Tonal morphology in Sama Nubri : case marking and transitivity alternations

Abstract

This paper reports on the Tibeto-Burman language, Nubri, of the high Himalayan region of northern central Nepal. Specifically, data is presented to illustrate the use of tone to mark two morphological features in the language: the use of a H tone suffix to mark the genitive case, and the use of a H tone prefix to mark an increase in transitivity. This is the first account of these phenomena in Nubri and an analysis is presented before contextualizing the phenomena in a typological perspective.