[Lingtyp] FW: Plural markers on (already) plural pronouns

Sat Nov 16 14:14:51 UTC 2019

Dear Khun Ponrawee,

Below is a forwarded message from Carmen Marseille, who has extensive experience with Shan varieties.

Best regards,
Alec

From: #MARSEILLE CARMEN EVA# <CARMENEV001 at e.ntu.edu.sg>
Date: Saturday, 16 November 2019 at 8:59 PM
To: Alexander Coupe <ARCoupe at ntu.edu.sg>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Plural markers on (already) plural pronouns

Dear Ponrawee,

Maybe I have some clues for you that will help. In Tai Leng or Shan-Ni (Kachin state and Sagaing region in Myanmar), plural markers/ personal pronouns have a lot of different functions and combinations, allowing for more specific expressions. There are a lot of possible explanations why you would see a combination, and even if they are optional, they might not be arbitrary.

The first thing to keep in mind is that sometimes to be polite, 3pl khaw³ is used instead of the 3sg mɯn⁴ , so then an extra plural marker can be used to restrict the interpretation that it is not 3sg.

In Tai Leng, some of the pronouns themselves are now combinations of what used to be two different pronouns. These are the pronouns for the Indawgyi region:

Personal pronouns

Possessive pronouns

1sg

kaɯ⁴

kaɯ⁴

2sg

mɛɯ⁴

mɛɯ⁴

3sg

mɯn⁴/man⁴

mɯn⁴/man⁴

1pl

haw⁴

haw⁴

2pl

ma¹su³

su³

3pl

ma¹haw³

khaw³

You can see that 2pl and 3pl have become disyllabic for personal pronouns while having maintained their monosyllabic forms as possessive pronouns. This is part of a more general development in Tai Leng to form disyllabic words and reduce the first syllable to a schwa and level tone. In some regions (upper Chindwin) some people still pronounce these pronouns as mɛɯ⁴ su³ and mɯn⁴khaw³ hence putting the singular pronoun in front of the plural pronoun. Possessive pronouns always follow a noun. So in (3) ma¹su³ is a personal pronoun, further specified by pi²nɔng⁵ ‘siblings’, but in (4) su³ is a possessive pronoun, following pɔ² ‘father’, hence it is ‘your father’.

1)

ma¹su³

pi²nɔng⁵

lɔng²

an²

kaɯ⁴

caɯ⁴

waj⁵

naa⁵

2pl

siblings

work

thing

1sg

order

keep

tag

‘You sisters, the work I ordered you…’

(Tai Leng Indawgyi)

2)

pɔ²

su³

pɔk⁵

maa⁴

ma¹

mɔk¹

father

2pl

return

come

neg

announce

‘Your father has returned unannounced.’

(Tai Leng Indawgyi)

As Dr. Jenny already mentioned, looking into Burmese influence can be very helpful. In some regions (e.g. Banmauk) they even use the plural marker te¹ (from BM twe), while in other regions the plural marker is khaw³. khaw³ is more often used for people (and animals) and te¹ for objects, but not always. So below, you can see how in the same story vultures are marked as plural with khaw³ in Katcho (3) and te¹ in Banmauk (4), but in Banmauk the speaker uses te¹ the mark the intestines too, while in Katcho they don’t mark it, because it is an object. But regardless of whether khaw³ or te¹ is used, there will be Burmese influence on the way plural markers are used.

3)

mɯn⁴

kɔ⁵

laj²

aw⁶

saj⁶thaap⁴

to⁶

sat¹

thɤn¹

si³

laj²

3sg

prt

get

take

intestines

body

animal

forest

lnk

get

thim²

ɔj¹

laang⁴taa⁵

khaw³

yaw⁵

throw

feed

vulture

3pl

finished

‘He takes the intestines of the forest animal and [throws] feeds them to the vultures.’

(Tai Leng Katcho)

4)

kɔp⁵

nɛ²

tang⁴

caw²

mu¹so⁴

kɔ⁵

ang⁴

tɔng⁵

mɛn²

naa⁵

tang⁴

reason

def

with

hon

hunter

prt

for

belly

hedgehog

prt

with

phaa¹

si³

ang⁴

saj²

mɛn²

te¹

tuk⁵

ɔk¹

wen¹

waj⁵

split

lnk

for

intestines

hedgehog

pl

pull.out

leave

throw

keep

haɯ²

naang⁴taa⁵

te¹

caaw²

give

vulture

pl

pol

‘Because of that the hunter slices the belly of the hedgehog with his knife, pulls out the intestines and throws them to the vultures.’

