A sketch grammar of Lamjung Yolmo

182 Pages·2016·9.032 MB·English

by  Lauren Gawne

Asia-Pacific Linguistics

Open Access
College of Asia and the Pacific
The Australian National University
A sketch grammar of
Lamjung Yolmo
Lauren Gawne
A-PL 30
A sketch grammar of Lamjung Yolmo

Lauren Gawne

This book provides the first grammatical description of the Lamjung variety of Yolmo, a
Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Nepal. The volume outlines key ethnographic information
about the speakers of Lamjung Yolmo, including an account of the historical migration from
the Melamchi Valley to low hills in the Lamjung District. The relationship to other Yolmo
varieties, including that spoken by the main population in the Melamchi Valley, and the
Syuba variety spoken in Ramechhap, is outlined, as well as its place within the Central Bodic
branch of Tibeto-Burman. The focus of the volume is the grammatical description, which
encompasses the major features of the language. The chapter on phonetics and phonology
includes discussion of the vowel and consonant inventories, as well as the lexical tone system.
The parts of speech chapter includes argumentation for the existence of word classes
including nominals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs postpositions, interjections, discourse markers
and honorifics. The chapter on the noun phrase includes discussion of pronominal forms,
articles and case-marking. The verb phrase chapter includes discussion of tense, aspect and
modality, including the evidential distinctions made in the language. The final chapter looks
at features of clause structure, including relative clauses, complement clauses, nominalisation,
clause combining questions and reported speech. A collection of interlinearised texts is also
included.
Asia-Pacific Linguistics
__________________________________

Open Access

A sketch grammar of
Lamjung Yolmo

Lauren Gawne

A-PL 30
Asia-Pacific Linguistics
__________________________________
Open Access

EDITORIAL BOARD: Bethwyn Evans (Managing Editor),
I Wayan Arka, Danielle Barth, Don Daniels, Nicholas Evans,
Simon Greenhill, Gwendolyn Hyslop, David Nash, Bill Palmer,
Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross, Hannah Sarvasy, Paul Sidwell,
Jane Simpson.

Published by Asia-Pacific Linguistics
College of Asia and the Pacific
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia

Copyright in this edition is vested with the author(s)
Released under Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International)

First published: 2016
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/110258
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Creator: Gawne, Lauren, author.
Title: A sketch grammar of Lamjung Yolmo / Lauren Gawne
ISBN: 9781922185341 (ebook)
Series: Asia-Pacific Linguistics; A-PL 30.
Subjects: Tibeto-Burman languages – Nepal.
Tibeto-Burman languages – grammar.
Other Creators/
Contributors: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific; Asia-Pacific Linguistics

Cover photo: Above Namgyu. Photo taken by Lauren Gawne.
Acknowledgements

My thanks go to the speakers of Lamjung Yolmo who welcomed me into their lives and
their language. My special thanks go to Asa Lama, Roshan Lama and Kasi Lama, as
well as their respective families for welcoming me into their homes and spending their
time with me. Thanks also to my aphno manchhe Lhakpa Rita Lama, and his family.
Much of this grammar was written during my time as a PhD candidate at The
University of Melbourne. Many thanks to Barbara Kelly for putting the idea for this
project in my head, and encouraged me at every point. Thanks also to Rachel
Nordlinger for the many conversations that lead to key sections of this grammar, and
Nick Thieberger for helping me with various technological challenges on the way.
Thanks to Amos Teo and Simone Graetzer for their Emu and R skills, and the Lang
Doc lab for the support.
Beyond Melbourne, thank you to the Social Cognition and Language Team,
especially the Chief Investigators Nicholas Evans and Alan Rumsey (ANU), Andrea
Schalley (Griffith) and Barbara Kelly. Thanks also to those people who I talked with at
various stages of the project, who all influenced this grammar in some way; Henrik
Bergqvist, Nicholas Tournadre, Nathan Hill, Edward Garrett, David Hargreaves, Tom
Owen-Smith, Joe Perry, Nick Evans, Andrea Berez-Kroeker, Alec Coupe and many
others. Many many thanks to the late Anne Marie Hari for her assistance, thoughts and
insights in the early phases of this work, especially with regard to the relationship
between Yolmo and Syuba. Particular thanks to Guillaume Jacques and Gwen Hyslop
for their sustained attention to the book at the end stages, and NTU Singapore and
SOAS, University of London, for housing me while I put the finishing touches on
things.
Thanks, finally, to my friends and family, for their love and support.

