| Voice marking | Proper marker | yes | Two voice markers: rɤ- is added to verbs with a prototypical non-human patient and sɤ- when the patient is necessarily human (Jacques 2012a: 215).
The Northern Gyalrong languages, Tshobdun (...), Japhug (Jacques 2012a, 2014), and Zbu, have a pair of antipassive prefixes rɐ- and sɐ- (in Tshobdun) and rɤ-/ra- and sɤ-/sa- (in Japhug) used to indicate non-human and human indefinite patient (Jacques 2021: 435). |
| Voice marking | Lookalike marker | yes | FYI: The language has morphological noun incorporation accompanied by the denominal affix ɣɯ-.
There is a remarkable similarity in Japhug between some valency-changing prefixes on the one hand and denominal prefixes on the other hand, as illustrated (Jacques 2021: 1059).
Japhug has a few dozen complex verb stems comprising a nominal and a verbal root. Nearly all of these verbs contain a denominal prefix, and incorporation is thus analyzed in Japhug as a subtype of denominal derivation (Jacques 2021: 1059-1060). |
| Voice marking | Synthetic marker | yes | Japhug has a pair of antipassive prefixes and rɤ-/ra- and sɤ-/sa- to indicate non-human and human indefinite patient (Jacques 2021a: 435). |
| Voice marking | Analytic marker | no | |
| Flagging | S-argument flagging | no | Japhug has a simple case marking system, which presents ergative alignment: A arguments are marked with the enclitic kɯ- while S and O are left unmarked (Jacques 2012: 202). |
| Flagging | P-oblique flagging | yes | P oblique flagged:
Relator nouns are inalienably possessed nouns used to mark the grammatical relations of oblique arguments or adjuncts (Jacques 2021: 344).
A-ambitransitivity with a marked adjunct: In (37a: ‘One of them rode it.’), the agent is marked with the ergative. The patient is not overt, but the transitive a- prefix on the verb and the presence of ergative case indicate that the verb is to be interpreted as transitive: the patient is definite (it refers to a tiger mistakenly stolen by three thieves) (Jacques 2012: 219).
In (37b: ‘The boy rode on her.’), the subject ‘the boy’ does not bear ergative case, and the verb must be interpreted as intransitive (...). ‘on her’ is an adjunct and does not participate in the verb’s argument structure (Jacques 2012: 2018-219). |
| Flagging | P-oblique unflagging | yes | P oblique unflagged:
Semi-transitive labile verbs: 'A handful of intransitive verbs have an unmarked second argument, which is not indexed on the verb but is relativized in the same way as P arguments. I refer to such verbs as ‘semi-transitives’ and their second argument as ‘semi-object’ (Jacques 2019: 121). |
| Flagging | P-oblique flagging variation | no | P argument obliquely flagged: Relator nouns are inalienably possessed nouns used to mark the grammatical relations of oblique arguments or adjuncts (Jacques 2021: 344).
FYI: Labile verbs can occur with adjunct argument. The latter carries the locative case: [LOC] 'on her' (see ex. 37 in Jacques 2012a: 219). Ex. (37) shows a labile verb with the P demoted to adjunct: ‘on her’ with the locative case is an adjunct and does not participate in the verb’s argument structure (Jacques 2012: 219). |
| Indexation | S-argument indexed | yes | Intransitive verbs only index one argument (the intransitive subject S) (Jacques 2021: 17).
There is no overt third-person marker on intransitive verbs (Jacques 2021: 18). |
| Indexation | S-argument indexation conditioned | yes | Intransitive verbs only index one argument (the intransitive subject, S) (Jacques 2021: 17).
There is no overt third-person marker on intransitive verbs (Jacques 2021: 18). |
| P-individuation properties | P incorporated: Generic (non-specific) | yes | ‘The guys drank alcohol.’ (Guillaumes 2021a: 433).
Table 20.20 (Guillaumes 2021b: 1071) contains examples of noun-verb incorporation with a generic reading: drink alcohol, take out dung, earn a fortune, cut firewood, etc. |
| P-individuation properties | P incorporated: Indefinite (non-specific) | yes | The incorporated noun corresponds to the object of the base verb and is indefinite and non-referential, and thus functionally close to an antipassive, particularly lexicalized ones (Jacques 2021: 948). |
| P-individuation properties | P incorporated: Referential | no | The decrease in valency caused by incorporation is similar to the effects of antipassivization. The incorporated object can never be definite (Jacques 2012: 221).
