Sangkong 桑孔 of Yunnan: secondary "verb pronominalization" in Southern Loloish

The Chinese linguist Li Yongsui has described (1991) a newly discovered language called Sangkong, that evidently belongs to the "Bisoid" subgroup of Southern Loloish, close to Bisu, Phunoy, and Mpi. Aside from the intrinsic value of the new lexcial material Li provides, Sangkong has an ext...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Matisoff, James A.
Other Authors: University of California, Berkeley
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179392
Description
Summary:The Chinese linguist Li Yongsui has described (1991) a newly discovered language called Sangkong, that evidently belongs to the "Bisoid" subgroup of Southern Loloish, close to Bisu, Phunoy, and Mpi. Aside from the intrinsic value of the new lexcial material Li provides, Sangkong has an extremely interesting syntactic property: a rudimentary system of "verb pronominalization", where the verb-phrase may contain either of two morphemes that refer to the person of the subject. In the case of the first person, this agreement morpheme is phonologically identical to the independent personal pronoun, na55 'I'. The etymology of the non-first person marker, ze 55 is not so transparent, though we offer a theory about its origin below.