Aimée Lahaussois

An initial grammatical sketch *

Introduction

) not being well-suited to fieldwork in the villages. There are said to be 2~3000 speakers.

According to van Driem (2001: 711), the homeland of the Koyi is the Upper Dudh Kosi area, along with Khaling and Dumi, and the languages share a subgrouping: "Kohi [sic], Dumi and Khaling show shared phonological innovations ...". Koyi appears to be quite distinct from Dumi, despite rumors of mutual intelligibility (van Driem 2001: 711). There are a number of lexical similarities between the two languages (despite rather different phonological inventories), but many morphological markers are different.

Michailovsky's (MS c) initial reconstruction work on the Kiranti languages suggests that the same sound change which distinguishes Thulung from other Western and Central Kiranti languages is also found in Koyi. This sound change is *p > b, and is found in only these two languages among those which are geographically close, the reflex in Hayu, Bahing, Sunwar, Dumi and Khaling being p. The following set exemplifies the initial b in Thulung and Koyi:

'flower' Hayu , Bahing , Sunwar , Dumi , Khaling , but Thulung  and Koyi .

Clearly, Kiranti subgrouping and the position of Koyi remain to be clarified.  1 Phonology 1.1 Syllable structure (Ci) (G) V (Cf) where Ci and Cf represent initial and final consonants, and G represents glides. The class of possible glides contains only j and w. Koyi does not like clusters with lateral glides, and where they are historically attested for Kiranti languages, they are broken up in the corresponding Koyi cognates:  *kli 'feces' becomes  in Koyi (but  in Thulung)  * The research on which this paper is based was carried out under the auspices of a documentation grant from the Hans Rausing Endangered Language Documentation Project based at SOAS. The address for the digital Koyi corpus can be found in the bibliography. Gloss abbreviations are given at the end of the paper.

I am greatly indebted to the Koyi community in Kathmandu for helping me in these initial attempts at learning their language, especially Phanindra Koyu Rai, who provided most of the material in my corpus.

I would also like to thank Raja Drissi, of CNRS, for enabling the writing of this paper.

The only instance found of an initial cluster with lateral glide is kripa 'cricket' which, given its probable onomatopeic origin, should be considered exceptional. As can be seen from the table of Cf's, Koyi does not have aspirated or voiced stops syllablefinally. Where there is a voiced segment syllable-finally, this is through voicing assimilation with the following segment: /kupdika/ [kubdika] 'today plus 5 days', /lupdika/ [lubdika] 'today plus 4 days' Of these final consonants, all can occur word-finally except for t, which can only occur syllable-finally within a word.

Consonants

Vowels

Koyi has 6 distinctive vowels, as well as 3 diphthongs. The vowels are as follows:

i e a  o u

There does not appear to be distinctive vowel length. This point remains to be investigated further. For very common nouns, like nu 'nose' and nu 'name', attempts seem to be made to differentiate the two, sometimes with length. It is possible that this reflects an earlier tone distinction, which has now been lost.

Three diphthongs are found: ai  'to shout, vt' ,  'to like',  'then' i  'to tie',  'return'  'how' ui  'to boil',  'to tell',  'ash'



The diphthongs above are sparsely found in non-verbal elements, but by far the majority of attestations are in infinitive forms of verbs, reflecting the influence of an older dental final on the verb stem (Michailovsky, personal communication). In fact, ui, which might otherwise be thought of as glide w + i is instead interpreted as a diphthong to avoid losing information about the verb's base vowel. 

Glides

The glides in Koyi are j and w. Glide plus vowel combinations can occur word-initially.

2

Nominal/non-verbal morphology 2.1 Pronouns Koyi, like other Kiranti languages, has dual pronouns in addition to singular and plural, and also has an inclusive/exclusive distinction. The absolutive forms of the pronouns are given in Table 1. Also listed in the table are the contracted ergative forms which exist only for certain pronouns (1SG,2SG and 3SG), and possessive prefixes and possessive pronouns, which also only exist for a subset of the pronoun class. 1 For pronouns whose ergative and possessive forms are not found in Table 1, they are formed by using the pronoun and the ergative (-wa or -ja) or possessive (-n) markers. The contracted ergative and possessive pronouns, where they exist, are glossed '.ERG' and '.POSS' to distinguish them from the analytical forms.

