[Tibeto-burman-linguistics] kinship terms for 'cousins'

Sat Feb 14 08:19:07 UTC 2026

Dear Mickey,

Great questions! I'm secretly enjoying the fact that this research I did
several years ago has actually generated some more inquiry :). See my
responses in-text below:

On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 1:25 AM Yuan-Lin Yang <firstboy11th at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Jesse,
>
> Thank you very much for your informative description on Stau 'cousin'-like
> (?) expressions. It stirs my interest when I see the declarative/possessive
> forms contain complex/compound modifiers *tʰɛv(=ɡə ŋə-rə)*, and I have a
> number of questions on it.
>
> I should specify that the data I'm using is primarily from Shenya Stau,
but, in many ways, is representative of, or very similar to, other
varieties of Stau.

> First, does *tʰɛv* mean relative? In Taunggyi Pa'O, the word for
> 'relatives' is *pʰû-ê* (" ̂ " stands for high tone), in which *pʰû *means'
> 'younger relative(s)', and *ê* 'older relative(s).
>

>From my consultants' perspective, yes, *tʰɛv* means something like
'relative' (亲戚) or even something like 'cousin' (表). However, since this is
an idiomatic and conventionalized (lexicalized) phrase, I don't think it
reflects the historical or "basic" meaning. Besides this one phrase, *tʰɛv* is
not found elsewhere in Stau; the typical term for 'relative' is *ɲivæ*.
Most likely *tʰɛv* was borrowed from G.yukhog Tibetan (玉科草原藏话).

>
> Second, it's interesting to see that the declarative/possessive forms are
> longer. To me *tʰɛv(=ɡə ŋə-rə)* works really like a predicate or relative
> clause.
>

It could be that historically *tʰɛv=ɡə ŋə-rə *was a relative (no pun
intended) clause; I'm open to that interpretation. But that wouldn't negate
the fact that it is functioning in a copula clause and is declarative. From
my research on this, clauses with *=ɡə ŋə-rə *are simple copular clauses
that introduce new participants, e.g., *veqe=gə ŋə-rə *'there was a
rabbit', which wouldn't be a relative clause since it is just stating
existence, no embedding, not identifying or narrowing down a particular
rabbit, no modifying function. You can see my dissertation and some other
papers by Jackson Sun and Tian Qianzi on relative clauses in Horpa
varieties. However, as I said earlier, no matter what this clause was, it
has become just an idiomatic thing at the moment; in a sense, it is
meaningless and just connected to the cousin idiom (sort of like the "once
removed" idiom in English).

> Especially, I wonder why the sensory evidential *-rə* is used.
>

The sensory evidential is used because this is the conventional way to make
factual copula clause statements concerning third person referents,
e.g., *tʰɛ=ɣə
tʂæɕi ŋə-rə *'He is Bkrashis'. For more on the sensory evidential used in
copula clauses, please see my dissertation (I can send it to you off-list).

> Is *-rə* used even when the relative is not in presence?
>

Yes.

> Or is* =ɡə ŋə-rə* not used in this case?
>

There is no real difference; it is more a speaker preference thing than a
grammatical thing.

>
> Also, is *-rə* borrowed from G.yukhog Tibetan as well? Or it should be
> consider as a cognate? (Sorry that I am not very familiar with Tibetic &
> rGyalrongic languages).
>

I am not sure about the history of *-rə. *It sure looks the same, but looks
can be deceiving! It is quite widespread in Western Gyalrongic (which
branched out maybe about 3000 years ago), and it may be cognate with the
Khroskyabs prefix rə- (which is from a directional), so I'm inclined to
think it already existed in West Gyalrongic before these lects came into
contact with anything that resembled Tibetan. All Horpa varieties have *-rə*
(splitting up maybe roughly 2000 years ago). Maybe by contact, we see it
move to the suffix position? Maybe the two languages have separate forms
that have become more similar to each other due to contact? This is all
pure speculation. Tian & Sun (2023) analyze *-rə *as an 'immediate
evidential' in Gexi, and I may need to revise my terminology and my
understanding of this suffix. Their analysis looks quite solid.

