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Lost in Change: Causes and processes in the loss of grammatical elements and constructions
Edited by Svenja Kranich and Tine Breban
[Studies in Language Companion Series 218] 2021
► pp. 333–362

Loss of object indexation in verbal paradigms of Koĩc (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal)

Loss of object indexation in verbal paradigms of Koĩc (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal)

editor
| Karl-Franzens Universität, Graz

Koĩc ([kɔĩts]; English: Sunwar) is a Kiranti language spoken in eastern Nepal. In the past, Koĩc had a biactantial indexing system with transitive verbs indexing subjects and objects, a typical feature of Kiranti languages. In modern Koĩc, transitive verbs are not indexed for object. A comparison shows connections in form and function between old and new argument indexes. Now Koĩc has a system of different conjugations, and for the majority of verbs membership in a conjugation is lexically fixed.

Most speakers of Koĩc are bilingual with Nepali (Indo-Iranian), and the longstanding Nepali influence will be discussed as one possible cause of language change.

Keywords: Kiranti language, transitivity, finiteness, person indexation, participle
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Overview
    • 1.2Koĩc, a Kiranti language
    • 1.3The sociolinguistic situation
    • 1.4Literature about Koĩc person and number indexes
  • 2.Person and number indexes in Koĩc
    • 2.1Biactantial indexing
    • 2.2Subject and object indexes (Genetti 1988)
    • 2.3Subject indexing in modern Koĩc (Borchers 2008a)
    • 2.4The former and the current system of indexing arguments
  • 3.Person and number indexes - Additional data
    • 3.1 Konow (1909), Bieri & Schulze (1973) and Rapacha (2005)
    • 3.2Linguistic Survey of India (Konow 1909)
    • 3.3Subject and object indexes (Bieri & Schulze 1973)
    • 3.4Subject indexing in modern Koĩc (Rapacha 2005)
    • 3.5More data – Better explanations?
  • 4.Loss of morphology – Language change
  • 5.Summary
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 16 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.218.11bor
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