The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters
Tibeto-Burman (TB) *nga (tone *A) `first person pronoun' and the topic marker (TM) *ga - ka play a strange "cat and mouse" game as they romp about the family. The widely represented *nga, from Chepang, Chang (Northern Naga), and Trung (Nungish) on the north(/west) and Tujia (west-cent...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178143 |
| _version_ | 1824455078586613760 |
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| author | Benedict, Paul K. |
| author_facet | Benedict, Paul K. |
| author_sort | Benedict, Paul K. |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Tibeto-Burman (TB) *nga (tone *A) `first person pronoun' and the topic marker (TM) *ga - ka play a strange "cat and mouse" game as they romp about the family. The widely represented *nga, from Chepang, Chang (Northern Naga), and Trung (Nungish) on the north(/west) and Tujia (west-central China) on the east to Burmese-Lolo on the south(/east), as our "mouse," is at times firmly in the paws of our TM "cat": Waling (Kiranti) angka < *-nga-ga '1 p. prn.' TB *na(:)ng '2 p. pm' largely escaped this fate, indicating that in TB-land, even as in Washington, the Ego was by far one's favorite topic! In the monosyllabizing TB family, a *nga-ga or *nga-ka is unstable, especially for a pronominal, with the result that in Lepcha and Ahi Lolo our "cat" ate our "mouse": both go < *ga '1 p. prn.' , with parallel developments in Qiangic as well as Kuki-Naga. Finally, in Written Tibetan (WT) the -ga -ka TM is directly suffixed, whereas in Written Burmese (WB) it reflects an intervening ergative *-s: WB -ka' < *s-ga, with regular 'creaky voice' [represented as '] < *s-; cf. WT sga, WB ka' `saddle'. |
| first_indexed | 2025-02-19T03:32:29Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/178143 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-19T03:32:29Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1781432024-06-11T01:10:49Z The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters Benedict, Paul K. Arts and Humanities Tibeto-Burman (TB) *nga (tone *A) `first person pronoun' and the topic marker (TM) *ga - ka play a strange "cat and mouse" game as they romp about the family. The widely represented *nga, from Chepang, Chang (Northern Naga), and Trung (Nungish) on the north(/west) and Tujia (west-central China) on the east to Burmese-Lolo on the south(/east), as our "mouse," is at times firmly in the paws of our TM "cat": Waling (Kiranti) angka < *-nga-ga '1 p. prn.' TB *na(:)ng '2 p. pm' largely escaped this fate, indicating that in TB-land, even as in Washington, the Ego was by far one's favorite topic! In the monosyllabizing TB family, a *nga-ga or *nga-ka is unstable, especially for a pronominal, with the result that in Lepcha and Ahi Lolo our "cat" ate our "mouse": both go < *ga '1 p. prn.' , with parallel developments in Qiangic as well as Kuki-Naga. Finally, in Written Tibetan (WT) the -ga -ka TM is directly suffixed, whereas in Written Burmese (WB) it reflects an intervening ergative *-s: WB -ka' < *s-ga, with regular 'creaky voice' [represented as '] < *s-; cf. WT sga, WB ka' `saddle'. Published version 2024-06-11T01:10:49Z 2024-06-11T01:10:49Z 1998 Journal Article Benedict, P. K. (1998). The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 21(2), 1-2. https://dx.doi.org/10.32655/LTBA.21.2.01 0731-3500 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178143 10.32655/LTBA.21.2.01 2 21 1 2 en Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area © 1998 The Editor(s). All rights reserved. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Arts and Humanities Benedict, Paul K. The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters |
| title | The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters |
| title_full | The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters |
| title_fullStr | The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters |
| title_full_unstemmed | The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters |
| title_short | The first person pronoun in archaic Chinese, with a note on duplex characters |
| title_sort | first person pronoun in archaic chinese with a note on duplex characters |
| topic | Arts and Humanities |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178143 |
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