The origin of vowel alternations in the Tangut verb

Guillaume Jacques (1)

1 CRLAO - Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale

Like other Qiangic languages, Tangut has a complex verbal morphology. Based on comparative data from Qiangic languages, this article attempts at reconstructing the origin of the Tangut Ablaut system. In Tangut, some verbs have two stems, whose distribution is determined by the person of the agent and the patient. Stem 2 appears when the agent is first of second person singular and the patient is third person, and stem 1 in other verbal forms. We show that there was third person patient *-w suffix in Tangut cognate with Northern Qiang, and that stem 2 are the result of the coalescence of this suffix with the verb root vowel.

Mots clés: 西夏语；羌语；嘉绒语；元音交替；人称范畴

Mots clés: Tangut; Qiang; Rgyalrong; Ablaut; agreement

Domaines: Linguistique

Guillaume Jacques. The origin of vowel alternations in the Tangut verb. Language and Linguistics, 2009, 10 (1), pp.17-27. ⟨halshs-00351738⟩