Nominalization in Himalayish Languages

Abstract

The nominalization of verbs, locative expressions, adverbial phrases, and whole clauses is a pervasive feature of Bodic languages-viz. the Bodish (Tibetic) and Himalayish (East Himalayish and Central Himalayish) branches of Tibeto-Burman. Such nominalizations are used both in subordination (as adnominals and sentential complements) and in "free-standing", finite predications. 1 In the latter function, especially, it becomes clear that nom-inalization and finiteness are not at all contrastive terms in these languages, nor does nom-inalization necessarily signal subordination. There appears to be little agreement, however, on what it is that free-standing, unembedded nominalization does signal. Indeed, judging from the literature, it is not entirely clear if we should expect that a comparative study of nominalizations across Bodic languages can produce useful generalizations at all. We may have to resign ourselves to the fact that a particular grammatical structure-nominalization-has carved out different niches in different languages, and that in the modern languages some of the functions are incompatible. That, of course, is a possibility, maybe even a probability. It is amply clear that nominalization is a multi-functional instrument and that different languages seem to favor certain functions over others. But what I hope to do here is to draw upon descriptions of numerous Bodic, and more specifically Himalayish, languages and attempt to delineate, in an integrated way, the general compass of nominalizing structures and functions in those languages. As in most comparative studies, part of the problem is that one is immediately plagued by a plethora of terminology, sometimes in describing the same phenomenon, and in other cases equivalent terms used to describe different things.