Clause Combining in Tamang

Abstract

Tamang is one of the Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in Nepal. It is primarily spoken in the Himalayan region. Tamang population is also found in many other urban and rural areas across the country. This study is an attempt to analyze the clause combining in Tamang from formal and functional perspectives. This study is divided into four chapters, the first chapter deals with the general background of the study. The second chapter deals with subordination. The third chapter deals with coordination. The fourth chapter presents summary and conclusion of the whole work. In the second chapter, subordination is further divided into three types. They are: complement, adverbial and relative clause. Within complement clause, it is further divided into subject complement and object complement. The complement is marked by the suffix-ba. Adverbial clause is divided into temporal, locational, reasonal, conditional, concessive, infinitival, purposive and converb clause. Temporal clause is marked by ŋatsʰa, haima etc. Within temporal clause, it exhibits past time, present time and future time. Past time is marked by the suffix-dzi, present time is marked by the suffix-ma and future time is marked by the suffix-la. In locational clause, it is marked by interrogative pronoun hanaŋ. Reasonal clause is marked by the suffix-ba followed by ergative case marker-se. In conditional clause, condition is marked by the suffix-sam. Concessive is marked by the suffix-sai. In infinitival clause, infinitive is marked by the suffix-ba when it is added to the verb stem. Purposive clause is marked by the suffix-bari when it is added to the verb stem. Within converb clause, it exhibits simultaneous and sequential converb. Simultaneous converb clause is marked by the suffix-nan and sequential converb clause is marked by the suffix-si. Relative clause is marked by the suffix-ba. The suffix-ba also functions as nominalizer. The perfect participle is marked by the suffix -bala to the verb stem. In the third chapter, coordination is divided into conjunctive, disjunctive, adversative and exclusion. Conjunctive coordination is marked by anim, disjunctive coordination is marked by wa. Adversative coordination marker is tərə. Exclusion coorination marker is marked by bahek.