Nepali affixes in Baram
Summary
Description
Information and examples are from Dhakal (2014; 2017). Dhakal (2017) states that “Baram also make use of the object marker -lai along with the native accusative marker -gəi”, but no examples of hybrid formations were found in the literature consulted.
1 plural marker
- -həru ~ -ru ‘plural’, e.g. siŋ-həru (wood-plural) ‘firewoods’, naŋ-ru (second_person-plural) ‘you (plural)’
2 numeral classifier suffixes
- -ṭa, e.g. som-ṭa nam (three-classifier house ‘three houses’. Note that the same classifier is also borrowed from Nepali to Manange (see Nepali affixes in Manange). Both cases of affix borrowing are included here because Baram and Manange are only distantly related and the borrowing events are assumed to be independent.
- -dzəna, e.g. nis dzəәna (two/classifier) ‘two men!’
1 case suffixes
- -ko ~ -go ‘genitive’, e.g. ascãp-ko (chanp_tree-genitive) ‘of a chanp tree’, us-ko (he-genitive) ‘his’, ubaŋ-go (they-genitive) ‘their’.
1 evidential suffix
- -chə ~-cə ‘inferred evidence’, e.g. bal-i dəәlin-həәru cun-o-chә
(man-ergative/purlin-plural/put-inferred_evidential-inferred_evidential) ‘The men fixed (lit. put) the purlin (unexpectedly)’. This form is used in addition to a native marker in the same word.