2 Occasionally (always in narrative) un is found for the 3DU. This seems to be through analogy with the 1DI and the 2DU forms. The classifier system is very limited, and was presumably more complex at an earlier stage. Currently, the use of a classifier is completely generic, with no specifications according to semantic (or other) class of the counted objects. For 'one' and 'two', the forms are oko '1.CL' and spu '2.CL'. For 'three', there is a choice of -pu or -w as the classifier, -w being the generic classifier used with numbers 'three' and beyond. However, the use of the classifier is not required from 'three' on, as seen in (1).



(1)

   

three child-PLU become-3PL.PST HS 'He had three children.'

Adjectives/Color terms

There are only a few lexical adjectives. Some appear to be derived from verbs, being formed with the participial suffix -pa; they are treated as adjectives because the verbs from which they are derived are no longer found in the language. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify, as in (2) and (3). As with the adjectives above, when a copula is used for existential predication, the color term is part of the predicate unit.

(6)

   

1SG.POSS hair black be.inan-3SG.NPST 'My hair is black.' 

Case marking

Koyi has an ergative-absolutive case system, unconditioned by tense or person. All pronoun agents in a transitive structure are marked with the ergative (either in their contracted forms, given in Table 1, or marked with -wa, with allomorph -ja sometimes occurring with i-final words). This can be seen in ( 7), where the absolutive form of the pronoun is blocked. 

   3SG-ERG/*3SG rice eat.3SG.PST/eat-3SG.NPST 'He eat(s)/ate rice.' Nominals, on the other hand, are optionally marked, even when animate, as seen in ( 8) and ( 9). The ergative is however always used with nominals when it is necessary to disambiguate the grammatical roles of various nouns in a sentence, such as 'river' in the dependent clause in (10). The 'dative' -lai (borrowed from Nepali) is sometimes used to mark the direct or indirect object, although the marker is never seen in elicitation (where sentences tend to be simpler). More details are given on transitivity marking in section 4.1.2.

Other common case markers include the following: 4 This pattern is what emerges from elicitation sessions, where agent nominals optionally take the ergative marking in sentences where participant roles are straightforward. This optional marking on nominals has nothing to do with the tense of the sentence. When sentences are proposed to speakers with absolutive agent pronouns, they are judged to be ungrammatical. A corpus investigation confirms this pattern, but less clearly, presumably because of the realities of speech production, with false starts and syntax rearranged on the fly. The statistical occurrence of this optional agent nominal marking will be investigated further in the field.

Locative: -bi  (11)   which (chowk)-LOC 'What area [does he live] in?'
Ablative: -bika, -lka or -ka (where -bika is derived from the locative -bi, and -lka is presumably derived, as in many other Kiranti languages, from the word lam 'path') Genitive: , as seen below.

Possession 2.7.1 Pronominal possession

To express pronominal possession, a few possibilities exist: for certain pronouns (1SG, 2SG and 3SG; see Table 1), a speaker can use possessive prefixes, possessive pronouns, or both in combination.

There doesn't seem to be a distinction between the different ways to express pronominal possession in terms of semantic category of the possessed. With both possessive prefixes and possessive pronouns, we find inalienable as well as alienable nouns5 .

The possessive prefix has two interchangeable forms for the 1SG (a/), and one of those forms (a) is the same as the possessive prefix for 2SG and 3SG, making them indistinguishable in certain situations (see for example (16)). It seems then that the prefix indicates that some type of possession is occurring, leaving its specification to context.   The possessive prefix and possessive pronoun can also be used in combination, as in ( 20).

(20)    1SG.POSS 1POSS-behavior 'my behavior'  For other pronouns, for which there are no possessive prefixes or possessive pronouns (namely dual and plural forms), there are two ways to express a possessive. A speaker can use the relevant absolutive pronoun, with a genitive marker (), followed by the possessed noun (as in (21)). Or the speaker can simply appose the absolutive form of the pronoun and the possessed noun, with no markers (as in ( 22)). Apposition is the approach found most frequently in a corpus survey, whereas elicitation favors genitive marking.  The genitive is not used when the possessor is inanimate (although a few exceptions to this rule are found in the corpus), and possession is then expressed with a nominalized locative following the possessor, as in (24). Person/number agreement Koyi, typically of Kiranti languages, has complex paradigms of verbal endings encoding the person, number and tense of the single argument of intransitives or of two arguments (the most agent-and patient-like 6 ) for transitives.

