzo-sa/*song][RC bkra.shis-kyis [CP? pad.ma-s

Tashi-erg
lap-pa/*sa]-’i

Pema-erg

momomake-sa/*aux

sa.cha desay-pa/*sa-gen place dem‘the place [that Tashi said [Pema made/makes momo]]’

LD instrumental relatives(21) LD instrumental relative:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་པད་མས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་ཡག་ལཔ་པའི
ོ་མ ོག་ཟངས་དེ་
[RC bkra.shis-kyis [CP? pad.ma-s

mog.mog bzo-yag/*song]

Tashi-erg

Pema-erg

lap-pa/*yag]-’imog.zangs de

momo

make-yag/*aux

say-pa/*yag-gen steamer dem‘the steamer [that Tashi said [Pema made/makes momo with]]’

Summary-pa fundamentally differs in syntactic function from the other “nominalizers.”
 -pa marks the edge of entire relative clauses (to be revised), whereas
the other markers reflect a particular kind of local gap.
7

3

Analysis• Relativization involves building full finite clauses, followed by movement of the [rel] DP head to Spec,CP.
• This movement is triggered by [probe:rel] on C.
– In intermediate clause edges, [probe:rel] may be an “edge feature,” introduced to move the [rel] target which would otherwise
go unmoved. (See e.g. Heck and Müller 2001, 2003.)• aux spells out T. -pa/-mkhan/-sa/-yag all reflect different spell-outs
for T+C[rel], which override the pronunciation of T/aux.

-mkhan subject relatives• Assume ergative subjects and dative subjects of verbs of possession
move to Spec,TP, in order to be (Case) licensed.6• Movement from Spec,TP to Spec,CP is disallowed. This may be due to:– Criterial freezing (Rizzi and Shlonsky 2007)– (Spec-to-spec) anti-locality (Bošković 2016, Erlewine 2016, Deal toappear; Branan two talks ago)
So the subject must move directly to Spec,CP, skipping Spec,TP.
 -mkhan ⇔ T+C[rel] when the subject skipped Spec,TP.
-sa and -yag relatives• Treat instrumental and locative “cases” as postpositions.
• In attempting to Attract the [rel] postpositional object, P is incorporated into the verb (Baker 1988),7 making movement of the [rel] postpositional object possible.
 -sa ⇔ T+C[rel]+P[loc]-yag ⇔ T+C[rel]+P[instr]
6 See e.g. the treatment of Icelandic non-nominative subjects in Cowper 1988 and Freidin andSprouse 1991.
7 On P-incorporation, see Baker 1988 on applicatives; also Guilfoyle et al. 1992 footnote 7 andKroeger 1990 on Austronesian peripheral voices, and Van Urk 2015:74ff on Dinka oblique voice.

8

-pa
 -pa spells out T+C at the edge of the relative clause (to be revised).
-pa ⇔ T+C[rel(final/non-edge-feature)]...in a theory that featurally distinguishes “final” steps of movement; seee.g. Georgi 2017.
Long-distance relativization• The first movement takes place due to the intermediate C[probe:rel].
– If this involves the subject skipping Spec,TP or P-incorporation,
T+C is spelled out as -mkhan/-sa/-yag.
– Otherwise T spells out aux according to its normal
tense/aspect/evidential specifications; C is null.
• At the edge of the relative clause — corresponding to the final landingsite of movement — T+C is spelled out as -pa.
Two features of this analysis
1. “Nominalized” verbs in rel. clauses are underlyingly full, finite verbs.
• Embedding verbs such as ‘say’ — which otherwise take full finite CP
complements — take complement clauses marked by -mkhan/-sa/yag when a marked local extraction has taken place (17, 20, 21).
 This is most straightforwardly analyzed if the -mkhan/-sa/-yag embedded clause is still a full finite clause.
2. -mkhan/-sa/-yag reflect marked derivations, instead of e.g. straightforwardly moving the head DP, followed by wh/case-agreement (Chung
1994, Pearson 2001, Rackowski and Richards 2005).
 This derives a generalization regarding head-internal relative clauses:(22) The internal head of a Tibetan head-internal relative clause must be
unmarked (absolutive).88 To my knowledge this generalization has not been stated in the literature. But interestingly,
Seth Cable’s 2005 field notes on Tibetan (via p.c.) notes this generalization.

