A descriptive and morphosyntatic study on Kinnauri by fieldwork

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Kinnauri is one of the Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in the westmost part of the Tibeto-Burman area. The purpose of this project is to describe and analyse the Kinnauri language.I worked on a brief grammar study of the Kinnauri language, such studies concerning the phono-logical system, the verb morphology, and the case markers, during the term of the previous project. During the term of this project, I worked mainly on the verb morphology and case markers more in detail.First, I collected data concerning the morpho-semantic correspondence between intransitive and causative verbs (causative-intransitive alternation). This alternation in Kinnauri verbs is said to be collapsed, and no longer in use. In fact, however, Kinnauri has more than 20 pairs of this type of alternation according to my research.Secondly, I worked on one of the Kinnauri verb suffixes, which relates to the middle voice. In Kinnauri, the middle voice suffix -si expresses reflexive, reciprocal, plurality (collective) of an in-transitive subject, and intransitivization. This can also occur with a relativized verb and indicates either that the antecedent noun is not the subject of the relativized verb, or that it is in its plural subject, and so forth.Thirdly, I considered the reduplication of verbs and the suffix -5 for aspectual expressions. Redu-plication is used to express the resultative state of an action, and -5 to express the progressive aspect.In addition to the verb morphology, I collected data on the case markers. During this term, I found some interesting usages of case markers, such as the instrumental, and some postpositional particles having a locational or temporal meaning.Among the other parts of speech, I have started to collect data for adjectives and adverbs. It is interesting that Kinnauri adjectives seem to have noun features, unlike other Tibeto-Burman languages.