Update:
2015-11-01 12:06 PM -0500
TIL
The Grammaticalization of Nominalizers in Burmese
Simpson-nominalize.htm
by Andrew Simpson, Professor of Linguistics & East Asian Languages
and Cultures, University of Southern California,
http://victoria.linguistlist.org/~lapolla/nw/Simpson.doc
andrew.simpson@usc.edu [in 17 pages of MS-Word]
Also available in PDF.
Downloaded on 080622 and edited by U Kyaw Tun (UKT), M.S. (I.P.S.T.,
U.S.A.), and staff of TIL (Tun Institute of Learning.
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U.S.A.), and staff of TIL (Tun Institute of Learning.
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index.htm | Top
GramGloss-indx.htm
Contents of this page
Contents of this page
01.
Introduction
02.
Nominalizers and their common and divergent properties: a brief overview.
02.01.
What are nominalizers and what sources do they develop from?
02.02. Is nominalization a ‘lexical’ process or ‘syntactic’?
02.03.
Nominalizers and ‘verbalizers’
02.04.
Nominalization and/vs. compounding
03.
Nominalization in Burmese
03.01.
Sentential nominalizers in Literary Burmese: the elements ‘thii’ and ‘mii’
{thæÑ} and
{mæÑ}
03.02.
Sentential nominalizers in Colloquial Burmese te
{tèý} and me
{tèý}
4.0 Summary of conclusions and consequences for
further work.
Simpson's footnotes
UKT's footnotes
Simpson's references
This paper is concerned with the grammaticalization of clausal nominalizers in
two different but closely-related forms of Burmese, Colloquial Burmese and
Literary Burmese. A contrastive overview of the morphosyntactic properties of
the nominalizers thii
{thæÑ} and mii
{mæÑ}
of Literary Burmese and their Colloquial Burmese counterparts te
{tèý} and me
{tèý}, together with the application of a number of tests for the identification
of nominalized constructions, reveal that grammaticalization is more advanced in
the colloquial language than in the literary variety: te and me
have lost their nominal specifications and been reanalysed as grammatical
elements of a different categorial type, instantiating verb-related mood and
realis–irrealis distinctions. The comparison of the system of nominalization in
the two complementary varieties of Burmese allows for insights into the
evolution, spread and reinterpretation of nominalization structures within a language. --
http://www.benjamins.nl/cgi-bin/t_articles.cgi?bookid=TSL%2076&artid=186116180 080627
Contents of this page
The cross-linguistic phenomenon of nominalization is an area of morpho-syntax
that has attracted growing interest in both formal and functional linguistics in
recent years, as data from an increasing number of languages becomes available
and adds important insights into the grammaticalization paths and syntactic
structure underlying the emergence of nominalizing elements. The present paper
sets out to probe this area of morpho-syntactic development further with a study
focused on Burmese, a language which is particularly rich in nominalization
structures and where a highly informative picture of the results of the
grammaticalization of nominalizers can be found through a comparison of two
different though closely-related forms of the language: Colloquial Burmese and
Literary Burmese. A careful examination of synchronic patterns in Colloquial and
Literary Burmese provides evidence of the source and complex structure of
clausal nominalizers in the language, and indicates that in certain cases
earlier nominalizers have undergone re-grammaticalization as functional
morphemes of a different formal type, no longer instantiating nominal categories
but being reanalyzed as modal and complementizer-type elements. Quite
generally, the patterning found in Burmese nominalization raises questions about
the assumed synchronic status of nominalizers in other languages and how the
occurrence of cross-categorial reanalysis of (already) grammaticalized morphemes
can effectively be detected. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2
first considers how nominalizers may be identified in a language and what morpho-syntactic
properties and sources nominalizers seem to exhibit in general. Section 3 then
turns to Burmese and attempts to establish how the current, productive clausal
nominalizers in Literary Burmese have undergone grammaticalization producing
complex, fused forms occurring in a range of syntactic environments. This leads
on to a comparison with similar patterns in Colloquial Burmese, where the
conclusion is reached that nominalization in the colloquial language has
progressed a significant stage further, and resulted in the reanalysis of
erstwhile nominalizers as grammatical elements of a rather different ‘clausal’
type. Section 4 then closes the paper with a brief summary of its findings and
questions that are raised by the patterning observed.
Contents of this page
In the broad, developing literature concerned with nominalization,
it is not uncommon to find the term ‘nominalizer’ being made use of rather loosely,
to refer to elements whose status as nominalizers has not been particularly clearly established.
As we begin this investigation it is therefore useful to attempt to clarify
what kinds of morphemes should be genuinely labeled as nominalizers,
and how one might attempt to identify a particular grammatical element
as a nominalizer rather than as some other kind of syntactic category.
The term ‘nominalizer’ is a purely functional label
which is appropriately used to refer to all those morphemes/words which have the
specific function of creating a nominal morpho-syntactic form as the result of
their combination with other kinds of non-nominal input, as indicated in (1):
(1) A nominalizer: a morpheme whose primary function is
to convert a non-nominal input form into a nominal category.
Nominal categories, and hence the presence of functional
elements which may be nominalizers, can in turn be identified in two basic ways:
(a) through the occurrence of noun-like/nominal morphological patterns,
and/or (b) via syntactic privileges otherwise commonly associated with
nouns and their syntactic projections.
Concerning the first type of morphological evidence for the
presence of a nominal (rather than a verbal, adjectival or other) category, the
potential occurrence of a range of common nominal attachments/inflections
on a syntactic phrase/XP or combination of certain other syntactic categories
with the phrase can be taken as indication that a phrase is nominal, patterning
in a morphological and combinatorial way like other simple nouns and their
expansions into noun-rooted phrases. A number of such elements which frequently
occur with specifically noun-like phrases are listed in (2):
(2) Morphological indications that a syntactic constituent is nominal:
i. the occurrence of case inflections on a constituent
ii. possible pluralization/plural-marking of the constituent
iii. possible enumeration of the constituent (combination of the constituent
with numerals)
iv. the potential occurrence of demonstratives and adjectives with the
constituent, rather than complementizers and adverbs
v. use of case-marking strategies associated specifically with nouns in
the marking of arguments of the noun (e.g. use of possessive/Genitive case
to mark the noun’s arguments rather than Nominative/Accusative case)
UKT: In this paper, Simpson prefers the use of the term "genitive" over
"possessive". However, the term "possessive" or
{peing-hseing-mhu.} seems to make more sense to an ethnic Burmese like me.
Similarly, of the two terms Nominative/Accusative, "accusative" literally
implying an "accusation"
{swup-swè:hkak} gives a wrong impression.
Syntactically, a complex constituent may be identified as a
nominal phrase if it shows the distribution of other simplex phrases that are
clearly nominal, for example, the ability to occur in subject position, or the
ability to be co-ordinated with other clearly nominal categories. If other,
non-nominal categories such as verbal/adjectival phrases are regularly excluded
from such positions, but a verbal/adjectival phrase in combination with some
additional morpheme is found to allow for occurrence in subject
position/co-ordination with other noun-phrases, this may be taken as reasonable
evidence for the nominalized status of the complex constituent, and for the
nominalizing function of the morpheme combined with the verb/adjective and their dependents.
Because it is the outward morpho-syntactic behaviour of a constituent
that identifies it as nominal, and because there are various ways
in which nominal morpho-syntax can be exhibited
(case-marking, pluralization, combination with adjectives etc), nominalizers may
in fact originate from a range of different lexical sources. Consider a formal
syntactic representation of the internal structure of a referential nominal
phrase, a ‘DP’, in a head-initial language with classifiers, as given in (3).
