![Sample our Language & Literature journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5941/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Language-Literature.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper presents a text-based study of the construal of entities through nominal groups in Lhasa Tibetan based on a focus text selected from a local folk tale. It approaches the grammatical description of nominal group systems and structures from ideational and textual perspectives, taking as point of departure the discourse semantic systems of ideation and identification. From the perspective of ideation, nominal groups construe entities that realize items in field, which are classified or composed, with or without associated properties. From the perspective of identification, nominal groups either present or presume the identity of entities in discourse. In terms of nominal group grammatical functions, the nucleus of a Lhasa Tibetan nominal group is a Thing, which enters into multivariate structure with post-Thing functions including Classifier, Epithet, Quantity, Perspective, Deictic and Function Marking, and pre-Thing functions Qualifier and Embedding Marking. In terms of word classes realizing these functions, Lhasa Tibetan nominal groups involve nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, determiners and clitics. The description also deals with complexing and embedding.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In some grammar theories, if there is a determiner in the noun phrase, the determiner is analyzed as the head of the phrase (e.g., Chomsky (Citation1995)).
2 Note that this is the intrastratal realization as opposed to the interstratal realization mentioned above.
3 Apart from the Ü Tsang dialect, there are two other major modern Tibetan dialects, the Amdo dialect and the Khams dialect (Kong et al. Citation2011, 1).
4 The transliteration of Tibetan alphabet in this paper adopts the widely used Wylie System devised by American Tibetologist Turrell V. Wylie (1927–1984).
5 loc: postpositive marker of the locative case in traditional Tibetan grammar. The =r form is phonologically and graphologically attached to its host word (de here) because the final sound of the host word is a vowel.
6 This clause final particle pa is known as ‘nominal particle’ in traditional Tibetan grammar (e.g., Hodge Citation1993; Hahn Citation2005) but is proposed in Wang (Citation2020c) as realizing a type of declarative mood.
7 This represents the interaxial realization, the second type of intrastratal realization, in the sense that structure (syntagmatic axis) realizes systemic feature (paradigmatic axis). Thus the term realization has three related but distinct senses in SFL: interstratal, intrastral: interrank, and intrastral: interaxial (see Matthiessen, Teruya, and Lam Citation2010, 172).
8 All numbered examples from this point on follow the interlinear glossing conventions developed by the Systemic Language Modelling (SLaM) Network. The glossing rules can be found via this weblink: https://systemiclanguagemodelling.com/glossing/. Tibetan script is provided in tabled examples only, not in the running text.
9 The dot in the consonantal sequence g.y- in the transliteration indicate g as a prescript and y as the base letter, distinguished from gy- where g is the base and y is a subscript, e.g., g.yang གཡང་། ‘fortune’ vs. gyang གྱང་། ‘wall’.
10 Entity types are discussed in Hao (Citation2020).
11 Tibetan script uses a syllabic punctuation mark ་ (termed tsheg in Tibetan), which is represented as a space in transliteration.
12 Either spun or mched alone means someone born of the same parents.
13 It would be interesting to compare this to the German word structure, e.g., Schwimmbad ‘swimming pool’.
14 As word grammar is not pursued in this paper, the system focuses on classification realized by the group function Classifier and does not include classification realized through bound verbal roots.
15 For a detailed list and explanation of the notation in realization statements see Martin, Wang, and Zhu (Citation2013).
16 This realization statement is viable at this stage. It will be used again for a non-elliptical nominal group specifying an entity as the description is developed further in 5.1.
17 khre rtse is a unit of measure for length, equal to one third of a metre. It is borrowed from the Chinese word chizi. The same unit in Chinese is Chi.
18 The latter type is comparable to English nominal group structure involving the function Focus, proposed in Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter (Citation2010).
19 The second person singular pronoun khyed rang in (27) is an honorific term, whereas khyod here is a plain term.
20 The gloss for this clitic adopts the traditional Tibetan grammatical description of it as a genitive marker.
21 Ergative case marker in traditional Tibetan grammar.
22 Details regarding the realization of the Process via the verbal group are left out.
23 Instrumental case marker in traditional Tibetan grammar.
24 Topical marker in traditional Tibetan grammar.
25 Concession marker in traditional Tibetan grammar.
26 This combination of subsystems gives more privilege to the perspective from below, blocking simultaneous choices of [determining] and [perspectivising]. From above, however, the systems determination and perspectivisation open up distinct discourse semantic options.