9Tibetan also has head-internal relative clauses (HIRC):9(23)

Head-internal object relative:པད་མས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟས་པ་དེ
ོ་

[pad.ma-s mog.mog bzos-pa] dePema-erg momo
make-pa dem‘the momo that Pema made’ (=8)
However, HIRCs are limited to unmarked/absolutive heads.
(24)-mkhan subject relative:མི ་ཅིག་གི ས་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་མཁན་དེ
ོ
་ / ...བཟས་པ་དེ
ོ་*[mi-(cig)-(gis) mog.mog bzo-mkhan/bzos-pa] deperson-one-erg momo
make-mkhan/make-pa dem
Intended: ‘the person that made/makes momo’
The same can be shown for instrumental and locative heads.10
Analysis: head-internal relatives• Suppose relativization always involves movement of the head noun toSpec,CP, but HIRCs reflect pronunciation of a lower copy of the head.
• Further assume that DP must be Case-licensed by their pronounced position (or lower) (see e.g. Takahashi and Hulsey 2009).
– In object relatives, that lower position is already a Case licensing
position, so the head can be safely pronounced there.
– If the head was a subject, it skipped Spec,TP, foregoing licensing.
There is no lower copy to pronounce in a licensed position.
– If the head was a postpositional object, the postposition was incorporated into the verb. Even if the head DP could be pronounced
in its lower position, it will no longer be licensed.
 Therefore HIRCs are limited to unmarked head nouns.11
9 There are also “doubly-headed” relatives: literally, ‘the momos that Pema made momos.’
DeLancey 1999 also discusses “post-nominal” head-external relative clauses, but at this point
I am sympathetic to Mazaudon’s (1978) description (p. 402) that apparent “post-nominal” relatives are simply HIRCs with internal scrambling of the head to clause-initial position.
10 DeLancey 1999 gives a few examples (his (57–60)) which at first glance look like HIRCs
with postpositional head nouns, but they are suspiciously all doubly headed relatives (footnote9); i.e. the head noun is repeated outside of the clause. This may indicate that DHRCs do not
involve movement, for those speakers that accept such examples. (The speakers that I consulted
did not accept examples such as DeLancey’s (57–60).)
11 Notice that transitive subjects can sometimes be unmarked, even if they could be ergative10

4 Another word order and the nature of -pa
Long-distance relativization can also take another form:(25) Another LD subject relative:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་ལཔ་པའི ་མ ོག་མ ོག་བཟ་མཁན་མི
ོ་དེ་[CP bkra.shis-kyis

lap-pa]-’iTashi-erg

say-pa-gen[CPmog.mog bzo-mkhan]

momo‘the person [that Tashi said [midemake-mkhan person dem

made/makes momo]]’ (=17)

 This word order appears to involve optional clausal pied-piping:– The head moves to the edge of the embedded clause, then theentire embedded clause moves; i.e. what Heck (2008, 2009) calls“pied-piping with secondary fronting” (but all to the right); or– Probing for [rel] from the higher clause edge first moves the entire
embedded CP, after which it can extract the head noun from it; seee.g. Van Urk and Richards 2015.
Now consider this option for LD object relativization:(26) Another LD object relative:བཀྲ་ཤི ས་ཀྱི ས་ལཔ་པའི ་པད་མས་བཟས་པའི
ོ་མ ོག་མ ོག་དེ་ཙོ་
[CP bkra.shis-kyis
Tashi-erg

lap-pa]-’i [CP pad.ma-s

bzos-pa]-’i mog.mog de-tso

say-pa-gen

make-pa-gen momoPema-erg‘those momo [that Tashi said [that Pema madedem-pl]]’ (=15)

 Now both clauses get -pa marking!
It then cannot be that -pa marks the (logical) edge of the entire relative clause.
 The contrast between (26) and (15) above teaches us that -pa is amarker of a final step of movement (Georgi 2017), and the movementsof the head noun and the embedded CP each count as their own chain.
marked, as in (4). Example (24) shows that the subject HIRC is ungrammatical even if lacks
overt ergative case-marking.

11 We also learn that each V-pa-gen cannot be a pre-built argument nominalization which intersectively modifies the NP:
J(26)K = Jthose momo that Tashi said that Pema madeK
̸= those(Jwhat Tashi saidK ∩ Jwhat Pema madeK ∩ JmomoK)

5 Conclusion and consequences
Relativization in Tibetan involves “nominalized” verbs, which appear to be
reduced/non-finite.
Today: New data from long-distance relativization helps us better understand the nature of such “nominalizations.”
 Relativization in Tibetan cannot be synchronically reduced to argument nominalizations, contra DeLancey 2002, Noonan 2008, a.o.
– LD relatives with embedded clauses in-situ (§2) show that “...Vmkhan/-sa/-yag” can in fact be full finite CPs.
– Other LD relatives (§4) show that “...V-pa” cannot always be a prebuilt argument nominalization, used as an intersective modifier.
 LD relativization shows that -mkhan/-sa/-yag are markers ofmarked, local gaps, whereas -pa is a marker of final movement in relative clauses.
– This is reminiscent of patterns of LD extraction in other language families with extraction marking morphology that distinguishes subject/non-subject/locative/instrumental/... targets; seee.g. “voice” morphology in Austronesian (Chung 1998, Rackowski
and Richards 2005, a.o.) and Dinka (Nilotic; Van Urk 2015), also
Halkomelem Salish (Hukari 2010).
• Further descriptions of LD extraction — in Tibetan but also in otherlanguages with similarly rich but distinct extraction marking systems— has the potential to significantly inform our understanding of thenature of A-movement processes and their morphosyntactic reflexes.

References
On the web: https://mitcho.com/research/talk-lsa2019.html
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