If it is assumed that the occurrence of any lower syntactic head position such as
N, Cl, or Num will necessarily result in the projection of other, higher
portions of the structure in (3), and that different parts of the structure in
(3) may identify a constituent as ‘nominal’ in different ways (the occurrence of
numerals in Num, or demonstratives in D), it is possible to see that the use of
any of the head constituents (D, Num, Cl or N) in (3) might in principle be used
to build up a phrase with certain overt nominal properties when combined with a
non-nominal complement, ‘nominalizing’ the latter. For example, were an element
of syntactic/lexical category N to be combined with a verbal constituent (if
complex, then a verb-phrase/VP), the result would be a structure such as (4), in
which a full array of nominal properties might be expected to characterize the
new nominalization, given the presence of the full set of syntactic heads and
projections above the N position. In the representation in (4), NZR is
intended to indicate a morpheme that has the function of a nominalizer [UKT:
NorminaliZeR ?], and the
original syntactic category of a noun (i.e. a nominalizer derived from a noun,
perhaps via bleaching of the lexical content of the noun):
Alternatively, however, a verbal (or other non-nominal) constituent might allow
for conversion into a category with certain nominal properties if combined with
a nominalizer sourced from one of the higher head categories in (3),
such as an element of type D. Such a constituent would be expected to allow for
the syntactic distribution of other nominal expressions (e.g. unrestricted occurrence
in subject position), but might not allow for the full array of properties commonly
associated with NPs and their expansions into DPs due to the lack of lower
portions of the nominal structure in (3), notably the Num, Cl and N heads and
their projections. Such a possibility is schematized in (5) (where the
nominalized constituent is indicated as being possibly a verb-phrase/VP, a
tense-phrase/TP or a fully-clausal complementizer phrase/CP):
Two other intermediate possibilities are also anticipated
to be available and exist, first, the use of a classifier as a
nominalizing element combining with a non-nominal complement, as in (6), and
second, the use of a numeral as a nominalizer, as in (7). In both
instances the structures produced are expected to have some, but not necessarily
all typical properties of nominal projections. For example, if adjectival
modification is assumed to occur via the adjunction of an adjectival phrase/AdjP
to a noun-phrase/NP, the absence of an NP in structures (6) and (7) may be
expected to correspond to a lack of adjectival modification with such nominalizations.
Interestingly, it would seem that all the possible ways
that a nominalizer might theoretically be instantiated, as outlined above, do
indeed seem to occur in different languages, and nominalizers grammaticalize
from a variety of sources. Nominalizers ultimately derived from nouns are most
probably quite common in occurrence (e.g. Korean kes as discussed in
Simpson and Wu 2001), but it is also possible to identify classifier, numeral
and demonstrative/determiner sources of other nominalizers too. Burmese,
for example, makes use of the numeral ‘one’ (‘ta-’)
{tic}/ 
{ta.}
(UKT-fn01) in a range of nominalizations, Thai and Bengali show evidence
of classifier use in a nominalizing function with certain clausal constituents,
and Chinese, Japanese and Lakhota can be argued to have derived nominalizers
from earlier elements of type D (see Simpson 2001, 2003a/b, and Simpson and Wu 2001
for much discussion).
Contents of this page
In addition to variation in the source category of nominalizing elements, a
second important parameter of variation in the (synchronic) realization of
nominalizers is whether the attachment of such elements occurs as a lexical
process, or is effected as part of a syntactic derivation.
Certain nominalizers seem to be very clearly phrasal attachments, combined
with a constituent that is a full syntactic phrase, as in the case of
‘sentential/clausal nominalizers’ found in a significant number of languages,
where a full clause is converted into a nominal argument of some other predicate
by the use of an appropriate nominalizer (e.g. Japanese no, Korean kes,
Simpson and Wu 2001). If sentential and other phrasal nominalizers convert a
full syntactic constituent into a nominal output, such nominalizers need to be
considered syntactically independent words, combining with a complement during
the syntactic derivation of a sentence, much in the way that determiners,
complementizers and other similar functional element are understood to be
discrete grammatical words rather than parts of other words (i.e. bound morphemes).
Other nominalizers, however, may appear to be affixes attached to word-level
elements such as verbs, adjectives etc, rather than to verb-phrases,
adjective-phrases etc. Such nominalization may have many more of the
unpredictable properties of lexical processes (perhaps being restricted and
unproductive and giving rise to allomorphic variation), and so be assumed to be
purely morphological attachments, combining with non-nominal roots/bases
during the pre-syntactic creation of words.
(Simpson-fn01)
An example of such morphological attachment would be nominalizations
produced with English –ant, as in ‘servant, defendant’ etc.
Contents of this page
Given the very widespread nature of nominalizers in the world’s languages,
being even present in languages not considered to have morphological attachments
such as Vietnamese, it is natural to wonder whether there might be equivalents
to nominalizers functioning in the verbal domain, what might be called ‘verbalizers’,
and, if such elements exist, what they might in turn indicate about the nature
of nominalizers. In other words, if nominalizers combine with non-nominal input
to create words and constituents which can be utilized as noun(-phrase)-like
arguments, are there also functional elements which combine with non-verbal
input to create constituents which can then be embedded as verbal units?
And if not, why do such elements not exist?
Although there has been little discussion of such potential counterparts
to nominalizers in the literature, certain reflection suggests that there
are indeed verbal elements which correspond to nominalizers in their function
of converting non-verbal input to a syntactically utilizable verbal form,
and that such ‘verbalizers’ occur both as syntactically independent words
and as purely morphological attachments in a way very similar to the occurrence
of nominalizers. An example of the former lexical/morphological ‘verbalization’
would be the application of affixes such as English ‘-ize’
to adjectival input to form new verbs, e.g. ‘grammatical’ – ‘grammaticalize’.
Examples of ‘syntactic’ verbalizers can be given in two quite common types.
A first, cross-linguistically well attested type is the class of ‘light verbs’
such as (prototypically) ‘make’ or ‘do’, which are used to combine with nominal input
to produce verbal forms, as, for example, in Hindi kaam karna
‘work do = to work’, or Japanese benkyoo suru ‘studying do = to study’.
A second potential candidate for consideration as a syntactic verbalizer
would be the simple occurrence of copulas, used to embed non-verbal input
and create a verbal structure that allows the application of tense and aspect,
e.g. ‘John was a great help’ = ‘John helped a lot.’
Supposing that there are indeed functional elements in the verbal domain
equivalent to nominalizers, the study of light verbs and copulas
(as well as morphological verbalizers) may be used in a comparative way to
further open up and inform our understanding of the patterning and morpho-syntax
of nominalization. A comparison of nominalizers and verbalizers also has the
potential to lead to interesting typological questions and the issue of whether
there really is the full cross-categorial equivalence that one might
pre-theoretically expect in such a domain, and if not, why full equivalence does
not exist. (Simpson-fn02)
Contents of this page
Finally, in connection with the source of the grammaticalization of nominalizers,
in certain cases (at least) it may be interesting to consider the possible connection
of nominalization with compounding in a language. It is quite plausible
that in various instances nominalizers grammaticalize from nouns which
are frequently used to create nominal compounds forming a connected class of items,
e.g. ‘–man’ in ‘doorman’, ‘chairman’, ‘tax man’ etc.