The non-compounded construction is the only one that can occur if the argument is referential or takes a determiner. (...). The incorporating verb ɣɯ-cɯ-pʰɯt ‘take out stones’; the bound nominal element cɯ- cannot be used to refer to specific stones that have been previously mentioned (Jacques 2021: 1079). |
| P-individuation properties | P oblique: Generic (non-specific) | yes | Japhug (Jacques 2019: 121)
1.
pɣɤtɕɯ mɤ-kɯ-nɯmtɕi qajɯ mɤ-aʁe
bird neg-nmlz:S/A-get.up.early worm neg-get.to.eat:fact
'Birds which do not get up early do not get to eat worms.' (proverb) |
| P-individuation properties | P oblique: Indefinite (non-specific) | no | |
| P-individuation properties | P oblique: Referential | yes | P argument obliquely flagged:
In (37a: ‘One of them rode it.’), the agent is marked with the ergative. The patient is not overt, but the transitive a- prefix on the verb and the presence of ergative case indicate that the verb is to be interpreted as transitive: the patient is definite (it refers to a tiger mistakenly stolen by three thieves) (Jacques 2012a: 219).
In (37b: ‘The boy rode on her.’), the subject ‘the boy’ does not bear ergative case, and the verb must be interpreted as intransitive (...). ‘on her’ is an adjunct and does not participate in the verb’s argument structure (Jacques 2012a: 2018-219). |
| P-individuation properties | P eliminated: Generic (non-specific) | yes | P elimination: P suppression:
The sɤ- prefix, by contrast, is mainly used to express generic human objects (Jacques 2021: 943).
The antipassive verbs are generally understood as having a generic/indefinite patient (Jacques 2021: 931). |
| P-individuation properties | P eliminated: Indefinite (non-specific) | yes | P elimination: P suppression:
The antipassive verbs (@with obligatorily unexpressed P) are generally understood as having a generic/indefinite patient (Jacques 2021: 931).
The antipassive derivations (...) are a way to express a non-referential indefinite patient, either a non-specific patient (translatable as ‘something’) or a range of possible patients (Jacques 2021: 941).
P elimination: P omission:
The majority of plain labile verbs denote actions modifying the substance or shape of a material (ɣndʑɯr ‘grind’, ɕlu ‘plough’ etc.), in particular activities related to agriculture and traditional trades. When used intransitively, these verbs do not specify any object and generally express atelic actions (Jacques 2021: 589). |
| P-individuation properties | P eliminated: Referential | yes | P elimination: P suppression:
In rarer cases, the demoted patient (@with an antipassive voice marker) is referential and semantically recoverable from the context (Jacques 2021: 942).
Similarly, in (157), the implicit patient of the verb sɤ-ndza ‘eat (someone)’ is not ‘people’ in general, but rather the group of characters present at the moment of the action with the demoness, and it is thus in fact partially referential (Jacques 2021: 942). |
| P-oblique affectedness | Less affected P-oblique | no | Japhug (Sino-Tibetan; Jacques 2012a: 218-219)
1a.
tɯ-rdoʁ nɯ kɯ tɤ-a-nɯmbrɤpɯ
one-piece det erg aor-3sg>3-ride
'One of them rode it.'
1b.
ɯ-taʁ nɯ tɕu tɤtɕɯ nɯ to-nɯmbrɤpɯ
3sg.poss-up det loc boy det evd-ride
'The boy rode on her.'
In (a), the agent is marked with the ergative. The patient is not overt, but the transitive a- prefix on the verb and the presence of ergative case indicate that the verb is to be interpreted as transitive: the patient is definite (it refers to a tiger mistakenly stolen by three thieves) (Jacques 2012a: 219).
In (b), the subject ‘the boy’ does not bear ergative case, and the verb must be interpreted as intransitive (...). ‘on her’ is an adjunct and does not participate in the verb’s argument structure (Jacques 2012a: 2018-219).
Japhug (Jacques 2019: 121)
2.
pɣɤtɕɯ mɤ-kɯ-nɯmtɕi qajɯ mɤ-aʁe
bird neg-nmlz:S/A-get.up.early worm neg-get.to.eat:fact
'Birds which do not get up early do not get to eat worms.' (proverb) |
| P-constraining properties | Animacy constraints on P-oblique demotion | n/a | |
| P-constraining properties | Person constraints on P-oblique demotion | no | |
| P-constraining properties | Number constraints on P-oblique demotion | no | |