IV
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………… IV
List of abbreviations ……………………………………………………………IX
List of figures and tables ……………………………………………………… X

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………….. 1
1. A note on examples ……………………………………………………… 1
2. Methodology …………………………………………………………….. 4
3. Orthography ……………………………………………………………… 5

2. Lamjung Yolmo context ………………………………………………….. 7
1. Relationships to other languages ………….…………………………….. 7
1.1 Language family …………………………………………………………… 7
1.2 Relationship to other Yolmo varieties ……………………………………… 9
1.3 Language name ……………………………………………………………. 12
2. Speaker demographic ……………………………………………………. 13
2.1 Location …………………………………………………….……………… 13
2.2 Migration to Lamjung …………………………………………...………… 16
2.3 Speaker numbers ………………………………………………………….. 17
2.4 Language use ……………………………………………………………… 18
2.5 Culture …………………………………………………………………….. 19
2.6 Clans ………………………………………………………………………. 20
3. Previous work …………………………………………………………. 21

3. Phonology …………………………………………………………………. 23
1. Consonant phoneme inventory ………….…………………………….. 23
1.1 Obstruents ……………………………………………………………….… 24
1.1.1 Stops ……………………………………………………………….. 24
1.1.2 Fricatives …………………………………………………………… 27
1.1.3 Affricates …………………………………………………………… 27
1.2 Sonorants ……………………………………………………………..…… 28
1.2.1 Nasals ………………………………………………………….….. 28
1.2.2 Liquids ……………………………………………………………... 28
1.1.3 Glides …………………………………………………………….… 29
2. Vowel phonemes …………………………………………….…………. 30
2.1 Environmental effects ……………………………………………………... 32
V
2.1.1 Centring ……………………………………………………………. 32
2.2 Nasalisation ……………………………………………………………..… 32
3. Tone …………………………………………….………………………. 33
4. Phonotactics ……………………………………………………………. 38
4.1 Syllable structure …………………………………………………………... 38
4.2 Consonant clusters ………………………………………………………… 38
4.3 Diphthongs ………………………………………………………………… 39
5. Stress ……………………………………………………………………. 39
6. Morphophonemics …………………………………..………………...… 40
6.1 Voicing ………………………………………………………….................. 40
6.2 Deletion …………………………………………………………………… 41

4. Parts of speech ………………………………………………………….. 42
1. Parts of speech ………….………………………………………..…….. 42
2. Nominals …………………………………………………………..……. 42
2.1 Nouns …………………………………………………….……………… 43
2.2 Pronouns …………………………………………………………………... 43
2.3 Demonstratives ……………………………………………………………. 44
3. Verbs …………………………………………………………..…….…. 44
3.1 Lexical verbs …………………………………………………….………. 44
3.2 Copula verbs ………………………………………………………………. 45
3.3 Auxiliary verbs ……………………………………………………………. 46
4. Adjectives …………………………………………………………….… 46
5. Adverbs …………………………………………………………..…….. 47
6. Postpositions …………………………………………………………… 48
7. Interjections and discourse markers ……………………….…………… 49
8. Honorifics ………………………………………………………………. 51

5. Morphology of the noun phrase …………………………………..…….. 53
1. Structure of the noun phrase ………….………………………………... 53
2. Types of lexical nouns ………………………………………………… 53
2.1 Simple nouns …………………………………………………….……… 54
2.2 Compound nouns …………………………………………………………... 54
2.3 Proper nouns …………………………………………………………..…. 55
2.4 Plurals …………………………………………………………………….. 55
3. Pronouns …………………………………………………………..……. 56
3.1 Personal pronouns …………………………………………………….…… 56
3.2 Demonstrative pronouns …………………………………………………… 60
3.3 Interrogative pronouns …………………………………………………… 60
3.4 Indefinite pronouns ……………………………………………………….. 62
4. Articles …………………………………………………………………. 62
5. Case marking …………………………………………………………… 64
VI
5.1 Case-marker =ki; genitive, instrumental and ergative ………………….... 65
5.2 Case-marker =la; locative, allative and dative ………………….………… 69
5.3 Case-marker =le(ki); ablative …………………………………………..… 72
5.4 Associative and comitative ɲímu ………………………………………….. 73
6. Numerals and measures ……………………………………….…..……. 73
6.1 Cardinal numbers …………………………………………………….…… 73
6.2 Ordinal numbers ……………………………………………...…………… 75
6.3 Quantifiers ………………………………………………………………… 76
6.4 Measures ……………………………………………………………….….. 77
6.5 Nominal classifiers ………………………………………………………… 77
6. Adjectives ……………………………………….…..……………….…. 78
7.1 Comparatives …………………………………………………….……...… 79
7.2 Superlatives ……………………………………………...………………… 79
8. Discourse suffixes ……………………………………….…..…………. 80

