Marking the group of participants on numerals

4.3 t ɕhoko mikku dʏn di=raŋ jøk-ken bet male man seven DEF=FOC EXIST-NMLZ;CONJ AUX gompa luŋpa-na. TE31 Gomba village-IN ‘There were only seven male persons in Gomba village.’ 4 .4 thaŋmu tɕhi luŋpa-la gem-pu sum jøk-ken bet. thangmu t ɕhi area-DAT responsibility-M1 three EXIST-NMLZ;CONJ AUX ‘There were three top level leaders in the village area of Chepuwa.’ 4.5 ɕak-pu dʏl-la tɕø-toŋ. TE6 day-M1 seven-DAT build-1PL.HORT ‘Let us build the bridge in seven days’ This last example is from a text that describes how to build a bamboo suspension bridge.

4.2 Marking the group of participants on numerals

The masculine gender marker -pu marks a group of known participants when a NP has a numeral modifier and the reference is to human or animal participants who are already on the scene. The reference may be either masculine or feminine participants. In other words, the masculine marker does not mark the gender with numerals. The feminine marker -mu is never used with numerals. The definite article di which follows the numeral further helps to identify the participants on stage. The following examples illustrate this. 4.6 rekket na ŋtsaŋ ŋii-pu di ʈhaako-tu dep-pa bet TE21 mountain.goat wife two-M1 DEF cliff-LOC stay-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘The mountain goat and its wife, the two lived on a rocky area.’ The text is a fable and the ‘couple’ has been brought to the scene in the previous sentence. 4.7 mi khajet di t ɕhoko mikku dʏm-pu di man plural DEF male man seven-M1 DEF kurik ʈhik-na phim-pa bet. TE31 all take.away-NFNT1 go.come[PST]-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘Then police took the men, those seven men, with them and went.’ In this example the reference is to seven male persons who have been on stage for a while and who were the main suspects of stealing an idol. 4.8 ni p ʏn ŋii-pu di phin phin phin-ni… TE41 sibling two-M1 DEF go.come[PST] go.come[PST] go.come[PST]-NFNT2 ‘The two siblings brother and sister went and went and went…’ Here the reference is to a sister and her brother who had to run away from home, yet the numeral is marked for masculine. They have been on stage for a while. The word p ʏn refers to brother, sister, or cousin. 4.9 p ʏn ŋikkar-la tɕhopu tɕhi-ni u-ki pʏn ŋii-p-ʏ sister both-DAT husband do;VBZR-NFNT2 that-GEN sister two-M1-GEN t ɕhopu u-ki tshaaken ŋii-pu di tshoŋ-la husband that-GEN brother-in-law two-M1 DEF trading-DAT phim-pa bet TE45 go.come[PST]-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘Since the two sisters both had a husband, the husbands of those two sisters, two brothers-in-law, went for a business trip.’ There are four characters in this story, two sisters and their husbands. In this example the first NP refers to two sisters female and the second NP to their husbands male. Both NPs have the masculine marker.

4.3 Ordinal numerals