田夫

[Basanta Doley]

Dear Tibeto-Burmanist,
Thank you very much for communicating me regarding the suffix -pa in
Tibeto-Burman languages and its relationship with the Chinese
language. I am not so expert as to describe you about it. But as I am
a native speaker of one of Tibeto-Burman languages called Mising which
is a member of TANI languages widely spoken in Arunachal Pradesh in
India, I can give you the description of use of -pa: suffix in my
language. While you are asking Tibeto-Burman noun siffix -pa, in our
language it is a verbal suffix with long vowel. In fact, it is a root.
√pa: means 'to get, to have'. But since formation of a compound or
complex root is a characteristic feature of TB languages, it may be
added to another root, thus, /lu / 'to speak'+/pa:/+ dag (verbal
suffix in present tense) "have to speak".
With regards
Dr. B.K. Doley
Assam, India

On 5/31/12, Nathan Hill <nathanwhill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Tibeto-Burmanists,
>
> I am thinking about the Tibetan noun suffix -pa and its relationship
> to Chinese 夫 (in words like 田夫, zhing-pa). Can anyone recommend a good
> discussion of 夫, with examples and text citations?
>
> much obliged,
> Nathan
>
> --
> Dr Nathan W. Hill
> British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Linguistics
> Senior Lector in Tibetan, Department of China & Inner Asia (on leave)
> School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
> Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4220
> --
> Profile -- http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff46254.php
> Tibetan Studies at SOAS -- http://www.soas.ac.uk/cia/tibetanstudies/
> --
>