With the occurrence of bleaching of the meaning of such nouns and a concomitant extension
of the way they can be used to combine with other words in ‘compounding’,
a simple process of nominalization may well evolve. In this regard,
it is intriguing to find a correspondence between the direction of headedness
in compounds in certain languages and the linear position of nominalizers relative
to nominalized material. For example, languages such as English,
Japanese and Burmese which have right-headed compounds also have nominalizers
occurring to the right of the constituent/word nominalized, whereas languages
which have left-headed compounds, such as Thai and Vietnamese, have nominalizers
which occur to the left of the constituent/word nominalized.
If such a patterning is non-coincidental and can be found to occur consistently
in a wider sampling of languages, it may establish an interesting diachronic link
resulting from processes of grammaticalization between two types of morphological
operation regularly treated as being unrelated.
Contents of this page
Having considered some of the general issues involved in
the study of nominalization and the grammaticalization of nominalizers in a
language, we now turn to an investigation of nominalization phenomena in Burmese.
The discussion here will focus in particular on the sentential/clausal nominalizers
present in the language, as these can be shown to reveal much about
the way reanalysis applies to create complex new grammaticalized
morphemes/words, and give rise to shifts between categorical types.
(Simpson-fn03).
As briefly mentioned in the introduction, Burmese is commonly described as
having two complementary forms: Colloquial Burmese and Literary Burmese.
The latter is used orally in formal announcements, news broadcasting
and is the most common written form of Burmese, whereas the former occurs
in most spoken communication and is also sometimes found in more informal writing.
The primary and most obvious difference between the two varieties of Burmese
is in the instantiation of their functional-grammatical morphemes,
including the elements employed as nominalizers, and it is here
that a comparison of patterns in Colloquial and Literary Burmese is often interesting.
(Simpson-fn04)
The present examination of nominalization in Burmese will begin with
patterns in Literary Burmese in section 3.1 and then move on to Colloquial
Burmese in 3.2
Contents of this page
UKT: Pronunciation:
{thæÑ} IPA [ði] pronunciation similar to English <the>
{mæÑ} IPA [mji]
In Literary Burmese, the morpheme thii
{thæÑ} occurs in clause-final position, both in main clauses
(as a sentence-final morpheme), and when clauses are embedded
as arguments of other predicates:
(8)
U-Win-Win manee-ga yauq-laa thii
U-Win-Win yesterday-PAST arrive-come THII
‘U Win Win arrived yesterday.’
UKT (08):
{U:wing:wing: ma.né.ka. rauk-la-thæÑ}
When thii
{thæÑ}
is used to embed clauses as the arguments of a predicate, it is naturally
accompanied by a case-marker. (Simpson-fn
05). Examples (9) and (10) show this with the embedding of clauses as the
object of a verb, and (11) and (12) with the embedding of a clause in subject
position. (Simpson-fn06). It
should also be noted that the use of thii in all of (8-12) is obligatory
and clauses may not occur as the arguments of verbs without this morpheme:
(9)
canaw [U-Win-Win manee-ga yauq-laa thii]-kou caa ya thii.
I U-Win-Win yesterday-PAST arrive-come
THII ACC hear get
THII
‘I heard that U Win Win arrived yesterday.’
UKT (09):
{kya.nau [U:wing:wing: ma.né.ka. rauk-la-thæÑ] ko kra:ra. thæÑ}
(10)
hsain-shin-hmaa [hkalee-twee hseileiq hkou thii]-kou myin-ya thii
shopkeeper-NOM child-PL
cigarette steal
THII ACC see-get THII
‘The shopkeeper saw the children stealing the cigarettes.’
UKT (10) (this example by Simpson is culturally sensitive):
{hseing-rhin-mya: ka.lé:twé hsé:laip hko:thæÑ ko mring-ra. thæÑ}
(11)
[thuu bamaa-sagaa pyaw nee thii]-hmaa theiq kaun hla thii.
he Burma language speak ASP THII NOM very good INT THII
‘He speaks Burmese very well.’
(Lit. His speaking Burmese is very good).’
UKT (11):
{[thu ba.ma-sa.ka: prau:né-thæÑ] mha thaip-kaung:lha.thæÑ
(12)
[leezeiq-twin daq-poun yaiq thii]-hmaa tayaa-m-win pa.
airport-within photograp take THII NOM
not-be-legal POL
‘It is illegal to take photographs inside the airport.’
(Lit. ‘Taking photographs in the airport is illegal.’)
UKT (12) (this example by Simpson is culturally sensitive):
{lé-hsaip twing Daat-poän reik thæÑ mha ta.ra:ma.wing-pa}
Thii-suffixed clauses consequently have both the syntactic distribution
(occurring in subject/object position) and marking of nominal phrases
(nominative/accusative case). The element thii therefore
exhibits key aspects of the patterning of typical clausal nominalizers.
Thii is also found to occur in relative clause structures such as (13):
(Simpson-fn07):
(13)
canaw we thii saouq
I buy THII book
‘the/a book I bought’
UKT (13):
{kya.nau wèý-thæÑ. sa-oap}
In such an environment thii does not maintain its "mid-level tone",
but instead occurs in a high creaky tone, one of the four tones
that regularly occur on Burmese words. (See
UKT-fn02) As a suprasegmental morpheme
[UKT: IPA [ĭ] ],
such high creaky tone frequently signals Genitive case, which is otherwise
realized as a discrete morpheme ‘ye’ pronounced with high creaky tone:
(14)
canaw ye ein
I GEN house
‘my house’
UKT (14):
{kya.nau rè. aim}
Sequences such as that in (14) may in fact have two
pronunciations. If the possessor (here canaw
{kya.nau}) normally occurs with a mid-level tone, it can maintain this tone
as a Genitive-marked possessor, or it is possible for (14) to be pronounced
with high creaky tone on both ye and the possessor canaw
[
{kya.naau.}], the tone associated with Genitive case spreading leftwards from ye
[
{rè.}]
to the nominal element it marks to its left. A third
pattern commonly found is for a (normally) mid-level tone possessor to occur
pronounced with high creaky tone even in the full absence of Genitive ye
(canawcreaked ein ‘my house’
{kya.naau.aim}). The high creaky tone of Genitive ye
[ {rè.}]
can therefore become disassociated from its regular host and
simply occur marking an appropriate nominal element.
In relative clauses such as (13), clause-final creaky tone thii
{thæÑ.} is consequently most naturally analyzed as the combination
of a clausal nominalizer (mid-level tone) thii
{thæÑ}
and Genitive case, so that relative clauses in Burmese are instances of the
modification of a noun by a nominalized clause, linked via Genitive case.
(Simpson-fn08).
UKT: Since
{kya.naau.} is already showing possession, inclusion of
{rè.}
(which also show possession) is redundant, and the following sentence is not right.
* 
{kya.naau. rè. aim} -- incorrect sentence
This position is supported by U Tun Tint of MLC (Myanmar
Language Commission -- personal communication 080623).
If we now consider what the source of the nominalizer thii
{thæÑ} might be, it can be observed that mid-level tone thii
{thæÑ}
occurs elsewhere in Literary Burmese, regularly functioning as a pre-nominal
demonstrative :
(15)
thii saaouq
this book
‘this book’
UKT (15):
{thæÑ sa-oap}.
There are two ways in which this can appear: in formal writing
{I-sa-oap}, and in casual speech
{di-sa-oap}.
Simpson's (15) is not strictly correct: it should be written as
{I-sa-oap}.
