Tense aspect and modality in Khaling

Abstract

This thesis aims to provide brief account of tense, aspect and modality in Khaling, a Kirati language spoken in Mapya Dudhkoshi Rural Municipality, Solukhumbu, Koshi Province, Nepal. This descriptive study is mainly based on elicited data and follows Kroeger (2005) for theoretical concepts. Khaling has two tenses past and non-past tense in which past tense is overtly marked and non-past is not marked. The morpheme <-t-> stands for past tense marker which lies between the stem and agreement marker. The stem does not inflect for non-past tense, however stem is altered according to number and person. Stem alternation is more productive in Khaling. In case of second person, agreement marker <i-> appears as a prefix in the stem in both tenses. In third person singular, agreement marker is also zero marked in intransitive. Perfective, imperfective, habitual, progressive aspects remain overtly marked in both past and non-past in Khaling. A suffix <-m> denotes the perfective aspect appears after agreement marker. Imperfective, progressive and durative are identically encoded with <-toŋ> or <-to>. There is no tense morphologically marked. But, in case of habitual, past tense is morphologically marked. A morpheme <-tʰer> represents the habitual aspect. Habitual is marked between stem and tense marker. Present work explores also the modality in Khaling. Declarative, interrogative, imperative, optative mood are defined in Khaling. Among them, imperative and optative moods are remarkable in this language. Epistemic and evaluative modality are found in Khaling. Certainty is remarkable and productive in Khaling. Certainty is coded with <-ŋʌ>.