Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Thesis Approval Sheet This thesis, entitled Hkongso Grammar Sketch written by Jonathan Michael Wright and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics has been read and approved by the undersigned members of the faculty of the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics _____________________________________________ Dr. Paul R. Kroeger _____________________________________________ Dr. Michael E. Boutin _____________________________________________ Dr. J. Fraser Bennett _____________________________________________ Date signed Hkongso Grammar Sketch By Jonathan Michael Wright Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics June 2009 © 2009 Jonathan Michael Wright All Rights Reserved THESIS DUPLICATION RELEASE I hereby authorize the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Library to duplicate this thesis when needed for research and/or scholarship. Agreed: ABSTRACT Hkongso Grammar Sketch Jonathan Michael Wright Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics The Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, June 2009 Supervising Professor: Paul R. Kroeger This thesis presents a descriptive, typological sketch of Hkongso phonology and grammar. Hkongso is a Tibeto-Burman language in Southern Chin State, Myanmar, and is spoken northeast of Paletwa along the Paletchaung and Michaung rivers. The Hkongso population is under 10,000. Hkongso has five contrastive tones, no inflectional morphology, and very little derivational morphology. Hkongso is linguistically related to the Anu of Myanmar and the Mru of Bangladesh but differs grammatically from the Chin languages around it. Hkongso has no classifier system, no verb stem alternation, and is SVO. Other word order characteristics include NAdj, RelN, DemN, NNum, AdjDeg, and NegV, which are most similar to the Karen languages of Myanmar. Pre-verbal operators include negation and ability. Clause-final operators include TAM and subject agreement markers. In addition to coordinate and subordinate clauses, Hkongso also has clause-chaining and serial verb constructions. Dedicated to the Hkongso people, who have longed for the written word for so many years. v i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Glory and thanks goes first to the creator of all languages. I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Paul Kroeger for his constant guidance throughout the process of writing. He mentored me in many ways. He taught me to be persistent in finding answers and to question everything. His guidance brought about the confidence in me needed to complete this work. I count it a privilege to have the guidance of Dr. Michael Boutin. He took the time to teach me the technical details of writing and his editorial remarks were tremendously helpful. I am honored to have Dr. Fraser Bennett direct me in the process. His remarks on Tibeto-Burman phonology and grammar were essential to helping me grasp what occurs in Hkongso. I am grateful to have had his input in this paper. I am indebted to Saya Kyaw Kyaw. His brilliance as a language associate was indispensable. Without him I would not have been able to complete this paper. I count it a great honor to know him and be considered his friend. Finally, I would like to thank my family for being there for me throughout this process. My wife, Erin, was a continual source of encouragement. She believed in me at times when I did not believe in myself. Thank you. [February 4, 2009] vi i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................................V ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................................................................................VII LIST OF TABLES.........................................................................................................................................X LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................................................................XI LIST OF MAPS...........................................................................................................................................XII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................................................XIII CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................1 1.1 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY.........................................................................................................1 1.2 PROCEDURE OF THE STUDY...........................................................................................................1 1.3 LITERATURE REVIEW....................................................................................................................3 1.4 THE HKONGSO PEOPLE..................................................................................................................5 CHAPTER 2: PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY...........................................................................12 2.1 SYLLABLES.................................................................................................................................12 2.2 PHONEMES..................................................................................................................................17 2.3 PROSODIC FEATURES...................................................................................................................29 2.4 MORPHOLOGY.............................................................................................................................30 CHAPTER 3: NOUN PHRASES...............................................................................................................34 3.1 STRUCTURE AND ORDER OF CONSTITUENTS................................................................................34 3.2 NOUN PHRASE COORDINATION....................................................................................................39 3.3 POSSESSION................................................................................................................................42 3.4 QUANTIFICATION........................................................................................................................43 CHAPTER 4: CLAUSE STRUCTURE....................................................................................................49 4.1 BASIC ORDER OF CLAUSE CONSTITUENTS....................................................................................49 4.2 GRAMMATICAL CASE..................................................................................................................53 4.3 POSTPOSITIONAL PHRASES..........................................................................................................58 4.4 TOPIC..........................................................................................................................................67 4.5 CLAUSE CONSTITUENT MARKING................................................................................................69 4.6 WORD ORDER CHARACTERISTICS OF HKONGSO..........................................................................70 CHAPTER 5: PRE-VERBAL AND CLAUSE-FINAL OPERATORS..................................................77 5.1 STRUCTURE.................................................................................................................................77 5.2 PRE-VERBAL OPERATORS............................................................................................................78 5.3 CLAUSE-FINAL OPERATORS.........................................................................................................81 CHAPTER 6: NON-VERBAL PREDICATES.........................................................................................99 CHAPTER 7: WORD CLASSES.............................................................................................................104 7.1 NOUN........................................................................................................................................104 7.2 NOUN PHRASES.........................................................................................................................110 7.3 VERB.........................................................................................................................................113 7.4 ADJECTIVE................................................................................................................................114 7.5 ADVERB....................................................................................................................................119 CHAPTER 8: SENTENCE TYPES.........................................................................................................121 8.1 STATEMENTS (DECLARATIVE)...................................................................................................121 vi ii 8.2 QUESTIONS (INTERROGATIVE)..................................................................................................122 8.3 COMMANDS (IMPERATIVE)........................................................................................................127 8.4 ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE............................................................................................................128 8.5 QUOTE STRUCTURE...................................................................................................................129 CHAPTER 9: CLAUSE COMBINATIONS...........................................................................................132 9.1 COORDINATION.........................................................................................................................134 9.2 SUBORDINATION.......................................................................................................................137 9.3 MEDIAL CLAUSES.....................................................................................................................151 9.4 SERIAL VERB CONSTRUCTIONS..................................................................................................157 REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................165 VITA...........................................................................................................................................................169 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Major syllable structure......................................................................................13 Table 2: Minor syllables in polysyllabic words................................................................14 Table 3: The semivowel /w/.............................................................................................15 Table 4: The semivowel /j/...............................................................................................16 Table 5: Consonant phonemes..........................................................................................18 Table 6: Prenasalization....................................................................................................25 Table 7: Homorganic prenasals........................................................................................25 Table 8: Consonant distribution........................................................................................26 Table 9: Vowel Phonemes................................................................................................27 Table 10: Vocoid sequences.............................................................................................27 Table 11: Tones.................................................................................................................29 Table 12: Noun phrase structure.......................................................................................34 Table 13: Subject agreement markers...............................................................................55 Table 14: Postpositions.....................................................................................................66 Table 15: NP markers.......................................................................................................70 Table16: Pre-verbal operators...........................................................................................77 Table 17: Clause-final operators.......................................................................................78 Table 18: Negation............................................................................................................78 Table 19: Clause-final operators.......................................................................................81 Table 20: Aspectual auxiliaries.........................................................................................87 Table 21: Modality............................................................................................................91 Table 22: Tense.................................................................................................................92 Table 23: Mood.................................................................................................................97 Table 24: Pronouns.........................................................................................................112 Table 25: Pre-verbal operators........................................................................................113 Table 26: Question words...............................................................................................124 Table 27: Coordinators...................................................................................................137 Table 28: Adverbial subordinating conjunctions............................................................142 Table 29: Medial clause conjunctions.............................................................................157 x