And it's cool to know that *nə-ret* is obligatory, because a friend of mine
> told me that evidential copula of such a kind is not found in the
> possessive/referential 'cousin'-like kinship terms of the Tibetan variety
> she works on.
>

The variety of Tibetan I'm dealing with is G.yukhog Tibetan (玉科草原). It
doesn't surprise me that the variety your friend works on could be totally
different for something like this.

>
> On the other hand, thank you also for point out the distinction between
> vocative and possessive/declarative. In the data I elicited, it is in the
> latter form, but not the former. I will try to elicit the vocative form in
> the next field sessions.
>
> Keep questioning. Glad to be of any help.

> Best,
> Mickey.
>
> Jesse P. Gates <stauskad at gmail.com> 於 2026年2月11日週三 上午5:50寫道：
>
>> Dear Mickey,
>>
>> Many TB languages lack a specific kinship term for 'cousin'. Stau does
>> not have specific kinship terms for 'cousin', but rather uses 'brother' or
>> 'sister' for the vocative, and for possessive/declarative, an idiomatic
>> tʰɛv(=ɡə ŋə-rə) following 'brother' or 'sister'. So, for example,
>>
>> Vocative: æti ‘mohter's brother's son (older than ego)’
>> Possessive/declarative: æti tʰɛv(=ɡə ŋə-rə)ˈ ‘mohter's brother's son
>> (older than ego)’
>> Vocative: ædæ ‘mohter's brother's daughter (older than ego)’
>> Possessive/declarative: ædæ ˈtʰɛv(=ɡə ŋə-rə) ‘‘mohter's brother's
>> daughter (older than ego)’ ’
>>
>> tʰɛv(=ɡə ŋə-rə) means ‘is a relative’. The ending =ɡə ŋə-rə is the
>> indefinite article + copula + sensory evidential. The modifier *tʰɛv*
>> was borrowed from the G.yukhog Tibetan *tʰov* (WT: *thov*) phrase
>> *tʰov-nə-ret*, but in G.yukhog Tibetan *=nə-ret* is not optional.
>>
>> If you haven't already, I also suggest that you determine whether there
>> are some differences between vocative and possessive/declarative, and what
>> the terms are for each. Many languages, so some differences between "what I
>> call a relative" vs. "what that relative is called."
>>
>> One interesting thing about most Gyalrongic languages is that they
>> distinguish 'male-speaking' vs. 'female-speaking' (it is actually based on
>> the sex of the referent, not the speaker, unless the speaker is the
>> referent) for older and younger siblings. See below for this in Stau.
>>
>> [image: Screenshot 2026-02-11 at 5.40.05 AM.png]
>> These analyses, along with other fun things about Stau kinship
>> terminology, can be found in my 2023 LTBA article "Kinship terms in Stau"
>> (attached).
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 10:51 PM Yuan-Lin Yang <firstboy11th at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Tibeto-Burmanists:
>>>
>>> I am currently working on Taunggyi (Northern) Pa'O, a Karenic language
>>> mainly spoken in the Shan State, Myanmar. Through yesterday's field session
>>> with my consultant, I learnt that their language does not have specific
>>> kinship terms for 'cousins' or 'ego's father/mother's brother/sister's
>>> child(ren)'. Instead, they just call them 'uncle/aunt's child/son/daughter'
>>> (but they do distinguish uncles or aunts of different ages and sides). And
>>> I have also tried to check whether such a phenomenon is prevalent in TB
>>> languages with ChatGPT, yet it has only found that Burmese, Lahu, and
>>> Lepcha seem to behave in the same way.
>>>
>>> Thus, purely out of interest, I would like to know if similar phonomena
>>> is also found in the languages you work on. And if your language(s) happen
>>> to be other special cases, you are welcome to share as well.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Mickey,
>>> MA student, Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tibeto-Burman-Linguistics mailing list
>>> Tibeto-Burman-Linguistics at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>
>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tibeto-burman-linguistics
>>>
>>

-- 
Best regards,

*Jesse P. Gates, PhD*
*Project Director*
Stau Language Grammar and Documentation Project
National Endowment for the Humanities (DLI-DEL Grant FN-298625-24)
*Lecturer in Linguistics*
Sichuan University, College of Foreign Languages 四川大学外语学院
*https://scu-cn.academia.edu/JesseGates
<https://scu-cn.academia.edu/JesseGates>*
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