Lamkang verb conjugation

Abstract

We lay out the conjugation patterns for declarative affirmatives and negatives in Lamkang [lmk], a language of the South Central subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman (a.k.a. Trans-Himalayan) family. As for many languages of this family, conjugation patterns differ according to tense. This includes different patterning with respect to participant prefixes and agreement suffixes as well as stem shape. Lamkang also employs a person hierarchy: with 2nd >1st , 3rd >1st , and 3rd >2nd , an inverse marker t- is used if the verb is in the nonfuture affirmative. The verb template includes tense, negative, and copular auxiliaries which are inflected for agent except when agent is otherwise indicated. For example, in negative conjugations with an inclusive prefix, the expected PATIENT-Stem Auxiliary-AGENT pattern for the paradigm flips to AGENT-Stem Auxiliary-PATIENT. Within the clusive forms a great deal of variation exists for which prefixes are used for inclusive and exclusive. We also see variation in the use of plural markers. All this hints at a highly complex system in a state of flux.