(I am waiting response from my peers.)
Assuming this demonstrative element to be the most likely
source of the nominalizer thii then suggests that clausal nominalizations
in Literary Burmese have an internal structure such as that in (5) (parametrized
in a head-final way), representing the combination of a D(eterminer)-type
element with a clause to produce a DP nominal projection.
(Simpson-fn09).
Interestingly, mid-level thii
{thæÑ} also
occurs in a third, rather different function in Literary Burmese, as a common
instantiation of Nominative case marking a subject. Example (16) thus shows
four different uses of thii: as a demonstrative, Nominative case,
linking a relative clause to a following nominal (with creaky tone),
and in simple (non-relativized) clause-final position
(Simpson-fn10).
(16)
thii pyiqsii-myaa-thii
Daw-Hla-Mee htaa hke thii-myaa hpiq pa thii
this thing-PL-NOM
Daw-Hla-Mee put ASP NZR-PL
be POL NZR
‘These are the things that Daw Hla Mee left behind.'
(Simpson-fn11).
UKT (16):
-- objectionable
{thæÑ pic~sæÑ:mya:thæÑ dau-lha.mé hta:hkè.thæÑ-mya: hpric-pa-thæÑ}
UKT (16a)
-- acceptable
{I pic~sæÑ:mya:thæÑ dau-lha.mé hta:hkè.thæÑ-mya: hpric-pa-thæÑ}
Assuming a demonstrative source of nominalizer thii to be plausible and likely,
the grammaticalization of thii in its nominalizer function brings with it
a further question relating to word order. As demonstrative thii occurs
preceding the nominal complement it combines with, why might it be positioned
following a clausal complement when nominalizing the latter? Although no
definitive answer can be provided in the absence of data on the early
development of nominalizing thii, two speculations can be offered here.
First, as Burmese is a head-final language, and thii as a
demonstrative is likely to be positioned in a phrase-initial specifier position
(SpecDP), when such an element grammaticalized as a nominalizer, it can be
hypothesized that it came to occupy the head-position of its (DP) phrase in an
occurrence of the Spec-head reduction process argued to frequently characterize
instances of phrasal grammaticalization (see Simpson & Wu 2002a and van Gelderen
2004). Given the linear organization of (elements in) specifier and phrasal head
positions in a head-final, specifier-initial language such as Burmese, Spec-head
reduction and grammaticalization would be expected to relocate a demonstrative
from a phrase-initial specifier position to a phrase-final head-position, and so
result in nominalizer thii coming to follow its clausal complement.
A second possibility might be to hypothesize that thii
came to be used as a demonstrative in a resumptive position following a
clausal subject, as occurs in certain Indic languages, and schematized in (18):
(18)
[John likes Mary]i, thisi is true.
‘It is true that John likes Mary/That John likes Mary is true.
Such a linear sequence might then lead to grammaticalization of
the demonstrative as a nominalizer following the clause it introduces:
(19)
[[John likes Mary]-this] is true.
In addition to the question of the linear order of thii
relative to its complement clause, an interesting complication for the analysis
of thii and both its synchronic status and grammaticalization comes from
the fact that thii is actually not just a simplex nominalizer
derived from a demonstrative, but also encodes realis mood, being used to
combine with clauses that represent past or present actions, states and habits.
Where future actions and hypothetical situations are referred to, a fully
parallel set of nominalized constructions are built with the nominalizer mii,
which differs from thii only in encoding irrealis mood
(i.e. non-realized actions/states)
(Simpson-fn12).
This is illustrated in (20) and (21) with clauses in subject position and
Nominative case, and in (22) with an Accusative-marked clause
in object position:
(20)
[than shi mii]-hmaa-le ahman hpyiq ii.
lice be NZRIRR-NOM-too
true be II
‘That there will be lice too is true.’
(Okell and Allott 2001:158)
UKT (20) (this example by Simpson is culturally sensitive):
{than: rhi.mæÑ mha-læÑ: a.mhan-hpric-thæÑ}
(21)
[thati pyu ya mii]-hmaa htaransitsataa-amyouasaa-pin hpyiq thii
attention do must NZRIRR-NOM
transistor-type-EMPH
be NZR REAL
‘What we will have to pay attention to is the transistor type.’
(Okell and Allott 2001:158)
UKT (21):
{tha.ti.pru. ra.mæÑ-mha tran-sic-sa-ta a.myo:a.sa:ping hpric-thæÑ}
(22)
[naneq ngaa naayii khan shi mii]-kou
aloulou-hman-mi thii.
morning 5 o’clock about be NZRIRR-ACC
estimate NZL REAL
‘(He) estimated that it must be about 5 o’clock.’
(Adapted from Okell and Allott 2001:158)
UKT (22):
{nän-nak nga:na-ri hkan. rhi. mæÑ ko a.lo-lo mhan:mi.thæÑ}
Example (23) shows the occurrence of irrealis mii in
sentence-final position, paralleling thii in example (8), and (24) shows
its occurrence embedding a relative clause. As with thii when it links a
relative clause to a noun, mii carries a high creaked tone in (24)
corresponding to Genitive case, and is elsewhere pronounced with mid-level tone.
(23)
maneqhpan pyan laa mii
tomorrow
return come NZLIRR
‘He will come back tomorrow.’
UKT (23):
{ma.nak-hpan pran-la mæÑ
(24)
[thuu yuu laa mii] pyiqsii-myaa
he take come NZLIRR.GEN thing-PL
‘the things he will bring’
UKT:
{thu yu-la-mæÑ. pic~sæÑ:mya:
A further interesting parallel in morpho-syntactic
patterning between thii and mii is that mii also occurs in
a pre-nominal interrogative specifier function, which corresponds closely
to the demonstrative function of thii, differing essentially in the
hypothetical irrealis-type property of mii: whereas demonstrative thii
is realis in picking out a referent with definite reference, interrogative
mii is used for hypothetical reference in questioning the reference of a noun:
(25)
mii-thuu
which-person/one
‘who’
UKT:
{mæÑ-thu}
The clausal nominalizers thii and mii in
Literary Burmese are therefore complex elements incorporating two
parts/functions:
(a) an ir/realis component: th-/m-
/
{tha./ma.}
(b) a nominalizer component, the common/shared vowel coda: -ii
{ÆÑ}
UKT: It is interesting to note that the word for <visitor>
{ÆÑ.thæÑ} (guest --MEDict625) is pronounced
{è.thèý}. However, the vowel
{ÆÑ}
which according to Simpson is the nominalizer in the words
{thæÑ} and
{mæÑ} is pronounced
{i}.
Of further potential relevance here is the observation that
in addition to pre-nominal demonstrative/interrogative thii and mii,
Literary Burmese also contains a simplex demonstrative element unspecified for
ir/realis distinctions whose form corresponds exactly to the nominalizing
component ii in thii and mii:
(26)
ii saaouq
this book
UKT:
{I-sa-oap}
In casual speech and writing, this can become
{di-sa-oap}.