(Tai Leng Banmauk)
Another use of khaw³ is to activate an animate referent. Tai Leng makes use of ellipsis, leaving out known or active referents. If a speaker introduces a new referent, (s)he will do so with a classifier construction, adding a number and a classifier to the referent. If the referent is known but not active, usually a definite marker naj⁵/nɛ²/naa⁵ is used behind the referent. But in some regions (e.g. Katcho), khaw³ is used instead of naj⁵/nɛ²/naa⁵ when the referent is animate. Hence in (5), me⁴ luk⁵ mɯn⁴ khaw³, mɯn⁴ ‘3sg’ is a possessive, following me⁴  luk⁵ making it ‘his wife and children’, but because the part before that has about him returning, khaw³ is used to show that the new active referent is ‘his wife and children.’ Notice that khaw³ doesn’t necesarily mean it’s plural, because in (6) it is used for a (singular) mother monkey. In the first part of (6), no referent is mentioned, hence we know that is about the already active referent ‘family’, but when khaw³ is used to mark the mother monkey, new information will be about her. Maybe because the Cushing example you mention also has nai, this might be related to what you are observing. You'll have to look at its use within narratives to see whether that is the case, so you can clearly see which referent is active.

5)

mɯn⁴

pɔk⁵

tung³

hɤn⁴

maa⁴

me⁴

luk⁵

mɯn⁴

khaw³

maa⁴

3sg

return

arrive

house

come

wife

child

3sg

3pl

come

hap⁵

tɔn⁴

kɤn⁶

yaw⁵

meet.on.arrival

await

vpl

finished

‘When he arrives home his wife and children welcome him him.’

(Tai Leng Katcho)

6)

mɤ⁶fɔng⁴

yaam⁴

lɔn⁴

lak¹

lɔn⁴

waan³

kɤn⁶

mɛ⁶

ling⁴

ɔn¹

at.that.time

time

sleep

well

sleep

sweet

vpl

mother

monkey

small

khaw³

nyaa⁴

luk⁵

ling⁴

ɔn¹

mɯn⁴

yaw⁵

3pl

meet

child

monkey

small

3sg

finished

‘When they are asleep, the mother of the small monkey comes to meet the baby monkey.’

(Tai Leng Katcho)

So if you see a plural marker, it might be doing something else - the optionality might be marking a distinction (e.g. between personal and possessive pronouns or between animate/inanimate), or something else like the status of a referent.

If you want to know more, feel free to contact me. You can find my masters thesis here https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/74583 .
Hope this helps!

Warm regards,

Carmen

________________________________
Van: Alexander Coupe <ARCoupe at ntu.edu.sg>
Verzonden: zaterdag 16 november 2019 12:23
Aan: #MARSEILLE CARMEN EVA# <CARMENEV001 at e.ntu.edu.sg>
Onderwerp: FW: [Lingtyp] Plural markers on (already) plural pronouns

FYI

A

On Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 17:02 Ponrawee Prasertsom <ponrawee.pra at gmail.com<mailto:ponrawee.pra at gmail.com>> wrote:

Dear all,

I have been looking at a number of Tai languages and found that in some of these languages, plural pronouns can optionally take a plural marker normally used on common nouns. For instance, in Shan (Southwestern Tai), the third person plural pronoun khau can optionally take the plural marker cɯ(nai), viz. khau cɯ(nai)--at least according to Cushing 1871.

Assuming this analysis is correct (if it's not please kindly inform me), I'm wondering how rare this is for pronouns? A quick lookup revealed that a similar phenomenon called "double plural marking" is found in some languages, but seems to be restricted to common nouns only. Does anyone know of any other instances like this for pronouns in other languages?

Sources: Cushing, Josiah Nelson. Grammar of the Shan Language. Rangoon: American Mission Press, 1871.

Best regards,

--

Ponrawee Prasertsom

Graduate Student

Department of Linguistics

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

Bangkok, Thailand

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