6. Morphology of the verb phrase …………………………………..…….. 82
1. Copulas ………….……………………………………………………... 82
1.1 Copulas of equation and existence …………………………….……….… 83
1.2 Copulas as clause-final auxiliaries ………………………………………… 85
1.3 Egophoric copulas …………………………………………………………. 86
1.4 Dubitative copulas ………………………………………………………… 88
1.5 Perceptual evidential copulas ……………………………………………... 90
1.6 General fact copulas ………………………………………………………. 94
2. Lexical verbs ……………………………………………………….…… 96
2.1 Simple and compound verbs ……………………………………………… 96
2.2 Volitionality and control …………………………………………………... 98
2.3 Stem classes ………………………………………………………….....…. 98
2.4 Case-marking ………………………………………….…………...…….. 101
2.5 Endopathic verbs …………………………………………………………. 101
3. Finite verb inflection ……………………………………………..……. 103
3.1 Tense ………………………………………………………………..…… 103
3.1.1 Non-past tense …………………………………………………….. 103
3.1.2 Past tense ………………………………………………………… 105
3.2 Aspect ……………………………………………………………..……… 107
3.2.1 Perfective ………………………………………………………….. 107
3.2.2 Imperfective ……………………………………………………… 108
3.2.3 Habitual …………………………………………………………… 112
3.3 Mood …………………………………………………………………...… 113
3.3.1 Imperative and prohibitive ……………………………………….. 113
3.3.2 Hortative ………………………………………………………..… 114
3.3.3 Optative …………………………………………………………… 115
3.3.4 Dubitative ………………………………………………………… 115
VII
3.4 Verb valency …………………………………………………………….. 116
4. Causatives ………………………………………………………….… 116
5. Negation ………………………………………………………..…….. 117

7. Clause structure ……………………………………………………….. 120
1. Grammatical Relations ……………………………………………… 120
2. Word order …………………………………………………………….. 122
3. Adverbial clauses ……………………………………………………… 125
3.1 Temporal markers of adverbial subordination …………………………… 125
3.2 Manner adverbs …………………………………….…………………… 129
3.3 Conditionals ……………………………………………………………… 130
4. Nominalisation ………………………………………………………. 131
5. Complementation ……………………………………………………… 134
6. Relativisation …………………………………………………………. 134
7. Clause chaining ………………………………………………………. 136
8. Question formation ……………………………………………………. 136
9. Reported speech ………………………………………………………. 141

8. Texts …………………………………………………………….……….. 144
1. Jackal and Crow: AL (101010-01) …………………………………… 144
2. Jackal and Crow: KL (101026-06) ………………………………….. 146
3. Jackal and Crow: RL (101027-01) …………………………………… 151
4. Jackal and Crow: Picture Book ……………………………………….. 155
5. My Village: AL (091006-01) …………………………………………. 157

Appendix: list of speakers ………………………………………………… 161

References …………………………………………………………….……. 163
VIII
List of abbreviations

1 first person INCL inclusive
2 second person INF infinitive
3 third person INS instrumental
ABL ablative IMP imperative
ALL allative IPFV imperfective
AUX auxiliary LOC locative
CAUS causative M male
CLF classifier NEG negative
COND conditional NMLZ nominaliser
COP copula NMLZ.LOC locational nominaliser
DAT dative NON.PST non-past tense
DU dual OPT optative
DUB dubious PART particle
EGO egophoric PE perceptual evidential
EMPH emphatic PERF perfective
ERG ergative PL plural
EXCL exclusive PST past
F female Q question
FOC focus REL relativiser
GEN genitive RS reported speech
HON honorific SG singular
HORT hortative
IX