Quite possibly then, the complex demonstrative-nominalizers
thii and mii are grammaticalizations of the combination of ir/realis
together with this simplex demonstrative ii, and the creaky tone nominalizers
occurring in relative clauses will in turn be composed of three distinct components
(Simpson-fn13):
ir/realis + demonstrative-nominalizer + genitive case
th/m + ii + creaky tone
UKT:
th-/m-
/
{tha./ma.} +
{ÆÑ} +
(
{wuc-sa.}
- or "dot below")
Contents of this page
Turning now to patterns in Colloquial Burmese, here it is found that there
are elements which occur in the same clause/sentence-final and relative clause
positions positions as the nominalizers thii and mii in Literary
Burmese. Similar to Literary Burmese, the linking elements in relative clause
structures carry a creaky tone. Also parallel to the situation in Literary
Burmese, there are two sets of elements which occur in these positions, one set
encoding realis mood and the other irrealis:
(27)
realis clause/S-final: te
realis relative clause linker: te+creak
irrealis clause/S-final: me
irrealis relative clause linker: me+creak a
UKT:
{tèý}
{tè.}
{mèý}
{mè.}
Examples (28) – (32) illustrate the use of these morphemes
in clause-final, sentence-final and relative clause environments:
(28)
thuu maneqphan laa me htin te
he
tomorrow come ME think
TE
‘I think he will come tomorrow.’
UKT:
{thu nak-hpan la-mèý hting-tèý}
(29)
thuu manee-ka saaouq we te
he yesterday
book buy TE
‘He bought a book yesterday.’
UKT:
{thu ma.né.ka. sa-oap wèý-tèý}
(30)
thuu manee-ka we
te+creak saaouq
he yesterday
buy TE book
‘the book he bought yesterday’
UKT:
{thu ma.né.ka. wèý-tè. sa-oap}
(31)
thuu maneqphan thamain-saaouq we me
he
tomorrow
history-book buy ME
‘He will buy a history book tomorrow.’
UKT:
{thu ma.nak-hpan tha.meing:sa-oap wèý-mèý
(32)
thuu maneqphan we me+creak thamain-saaouq
he
tomorrow buy ME
history-book
‘the history book he will buy tomorrow.’
UKT:
{thu ma.nak-hpan wèý.mè. sa-oap}
Such neat parallels between Literary and Colloquial Burmese
diverge however in instances where clauses occur as the clearly nominalized
arguments of verbs of perception and cognition in subject and object position in
Colloquial Burmese. In such environments, where the overt occurrence of
case-markers confirms the nominalized status of the embedded clauses, the
elements which embed clauses in Colloquial Burmese are not in fact homophonous
with the clause/sentence-final and relative clause morphemes indicated in (27),
but instead have the forms taa for realis clauses, and hmaa for
irrealis clauses. Examples (33) – (37) show the occurrence of these elements in
a range of subject, object and object of postposition and ir/realis combinations:
(33)
[thuu thoun-nayii-hmaa hote-ka htweq]-taa-kou myin-ya te
he 3 o’clock-at
hotel-from exit - TAA-ACC see-get
TE
‘(I) saw him leaving the hotel at 3 o’clock.’
UKT:
{thu thoän:na-ri mha hau-tèý-ka. htwak-ta-ko mring-ra.tèý}
(34)
[thin ne]-taa-ga hkeq-th-la?
learn ASP - TAA-NOM difficult-Q
‘And how about learning it, is it difficult?’
UKT:
{thing-né-ta-ka. hkak-tha.la:}
(35)
[thuu baa-hma m pyaw]-taa-ne apyin htweq thwaa te
he whatever not say TAA
with outside exit go TE
‘(I) left as/when he didn’t say saying anything.’
UKT:
{thu Ba-mha.ma.prau:ta-nè. a.pring htwak-thwa:tèý
(36)
[ale pyan]-hmaa-kou pyaw th-laa?
visit return HMAA ACC say Q
‘Did he say he was going to come for a visit?’
UKT:
{a.læÑ-pran mha ko prau:tha.la:}
(37)
[thuu dii-lou louq]-hmaa-ga
theiq m kaun pu, htin te
he this way do
HMAA NOM very not good not think
TE
‘I think it is not good at all that he is going to do that.’
UKT:
{thu di-lo-loap-mha-ka. thaip-ma.kaung:Bu: hting-tèý
The most plausible analysis of the elements taa and
hmaa is that they result from the collapse of te/me
together with the ‘light noun’ haa meaning ‘one/thing’ (similar to
English ‘this one/that one/the blue one’):
(38)
te + haa --> taa
me + haa --> hmaa
UKT:
{tèý} +
{ha} -->
{ta}
{mèý} +
{ha} -->
{mha}
Elsewhere in Burmese the element haa
{ha}
occurs with this meaning ‘one/thing’ and can also optionally fuse
with the demonstrative dii
{di}
resulting in the form daa
{da}.
(39)
dii haa --> daa
this one/thing this/that
UKT:
{di-ha}
--> {da}
The clause-final elements taa
{ta} and hmaa
{mha} are
also found to occur in headless relative clauses, as in (40) - (42):
(40)
[canaw hmaa]-taa-ga asein-caw
pa
I order-TAA-NOM
vegetable-fried POL
‘What I ordered was fried vegetables.’
(lit. ‘the one/thing I ordered..’)
UKT:
{kya.nau mha ta ka. a.sain:kyau pa}
(41)
[thuu Yangoun-hmaa we]-hmaa-ga seqbein pa
he Yangoun-in
buy HMAA-NOM bicycle POL
‘What/the thing he is going to buy in Rangoon is a bicycle.’
UKT:
{thu ran-koan-mha wèý-mha-ka sak-bi:pa}
(42)
[canaw yee-htaa]-taa-kou thuu theiq m caiq pu
I write-ASP-TAA-ACC
he very not like not
‘What I wrote he really does not like.’
UKT:
{kya.nau ré:hta:ta-ko thu thaip ma.kraik-Bu:}
In such environments taa and hmaa here again
arguably result from the collapse of te/me and the dummy/light noun haa
{ha},
resulting in a complex fused morpheme with the meaning ‘the one/thing that….’.
Finally, taa and hmaa are additionally found in alternation
with te and me in sentence-final position, as in examples (43) and (44).
In such instances, the use of taa/hmaa rather than te/me
results in a clear difference in meaning from te/meand a cleft-like interpretation
with focus on one part of the sentence as new information set off against a presupposed background
(similar to the Chinese shi-de construction and Japanese no-desu forms,
see Simpson 2003a, Simpson and Wu 2002b).
(43)
canaw zee-hmaa we taa
I market-in buy TAA
‘I bought it in the market./Its in the market that I bought it.’
UKT:
{kya.nau Zé: mha wèý ta}
(44)
thuu maneqphan yauq hmaa
he tomorrow arrive HMAA
‘He will arrive tomorrow. / Its tomorrow that he will arrive.’
UKT:
{thu ma.nak-hpan rauk mha}
From such a distribution and patterning, one can hypothesize
a likely three-step route of grammaticalization and development
of taa and hmaa from te and me. From an earlier
stage in which te/me occurred in all clause-final (including relative
clause-final) positions, similar to the distribution of Literary Burmese thii/mii,
it can be supposed that the combination of te and me with haa
‘one’ in headless relative clauses resulted in two collapsed/fused relative
clause nominalizers taa and hmaa. Where such taa/hmaa-final
relative clauses might have occurred as the natural object of a copula in a main
clause (e.g. ‘This is the one/thing I bought yesterday.’), significantly this
would then have resulted in taa/hmaa occurring in sentence-final
position, as copulas are regularly null in Colloquial Burmese. Finally, from
such occurrence as (relative) clausal nominalizers in sentence-final position,
it can be hypothesized that taa/hmaa may have allowed for an expansion of
use as clause-final nominalizers in clauses which were not only sentence-final
but alternatively embedded as the clausal arguments of verbs of perception and
cognition (and as also subjects of one-place predicates such as ‘(to be)
easy/difficult/interesting’ etc).
