Predicate Derivations in the Tani Languages: Root, Suffix, both or Neither?

Abstract

It is common among the more-or-less synthetic and agglutinating Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages of the Eastern Himalaya to find large sets of semantically rich predicate formatives which function to structurally expand and semantically modify the predicate stem. In example (1) from Lare Galo, a Western (Transitional) Tani language spoken in central Arunachal Pradesh, North East India, the forms in question and their nearest English translations are in bold, as they will be throughout this article. The forms in question have been accorded various labels; sometimes, the difference in nomenclature reflects different analytical decisions made by various authors - usually, in terms of whether they are viewed as lexical roots, as derivational affixes, or rather as some third (and potentially unique) formative type. At other times, the use of different labels appears to be purely conventional, and may reflect failure of some analysts to build upon the established work of previous authors. In this article, the term 'predicate derivation' is adopted to refer to the forms in question in a cross-linguistic sense. By adopting a generic label in this way, I do not mean to imply that there are in fact no substantial cross-linguistic differences to the forms in question, such as would ultimately justify the use of multiple category-labels; the fact is that we don't yet know whether this is the case. Rather, the term is meant in a relatively non-leading descriptive sense which should enable the forms in question to be provisionally referenced in the process of developing a cross-linguistic framework for their synchronic and diachronic analysis.