t ɕhi-jaa-la thøŋ-ken? TE46
great-COMP2-DAT turn.out-NMLZ;CONJ.Q ‘In what way will you become succesful?’ Or: ‘In what manner are you going to prosper?’
18.171 hi-ni hassøt u-ni mal-la da thaŋ ɕu thaŋ
this-ABL VIP that-ABL down.there-DAT arrow and bow and khur-na phim-pa bet. TE17
carry-NFNT1 go.come[PST]-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘Then he went carrying arrows and a bow.’
He was carrying all the time his weapons while he went. Time overlaps completely. This is also a good example of the manner relationship. He was fully armed while he was going.
18.10.4 Completive aspect in serial chaining
Lhomi has at least two different ways to mark completive aspect. One way is to use aspectual verb tshar ‘to fall off’. I have discussed that in section 16.4.3 on aspectual verbs.
Another way is to use the verb khur in serial construction. It is common in Lhomi that in a serial verb construction like this the lexical content of the medial verb con-verb and the main verb is shared.
The lexical medial verb is a past root to which the NFNT1 -na is attached. The aspect marking main verb khur gets all finite affixations except 1PST -pen. Lexically elsewhere this verb typically means
‘to carry something somewhere’. In this construction it marks completion of the process or activity of the medial verb. In the text I have retained the original lexical meaning for the verb khur though it only
marks completion in this construction. Consider the following examples medial verbs with completive markers are underlined.
ST1 verb 18.172 papa khim-la lok-na
khur-a bet. father house-DAT return-NFNT1 carry-NMLZ;Q AUX
‘Father returned home.’ T
1 verb 18.173 ma
ʈar dʑapa sum ʈhʏt-na khur-a bet si-kuk. TE7 car hundred three drag-NFNT1 carry-NMLZ;Q AUX say-PROG;VIS
‘People say it dragged along three hundred cars.’ This one is from a descriptive text telling about the great flooding of the Arun river. Completive
aspect here enforces the huge power of the flood waters when the dam gave in. The waters dragged the vehicles from China all the way to lowland areas in Nepal. The verb
ʈhʏt is a typical transitive verb. Just like in example 15.6 I called the verb T1, I call also this one a T1 verb with ergative marked subject
flood waters and absolutive marked object cars. I verb
18.174 we t ɕhøttɕaŋ-ki si-na khur-tuk. TE4
SCA beer[HON]-ERG get.drunk-NFNT1 carry-PRF.VIS ‘They have become totally drunk by beer.’
The speaker observes that some men in the eating party have become completely drunk. The following examples illustrate how the verb khur occasionally may be merged into a suffix
which together with the auxiliary bet marks the completive aspect. This is no longer a serial verb
construction. Both the longer form and the merged form may be used. The only difference between the
longer form and the merged form is that the latter one does not take all the markers of finite verbs; only PRF.VIS -tuk and NMLZ;Q AUX -pa bet are allowed. It seems that the merged form is convenient and
shorter to use. Whenever they have to use certain evidential markers they would use the longer serial construction with khur as the main verb. The merger of this kind never happens with the aspectual verb
tshar. I use the morpheme gloss COMPL only for the suffix -nar--nat- that marks the completive aspect in the merged form. When the resultative perfect marker -tuk follows the COMPL aspect marker, the
assimilation of r may or may not happen. The formula for this merger is as follows: V past root -na khur-a bet V past root -nar-a bet
Examples 18.175–18.177 illustrate the verbs that may use either construction. I verb
18.175 ɕiŋten di tsilik di hi-ni ɕiŋten mappu di buttock DEF bottom DEF this-ABL buttock red DEF
tham ɖaa-na khur-a bet. TE16 tightly get.stuck-NFNT1 carry-NMLZ;Q AUX
‘As for the bottom becoming red, it got stuck on the hot frying pan.’ This is from a story which tells how monkey got his red bottom. The next example is from the same
story and the merger is used in that one. 18.176 doole di tham ɖaa-nar-a bet. TE16
monkey DEF tightly get.stuck-COMPL-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘The monkey got tightly stuck onto the hot frying pan.’
Monkey’s bottom got stuck on a hot frying pan and this explains why it has a red bottom. 18.177 hassøt lhamʈø di ɕik-ni
VIP lachet DEF untie-NFNT2 mintɕuŋ ŋøruk di gaŋi ɕi-nar-a bet. TE43
mintɕung ŋøruk DEF backwards die-COMPL-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘After Mintɕung Ngøruk untied the lachet, he fell backwards and died.’
He had a fatal wound in his leg and when he untied the bandage he died of bleeding. T1 verb
18.178 hi-ni mikma ɕuŋmara di-ki ha this-ABL mikma shungmara DEF-ERG aud.impact
khoo-nar-a bet. TE17 hear-COMPL-NMLZ;Q AUX
‘It was then that Mikma Shungmara heard him coming.’ This example is from a story that tells how a man chases Mikma and finally he catches up with him
and then Mikma hears a cracking sound which indicates that his enemy is right behind him. Only the merged form is used to mark the completive aspect of a perception verb like this.
What is the difference between the aspectual verb tshar and the main verb khur in serial construction? The former seems to mark the completion of a process or activity. The latter seems to refer
to a telic event. This hypothesis still needs to be fully confirmed by some more analysis.
Table 18.5. Summary of completive aspect in serial verb constructions Con-verb
Main verb Auxiliary
Suffixes it combines with Vpast root-na
khur-a khur-soŋ
khur-tuk bet
NMLZ;Q AUX PST.VIS
PRF.VIS Vpast root-nar-a
Vpast root-nar-tuk bet
COMPL-NMLZ;Q AUX COMPL-PRF.VIS
18.10.5 Benefactive construction