If the above can be assumed to be a reasonable path of development for
taa and hmaa as general clausal nominalizers not just restricted
to relative clauses, this now raises an important question about the synchronic status
of te and me. If te and me are
the original clause-final morphemes in Colloquial Burmese
(and partial inputs to the later creation of taa and hmaa),
and equivalents to Literary Burmese thii and mii, as seems most
likely, and if the latter elements thii/mii in Literary Burmese can be
shown to be nominalizers, a fairly natural conclusion is that te and
me may have shared this function as nominalizers too, at least in their
earlier stages of development. Such an assumption is supported by the
observation that a Genitive case creaky tone is present with te and me
in their occurrence as clause-final elements in relative clauses. If (Genitive)
case is naturally taken to be marked only on nominal constituents, then te/me-final
relative clauses must be assumed to have been nominal(ized) clauses at least
when the Genitive creak was first added to te/me. Consequently, like
Literary Burmese thii and mii, te and me can be concluded
to have had a nominalizing function when added to clauses, in addition to
expressing ir/realis mood, at least at some point in their development. The
question to be considered now is synchronically whether these elements are (still)
nominalizers in the way that their frequent Literary Burmese equivalents thii
and mii can be shown to be.
UKT: What Simpson has meant by "Genitive case creaky tone" is understood
to be "Possessive case pronounced similar to pitch-register #1 of spoken Burmese.
The "creaky tone" has an extra-short duration (IPA [ă]).
See Modal voice in The Human Voice by UKT
http://www.tuninst.net/Romabama/Human-Voice/HV4/hv4.htm#Modal-voice 080627
The answer here would seem to be clearly and interestingly ‘no’.
If simple tests for the nominal status of te/me-marked
clauses are employed, it is found that te and me do not in fact
show signs of nominalizing the clauses they are combined with. First of all, it
is found that case-markers cannot occur on clauses ending in te/me,
unlike clauses ending in the clear nominalizers taa and hmaa
(compare (45) and (46) with earlier (33), (34), (36) and (37)).
(45)
[U-Win-Win manee-ga yauq te](*-kou) pyaw te
U-Win-Win yesterday arrive TE ACC say
TE
‘(He) said that U Win Win arrived yesterday.'
UKT:
{U:wing:wing: ma.nak-ka. rauk tèý (-ko) prau:tèý}
(46)
[canaw maneqhpan thwaa me](*-kou) htin te
I tomorrow
go ME ACC
think TE
'I think I'll go tomorrow.'
(Simpson-fn14).
UKT:
{kya.nau ma.nak-hpan thwa: mèý ko htin tèý
Second, postpositions such as ne ‘with’
{nè.}
can only occur with clearly nominalized clauses ending in either taa
or hmaa and not te /me :
(47)
sagaa sa pyaw laa
taa/*te ne ta-pain-neq,…
word begin say come TAA/TE with at-the-same-time
‘At the same time that he began speaking,…’
UKT:
{sa.ka: sa. prau:la-ta nè. ta.preing-nak ... }
* 
* {sa.ka: sa. prau:la-tèý nè. ta.preing-nak ... }
Third, other category-sensitive patterns involving elements
introducing rationale clauses similarly indicate that while taa and
hmaa do create nominal categories, te and me do not.
Specifically, the Burmese words mouq and caun (meaning ‘because’)
{kaung.}
are elements which only allow for combination with nominal/noun phrases, and are
found to naturally occur with taa/hmaa-final (nominalized) clauses
but may not occur with te/me-final clauses, indicating clearly
that the latter elements (synchronically) do not nominalize the clauses they
combine with (Simpson-fn15).
(48)
[clause + taa/hmaa]-mouq/caun ‘because of [clause]’
*[clause + te/me]-mouq/caun ‘because of [clause]’
(49)
ngwee lou taa/*te caun,..
money need TAA/TE because
‘Because he needed money,…’
UKT:
/
{ngwé lo-ta-kraung. ... } / {ngwé lo-tèý-kraung. ... }
(50)
maneqhpan ethe-twee laa hmaa/*me mouq,..
tomorrow guest-PL come HMAA/ME
because,..
‘Because there are guests coming tomorrow,..’
UKT:
{ma.nak-hpan ÆÑ.thæÑ-twé la-mha / (la-m
UKT note: <visitor>
{ÆÑ.thæÑ} (guest --MEDict625) is pronounced
{è.thèý}.
The conclusion to result from the above is that the elements te and me
in modern Burmese do not create nominal categories and therefore synchronically
are not nominalizers. As the available evidence and patterns surveyed from elsewhere
in the language and connected with te/me clearly suggests that te/me
were at one time part of a nominalizer paradigm similar to Literary Burmese
thii and mii, it would seem that Colloquial Burmese te and
me can be seen as cases of nominalizers that have undergone a further
development in their path of grammaticalization, significantly losing any
nominal-related categorical specification that would support case-marking and
other properties of nominal(ized) constituents, and undergoing reanalysis as
grammatical markers more strictly associated with verbal syntax and the
representation of ir/realis mood. If it is supposed that nominal syntactic
patterns (such as case-marking) result from the presence of a DP (section 2.1),
or some other lower constituent such as a NumP, ClP or NP which might project a
DP level of structure, the loss of expected nominal syntactic patterns can be
interpreted as a reanalysis in syntactic category and the change in the
categorial identity of an element from one associated with nouns – D, Num, Cl or
N – to one associated with verbs, such as T(ense), Asp(ect), Mood, or
C(omplementizer). In the case of main clause te and me, it might
seem reasonable that their categorical identity is now strictly Mood and hence
that their hypothesized reanalysis would be from an occurrence and function as a
D-type nominalizer to a plain Mood marker combined with verbs – an instance of
cross-categorial re-grammaticalization from one major functional domain to
another (‘lateral re-grammaticalization’ Simpson 2003a)
(Simpson-fn16).
A further conclusion following from the above is that if
te /me are no longer nominalizers in Burmese, then the occurrences of
te and me with creaky tone in relative clauses can no longer
synchronically be the combination of a nominalizer with Genitive case.
(Simpson-fn17).
Here again it would seem that categorial reanalysis must have applied converting
a nominalizing morpheme + Genitive case into a new, composite form that is (a)
non-nominal/not a category which projects a nominal constituent, and (b)
specified for occurrence with verbs and their projections in the environment of
relative clauses. If the occurrence of creaky tone on te and me in
relative clauses suggests that te and me in relative clauses are
not identical to te and me elsewhere in clause-final position
(hypothesized to be instantiations of just Mood), then the dedicated embedding
function of creaked te and me in relative clauses can be suggested
to represent a reanalysis of te and me as new (relative clause)
Complementizer elements, formally of type C and so distinct from pure Mood te
and me, though carrying a specification for ir/realis mood in a way that
recalls the complex occurrence of subject agreement on Complementizers in
languages such as Flemish and Bavarian German (Fuss 2005)
(Simpson-fn18).
The syntactic patterning observed with
Colloquial Burmese te and me and the way this is distinguished
from the nominalizer forms thii and mii in Literary Burmese
therefore leads to the hypothesis that a pair of erstwhile nominalizers have
undergone a further, important reanalysis as elements lacking nominal
specifications, and have come to instantiate new verb-related categories.
