K.V.Subbarao

Retired (Delhi University)

<kvs2811@yahoo.com>, <kvs2811@gmail.com>

Gap Relatives in Khasi with comitative PP as head

While the modification of the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, ablative, locative PP as head is permitted in gap relatives in many South Asian languages (SALs) of the four language families (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Mon-Khmer, Munda and Tibeto-Burman), the modification of the comitative PP is not permitted in most of the SALs, except in externally-headed relative clauses (EHRCs) in Khasi, Manipuri, Bodo, Mising etc. and internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs) in Tenydie, Sangtam. We argue that comitative PPs that are subcategorized arguments (Chomsky 1965) of the predicate freely permit the modification of the comitative PP. If it is not a subcategorized argument, we argue that a thematic relation has to be established between the predicate of the embedded clause and the head of the EHRC/IHRC, in terms either an overt case marker with the head, or some marker in the embedded verb to indicate accompaniment. In Khasi, we show that such thematic relationship is established by the addition of two markers, namely, the verbal reciprocal –ya, and the group activity marker laŋ ‘together’, just as in some Tibeto-Burman languages.

Khasi (Mon-Khmer)

Comitative PP with a verbal reciprocal and group activity marker

1.

ka-

khinnaʔ

[ba

u-

ban

u-

ya-

wan-

laŋ

øi]

ša-

šnɔŋ]

f,s-

child

adjr

m,s-

Ban

m,s-

vrec-

come-

together

PP

to-

village

‘The girl with whom Ban came to the village …’

We argue that it is these two markers in the embedded predicate that together provide the status of a subcategorized argument to the comitative PP as head in EHRCs.

References

Chomsky, N., 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.).

Subbarao, K.V. ms. South Asian Languages: A Syntactic Typology. Under review for publication.

Temsen, G., 2006. ‘Embedded Clauses in Khasi’, PhD thesis, Delhi University , Delhi.