Intransitive verb endings

The forms in 3 and4 give non-past and past transitive endings, respectively. Note that the vertical column is the Agent, the horizontal row is the Patient. Thus to conjugate a verb for a 1SG Agent and 2DU Patient in the non-past, one takes the appropriate stem (see section on verb stems below), then finds the 1SG row in the first table below, and finds the ending which appears where the 1SG row crosses the 2DU Patient column. The column with 3SG Patients is 6 For simplicity, these two arguments will be referred to throughout as the Agent and Patient. highlighted, as these are the most commonly occurring endings (as all inanimate Patients are treated as 3rd persons).

As

Stems

The basic structure of a Kiranti verb is (C)V(C), to which verb endings and other optional augmenting material (see section 3.6) are added.

Many Koyi verbs have a number of different stems, with stem alternation occurring in the stem vowel, stem final, or both. This is illustrated with the following sets of verbs, with three different stems occurring for 'to know', and three for 'to laugh'.

          know-1SG/3SG.NPST     laugh-1SG.PST              know-2PL/3SG.NPST     laugh-3SG.PST           know-3PL/3SG.PST     laugh-3SG.NPST
A look at a number of paradigms reveals that these stem patterns are not easy to sort out: they are not purely phonologically induced (as we can see from rja-di and re-di, where the same ending occurs with different stems of the same verb); nor are they purely morphosyntactically induced (there is no clear pattern of past forms having one type of stem and non-past forms having another type). We need to be able to predict which verb stem will occur where.

 Non-Past Past 1SG j   m-d j   md-ua 1DI j   m   -isi j   m   -asi 1DE j   m   -isu j   m   -asu 1PI j   m   -iki j   m   -aki 1PE j   m   -ek j   m   -ak 2SG j   m -dana j   md-una 2DU j   m    -isina j   m   -asina 2PL j   m    -ini j   m   -ani 3SG j   m -da j   md-u 3DU j   m -dasi j   md-usi 3PL j   m -dani j   md-uni
Table 5.  'to hit' (with default 3SG patient)



The data in Table 5 suggests that there is in fact a pattern, as shown by the different colored cells (each color corresponds to a stem). For  in Table 5, the basic pattern looks something like this: when the verb ending begins with a consonant, the stem is ; when the verb ending begins with a vowel, the stem is , except that sometimes it is ..These stem cases are interesting, because they always occur at the same place in the paradigm:

with past forms with 1SG, 2SG, and 3SG and 3DU and 3PL agents. These will be discussed further below. Verb endings, even though there are sometimes alternative forms (see Tables 3 and4), are stable across all verbs. As a result, we can use the notion of pre-vocalic (pre-V) and preconsonantal (pre-C) stems: this refers to the fact that a particular stem occurs in a given phonological context, which will be pre-V (if the verb ending begins with a vowel) or pre-C (if the verb ending begins with a consonant). The verb ending used will of course depend on the relevant person/number/tense combination, namely the person and number of the agent (and patient, if relevant), and the tense of verb.

Koyi has what, for our present purposes, I will consider to be three classes of verbs: intransitive, transitive and T-transitive. Intransitive and transitive verb endings pattern differently in terms of whether they are vowel-or consonant-initial (see Tables 2, 3 and4), the result being that pre-V and pre-C stems are distributed differently across the paradigms. For our intransitive and transitive verb classes, this is therefore a fairly simple distribution.

Things become more complicated when we consider the T-transitive class (this notion and term taken from Michailovsky (MS a and b)). The verb  in Table 5 is a T-transitive verb, and it is in this class of verb that stem alternation patterns move beyond the phonologicallyinduced.

T-transitive verbs are those where an extra suffix (which is dental throughout Kiranti, hence the label 'T' for the underlying dental form) appears on the verb base. Where things get interesting is that this dental suffix (which is always a d in Koyi) only surfaces at certain predictable places within the verb paradigm.

