A Grammar of Magar Kaike

Ambika Regmi
Tribhuvan University

This is a comprehensive description of Magar Kaike, a previously undescribed and endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken by around 1000 Magar Kaike mainly in four villages, namely, Sahartara, Tupatara, Tarakot and Belawa/Lingdu within Sahartara Village Development Committee of Dolpa District, Midwestern Development Region of Nepal.

This grammar, organized into thirteen chapters, analyzes phonological and morphosyntactic features of the language and compares them with the characteristic structural features of the Tibeto-Burman languages from the typological perspective.

Magar Kaike, a tonal and consistently ergative language, is characterized by a complex verb agreement pattern referred to as conjunct-disjunct. It exhibits case-syncretism and inclusiveexclusive distinction. In Magar Kaike, reflexive is marked morphologically. It massively uses nominalization for a number of syntactic functions. In Magar Kaike, except first person patient, the human patient is also marked by the dative case, referred to as antidative. The relative clauses are formed mainly by nominalization by employing the gap strategy. It employs reduplication for the sequential constructions. Magar Kaike uses different morphosyntactic devices for the coherence of the clauses at the multi-propositional levels. The author, PhD in linguistics, is researcher in Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSuN), Central Department of Linguistics, Tribuvan University, Nepal. She has specialized in Tibeto-Burman linguistics, language documentation and sociolinguistic survey.

ISBN 9783862884933. Languages of the World/Materials 496. 209pp. 2013.

Díʔzte

o zapoteco de San Agustín Loxicha, Oaxaca, México

Esbozo gramatical acompañado de cuatro cuentos tradicionales con análisis morfológico y traducción

Mikko Benjamin Salminen
James Cook University

Díʔzte, o zapoteco de San Agustín Loxicha, Oaxaca, México (Esbozo gramatical acompañado de cuatro cuentos tradicionales con análisis morfológico y traducción) is a grammatical description of San Agustín Loxicha Zapotec with four texts including a morpheme analysis and translation as well as links to the corresponding audio files. The description is mostly based on data collected during fieldwork by the author, and was submitted as an MA thesis at Leiden University in 2010.

San Agustín Loxicha is a Zapotec variety pertaining to the Miahuatec subdivision of the Southern Zapotec branch spoken in the Coastal region of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is a tone language with level and contour tones, suprasegmental glottalization and an intricate verb system which often marks aspect by means of fossilized prefixes or floating tone. The description, cast in the framework of Basic Linguistic Theory, draws frequent comparisons to other Zapotec languages and to Proto-Zapotec reconstructions, and it includes an introductory description of the cultural context within which the language is spoken, also introducing the belief system featuring a 9/13 day calendar system, based on the Mesoamerican ritual calendar, which is still in use in the community to the present day.

ISBN 9783862885312. Languages of the World/Materials 498. 126pp. 2014.

Mithilanchal Urdu

The Newly Discovered Dialect of Bihar

Mohammad J Warsi
Washington University in St. Louis

This is the first linguistic study of Mithilanchal Urdu, a dialect of Urdu language of Indo-Aryan family, spoken by around four million speakers in Darbhanga, Samastipur, Begusarai, Madhubani, and Muzaffarpur districts of the state of Bihar in India. It has SOV word order and it lacks script and literature. Needless to say, this work is an attempt to document this dialect so that it should contribute in the field of descriptive linguistics.The book describes the structure of expressions about Mithilanchal Urdu that include the structure of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. There are clear differences in linguistic features of Mithilanchal Urdu vis-à-vis Urdu, Maithili and Hindi. Though being a dialect of Urdu, interestingly, there is only one second person pronoun tu and lack of agentive marker -ne.

Although, being spoken in the vicinity of Hindi, Urdu and Maithili, it undoubtedly has its own linguistic features, of them, verb conjugation is remarkably unique. This grammar includes chapters on phonology, morphology, syntax, and a sample text. Consonants, vowels, diphthongs and suprasegmentals have been described in the chapter of phonology. Intonation is significantly prominent. Dental fricative is replaced by glottal stop at initial and medial positions. Inflection and derivation have been discussed in detail in the chapter of morphology. There are two numbers - singular and plural, two genders - masculine and feminine, and three cases-simple, oblique, and vocative. Case marking is postpositional. Concord is of object-verb type in perfect tense. Nouns are declined according to their endings. Pronouns are inflected for number and person. Three participles are there - present, past, and prefect. Simple, compound and complex sentences, including coordination and subordination, are analyzed in the chapter of syntax. Sample text is also given with transcription and translation

ISBN 9783862885435. Languages of the World/Materials 499. 84pp. 2014.