Fundamentals of Prinmi (Pumi): a Tibeto-Burman language of northwestern Yunnan, China

Abstract

This thesis presents a fundamental description of Prinmi, a little-known Tibeto-Burman language of southwestern China. It deals with all the core aspects of the language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Major issues addressed in describing the language include: vowel lowering in Chapter 2; the suprasegmental system of Prinmi, which is identified as an accentual, or word-based, system (Chapter 3); the overlap between open lexical categories — verbs, nouns, and adjectives — in Chapter 4; compounding in Chapter 5; the fluid system of grammatical functions (Chapter 6); relative clauses in Chapter 7; the subtle distinction in terms of controllability/volitionality found in perfective, modal, and evidential clitics (Chapter 8); a variety of auxiliary verbs (Chapter 9); ‘clause-chaining sentences’ in Chapter 10; ‘Double-verb Predicate’ (verb serialization) and causativity in Chapter 11; and information structure in Chapter 12.Two linguistic theories are adopted in parts of the description: Natural Semantic Language (see e.g. Wierzbicka 1996) and Role and Reference Grammar (see e.g. Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). However, the description is not set in any theoretical framework and does not concern testing of any theories. In the course of this study, several important linguistic concepts are clarified with explicit definitions. Working definitions are proposed for the following: accentual system, sentence, verb serialization, and topic-comment construction. Show more