Generally, then, it can be argued that the grammaticalization of elements as
nominalizers does not necessarily represent a final stage of functional
development and that nominalizers may in fact develop further into verb-related
grammatical categories with formally different syntactic properties. To the
extent that the distinction between clause-final te/me and relative
clause embedding creaked te/me seems to require the assumption of a
categorial identity for the latter that is formally different from the former,
the paradigms examined here also provide support for the existence of a special
C(omplementizer) category. Such a category has often been assumed for elements
such as English ‘that’, taken to be reanalyzed as a C(omplementizer) from an
earlier source as a D(emonstrative), but clear evidence in English for such a
categorical switch/reanalysis is not easy to identify. The patterns examined
here in Burmese helpfully seem to suggest that the occurrence of D-to-C re-grammaticalization
and the occurrence of a formally distinct category C is indeed quite plausible.
Contents of this page
This study of Burmese has attempted to explore and highlight a number of properties
of nominalization and its grammaticalization which we can now summarize in brief here.
In section 2.1 issues of the sources of nominalizers were discussed and it was suggested
that nominalizers may in fact arise from a variety of sources, including elements
of type D, Cl, Num and N. In the course of the investigation of Literary Burmese
in section 3, evidence was then presented indicating that clausal/sentential
nominalizers in Burmese may be sourced from demonstratives of category D which
have also grammaticalized a modal feature encoding ir/realis distinctions.
Section 2 also emphasized the need for specific morpho-syntactic evidence when
attempting to classify elements as nominalizers and noted that the term
nominalizer may sometimes be used without clear confirmation of the nominalizer
status of an element. In section 3 it was then argued that while certain
morphemes in Burmese can be concluded to be nominalizers, other elements with a
superficially similar distribution have in fact undergone reanalysis as elements
of a different categorial type and no longer function as nominalizers in the
language. Considering the syntactic realization of relative clauses in Burmese,
it was shown that at least two functional morphemes are (historically) involved
in the linking of a relative clause to a noun(-phrase): (a) a nominalizer, and
(b) Genitive case. This raises an important question about the identity of
linking morphemes in other similar languages (such as, for example, Chinese)
where just a single element links a relative clause to a head-noun – are such
elements nominalizers or occurrences of Genitive case, or possibly even a
grammaticalized composite of both? The examination of Burmese finally also
showed how nominalization structures are potentially unstable and may arguably
undergo reanalysis as purely verb-related forms, with nominalizers being
absorbed into the functional system projected in a clause. Considerably rich in
the information provided by its two systems of functional elements in the
colloquial and literary forms of the language, Burmese consequently offers an
interesting perspective on variation in processes of grammaticalization and the
reanalysis of grammaticalized morphemes in new directions.
Contents of this page
Simpson-fn01.
It is also possible that certain nominalizers attached to word-level elements
might be syntactic attachments, combining with a word-level constituent within
a syntactic structure, perhaps via cliticisation or some form of (syntactic)
head-movement. Various approaches to English nominalizing –ing assume
such an analysis (and Lotha (Tibeto-Burman) a - would be
another candidate for a similar treatment, see Herring 1991).
Go back
Simpson-fn01b
Simpson-fn02.
For example, while it may seem that nominalizers grammaticalize
from a range of functional elements commonly associated with nouns
– demonstratives, classifiers, numerals – it is not obvious that verbalizers
are derived from higher functional elements associated with verbs,
such as tense, aspect and mood morphemes, and the main source of
verbalizers would seem to be verbs. Why this asymmetry between the source of
nominalizers and verbalizers exists is not immediately clear.
Go back
Simpson-fn02b
Simpson-fn03.
In addition to the clausal/sentential nominalizers discussed in this work,
Burmese also has a wide range of other nominalizers, many of which combine
with sub-clausal constitutents. For simple reasons of space and focus, no attempt
to describe these will be attempted here (see Okell 1969, Okell and Allott 2001,
and Hopple 2003 for much useful information and a comprehensive listing of
all putative nominalizers in Burmese).
Go back
Simpson-fn03b
Simpson-fn04.
A highly significant proportion of non-grammatical vocabulary
is shared by Colloquial and Literary Burmese, though the latter
also has available certain variant forms (frequently multi-syllabic)
which are often made use of in writing (see Okell 1969, and Saw Tun 2005).
Go back
Simpson-fn04b
Simpson-fn05.
The case-marking of nominal arguments is generally optional in Burmese,
though heavily preferred in certain instances, both as parsing aids
and sometimes also to signal contrastive emphasis, as in Korean (Schhtze 2001).
Informants indicate that the use of case-particles with thii-embedded
clauses is much preferred. For further discussion of factors triggering the use
of case-marking particles in Burmese see Kassevitch (2005).
Go back
Simpson-fn05b
Simpson-fn06.
ACC = Accusative, NOM = Nominative, ASP = Aspect, POL = Politeness marker.
Go back
Simpson-fn06b
Simpson-fn07.
In addition to thii, Literary Burmese also makes use of a
morpheme thaw as an alternative linking element in relative clauses.
This element is particularly frequent with intransitive predicates and adjectives
(see Okell 1969 and Hopple 2003 for further discussion of thaw).
Go back
Simpson-fn07b
Simpson-fn08.
Such an analysis is well-supported by the occurrence of Genitive case
with putative nominalizations in many instances of relative-clause marking/linking
in Tibeto-Burman languages (see, for example, Noonan 1997, Thurgood and LaPolla 2003).
Go back
Simpson-fn08b
Simpson-fn09.
See also Herring (1991) for evidence from other languages that clausal nominalizers
may be sourced from demonstratives in Tibeto-Burman languages.
Go back
Simpson-fn09b
Simpson-fn10.
A teasing question is how the Nominative case marker thii
might be linked to and possibly derived from the demonstrative element thii.
One possibility here may be to consider that subject noun-phrases
are more frequently definite and anaphoric in reference than objects are,
and so might attract marking with a demonstrative,
encoding a familiar, +definite referential value.
Go back
Simpson-fn10b
Simpson-fn11.
NZR = Nominalizer, ASP = Aspect, POL = Politeness particle, PL = Plural.
Go back
Simpson-fn11b
Simpson-fn12.
As well as thii and mii, Literary Burmese
has an element ii (pronounced with a high creaky tone) which occurs
as a stylistic variant of thii/mii in sentence-final position
or embedded quotations with no specification for ir/realis
(see Okell and Allott 2001:271-2, and footnote 17 below).
An example of the sentence-final use of ii occurs in example (20).
Go back
Simpson-fn12b
Simpson-fn13.
The simplex demonstrative ii is furthermore found in early Burmese inscriptions
before thii and mii are attested, supporting the feeding relation
hypothesized here with thii and mii being formed from ii
together with an encoding of ir/realis meaning. Thanks are due to a reviewer
of the chapter for drawing attention to the early occurrence of ii
in Burmese inscriptions.
Go back
Simpson-fn13b
Simpson-fn14.
Matisoff (1972) offers an example of the attachment of Accusative case -kou
{ko}
to a clause ending in te
{tèý}
(* below). However, this sentence is actually not well formed and
is rejected by native speakers of Burmese.
First of all the occurrence of negation should automatically displace
the occurrence of te as in all other negative sentences.
Secondly, -kou cannot co-occur with te in other,
non-negative environments, hence even if the negation is removed,
the sentence remains ungrammatical with -kou.
*[[hkinpya shi te m-shi te]-kou be-hne thi m-le?
you be TE not be
TE ACC how know Q
‘How will I know whether you’re there or not?’
UKT:
{hking-bya: rhi.tèý ma.rhi.tèý ko Bèý.nè. thi. ma.lè}
[UKT: The contention by Simpson that "the above sentence is actually not well
formed and is rejected by native speakers of Burmese" is debatable. As a
native speaker of Burmese myself, I can not concur with Simpson.]
Go back
Simpson-fn14b
Simpson-fn15.
This restriction of mouq and caun on the categorical status
of their complements permitting only nouns/noun-phrases would not seem to be reducible
to the meaning of mouq/caun as ‘because (of)’. Other lexical items
in Burmese with a similar meaning, such as lou ‘because’, impose fully
opposite selectional restrictions, combining only with verbal/clausal categories
and not allowing noun/nominal complements. It is significant to note that
lou does allow for combination with a clause ending in te/me,
supporting the assumption shortly put forward here that such clauses are not nominalizations.
Go back
Simpson-fn15b
Simpson-fn16.
Such a putative reanalysis here might seem to represent a simplification and
reduction of the featural specification of te/me – from being [+nominal,
+mood], by hypothesis, te /me become simply [+mood].
Go back
Simpson-fn16b
Simpson-fn17.
And indeed, creaked te and me do not allow for separation of the
Genitive case from te/me via the use of independent Genitive case-marker
(creaked) ye: *[..te/me ye], suggesting that creaked te and me
are fully fused, new forms and are not decomposable into a nominalizer and
Genitive case sub-parts. Also note that if te/me do not induce nominal
syntactic constituents (i.e. nominalize other phrases), then the creaky tone
suprasegmental that is elsewhere an indication of Genitive case cannot/can no
longer be Genitive case when present with te/me (in relative clauses), as
case-marking only marks nominal constituents. Finally, the conclusion that
Genitive case in relative clauses has been reanalysed as a part of a different
type of morpheme is supported by other cases in Burmese where Genitive
case-marking seems to have clearly undergone reanalysis. In both Colloquial and
Literary Burmese there are sentence-final morphemes which have developed from
Genitive case-markers (creaked ye in Colloquial Burmese and creaked ii
in Literary Burmese) and which now function as markers of (a) surprise in
Colloquial Burmese, and (b) the end of the sentence in an ir/realis neutral way
in Literary Burmese. Given the complementary distribution these elements have
with other markers of the category of Mood, it is most natural to see them as
reanalysed into this category and no longer performing any (Genitive) case function.
Go back
Simpson-fn17b
Simpson-fn18.
For a view on how a single morpheme might relate to two syntactic featural
specifications such as C and Mood, or Tense and Mood, see Simpson (2003a).
Go back
Simpson-fn18b
Contents of this page
UKT-fn01. At one time when I was young (I am now
an old man of 75), words which are equal to the English <at once> or
<immediately> were spelled {ta.hka-tæÑ:}. However, since about 1980, MLC
(Myanmar Language Commission) has changed the prefix
{ta.} to
{tic} to
show the numeral "one", and
{ta.hka-tæÑ:}
is now spelled
{tic-hka-tæÑ:}. (See MEDict (Myanmar-English-Dictionary by MLC) p181)). However,
I cannot accept the reason given because there is no word such as
{nhic-hka-tæÑ:}
where 
{nhic}
would show the numeral "two".
Go back UKT-fn01b
UKT-fn02.
The "mid-level tone" mentioned by Simpson is the "Modal Voice"
mentioned in The Human Voice, by UKT
http://www.tuninst.net/Romabama/Human-Voice/HV4/hv4.htm#Modal-voice 080627
The Burmese-Myanmar language is a pitch-register language : with 3 basic vowels
{a. a a:}, and vowels followed by "killed" consonants --
{a.thût}. Because of this the language is described by some as having 4 tones.
The first is a creaky register (creaky tone), and the second
a modal register or modal voice. The word
{kya.naau.} is derived from the modal and a
{wuc~sa}. Though similar in pitch-register to {a.}, it is derived from {a}
to show possession. It is a suprasegmental and is represented by IPA [ă].
To bring this out more clearly, I will rewrite (14) substituting the more polite
{kya.nau}
with more basic
{nga}:
(14a)
{nga rè. aim}
The possessive case
{ngaa.} is derived from
{nga} IPA [ŋa] and a
{wuc~sa.}
resulting in a suprasegmental IPA [ŋă].
Go back UKT-fn02b
Contents of this page
• Fuss, Eric. 2005. The Rise of Agreement: a Formal Approach to the Syntax
and Grammaticalization of Verbal Agreement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Herring, Susan. 1991. Nominalization, Relativization,
and Attribution in Lotha, Angami, and Burmese. Linguistics of the
Tibeto-Burman Area, 14:55-72
• Hopple, Paulette M. 2003. The Structure of Nominalization in Burmese.
Ph.D. diss, University of Texas, Arlington.
• Kassevitch, Vadim. 2005. “Syntactic and Morphological Markers in Burmese:
are they really Optional?” In Justin Watkins (ed.),
Studies in Burmese Linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics: 87-96.
• Matisoff, James. 1972. “Lahu Nominalization, Relativization, and Genitivization.”
In John Kimball (ed.), Syntax and Semantics Volume 1. Seminar Press, New York: 237-57.
• Noonan, Michael. 1997. “Versatile Nominalizations”. In Joan Bybee, John Haiman and Sandra Thompson (eds.),
Essays on Language Function and Language Type. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 373-394.
• Okell, John. 1969. A Reference Grammar of Colloquial Burmese. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
• Okell, John and Anna Allott.
2001. Burmese/Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms.
London: Curzon.
• Saw Tun. 2005. “Modern Burmese Writing: an Examination of
the Status of Colloquial Burmese.” In Justin Watkins (ed.),
Studies in Burmese Linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics: 201-220.
• Schhtze, Carson. 2001. “On Korean ‘Case stacking’:
the Varied Functions of the Particles ka and lul.”
The Linguistic Review 18:3:193-232.
• Simpson, Andrew. 2001.
“Definiteness Agreement and the Chinese DP.” Language and Linguistics 2:1:125-156.
• Simpson, Andrew. 2003a. “Empty Determiners and Nominalization
in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.” In Audrey Li and Andrew Simpson (eds.),
Functional Structure(s), Form and Interpretation: Perspectives from Asian languages.
London: CurzonRoutledge: 131-161.
• Simpson, Andrew. 2003b. “On the Status of Modifying DE
and the Structure of the Chinese DP.” In Sze-Wing Tang and Luther Liu Chen-Sheng (eds.),
On the Formal Way to Chinese Languages. Stanford: CSLI: 74-101.
• Simpson, Andrew and Zoe Wu. 2001. “The Grammaticalization of Formal Nouns
and Nominalizers in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.” In T. E. McCauley (ed.),
Language Change in East Asia. London: Curzon:250-283.
• Simpson, Andrew and Zoe Wu. 2002a. “Agreement, Shells and Focus.”
Language 78:2:287-313.
• Simpson, Andrew and Zoe Wu. 2002b. From D-to-T: Determiner Incorporation
and the Creation of Tense. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 11:2: 45-90.
• Thurgood, Graham and Randy LaPolla (eds.). 2003.
The Sino-Tibetan Languages. London: Routledge.
• van Gelderen, Elly. 2004.
Grammaticalization as Economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
[End of MS Word paper]
Contents of this page
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