These predictable places within the paradigm correspond to specific person/number/tense combinations, which have been labelled 'direct scenarios' (Michailovksy MS a and b). These are scenarios where the Agent is higher ranked than the Patient, in a person hierarchy. As we can see from Table 5 (the dark grey cells are those that are relevant, with the extra dental suffix appearing on the stems), this corresponds to 1SG Agents acting on 3 rd -person Patients, 2SG Agents acting on 3 rd -person Patients, and any 3 rd -person Agent acting on a lower ranked 3 rd -person Patient (respecting the number hierarchy of SG>DU>PL). Thus to figure out where different stems will occur with a T-transitive verb, we need to take into account not only the phonological context provided by the endings (with pre-V and pre-C stems) but also whether the relevant person/number/combination corresponds to a direct scenario (in which case, the stem will also feature a d suffix), which we can call 'direct pre-V' stems.

Stem final alternations

Tables 6, 7 and 8 lay out the stem final alternations for intransitives, transitives, and T transitives, respectively. The tables below list the verb base final that occurs on the stem of verbs within that category, and the appropriate person/number/tense endings then determine whether stem which occurs is pre-V, pre-C or direct pre-V. The appropriate endings are then added to the stem for a "conjugated" verb.

With intransitive verbs, there are two possible stems: pre-C and pre-V. The basic patterns emerging from the charts above are the following:

• Pre-C stems: same final as the verb base • Pre-V stems: base final with, for plosives, affrication or aspiration (nasals are also sometimes affricated) • Direct pre-V stems (for T-transitives): d after the base final.

Stem vowel alternation

Some verbs show vowel alternation in their stems. Whether or not a verb has an alternating vowel in its stem seems to be related to the historical base vowel. For those verbs which do alternate, Tables 9 (for intransitive verbs) and 10 (for transitive verbs) lay out the different stem vowels, according to the ending-induced environment which triggers these alternations.

For intransitives, there are three stem possibilities: pre-C, non-past pre-V and past pre-V. Thus conjugating a Koyi verb involves determining the appropriate person/number/tense ending, using the pre-V, pre-C, direct/direct pre-V criteria of these endings to determine which stem final and stem vowel will occur in the relevant context, and then combining the whole thing.

 Pre-C Non-Past Pre-V Past Pre-V

Tense and mood

There are two basic tenses in Koyi, non-past and past. Imperative forms for 2SG, 2DU and 2PL are the same as indicative past forms for 3SG, 3DU and 3PL respectively. With transitive verbs, the forms for 2DU and 2PL agents substitute  for the  of the indicative endings.

Aspect 3.4.1 Aspectivizers

Aspect is marked in several ways. One possibility is to affix an "aspectivizer" to the stem, as is common among Kiranti languages. These affixes are more semantically complex than merely encoding aspect, but they are one of the central aspect-marking mechanisms in the language. They are clearly verbal in nature, as several of them have stem alternations like main verbs, but in most cases the verb from which they are grammaticalized is not identifiable.

There are two different ways these aspectivizers are combined with the main verb:

a) The main and "augmenting" stems can be apposed, with the verb ending following the aspectivizer stem.

( is conveyed by this aspectivizer. In the instances in which it appears, it could be removed without any loss of semantics, yet it "sounds right" to have it.

Benefactive () 'BEN' adds the notion that the action is carried out for someone's benefit:

(42)       
beer-PLU all spread-BEN-3SG/3SG.PST HS 'She had spread out all sorts of beers for him.'

Perfect

The perfect is formed by nominalizing a finite past verb (with -m) and then adding a copula:

(43)  []       1SG [frogs]
bring.down-1SG/3SG.PST-NOM be.inan-3SG.NPST 'I have brought down some frogs.'

Negation

The negative prefixes are or , used interchangeably. Other than the addition of the prefix, there are no other changes to the verb being negated.

Composite verb forms

There are several ways that non-simple verbs are formed in Koyi. One of these is by the addition of an aspectivizing stem, as seen in 3.4.1 above. The others are described below. 

Increasing valence

This can be done with a valence increasing morpheme, . The morpheme is almost certainly related to the verb  'to make'. It is used productively9 .

(44)   mouth-INSTR drink-CAUS-3DU/3SG.PST 'They made her drink with her mouth.'

Motion verbs

Some motion verbs can be combined together to convey more precise motion. They can also be combined with non-motion verbs to add a directional component to the basic verb.

Basic motion verbs

 'come'  'come/bring'  'come down/bring down'  'come up/bring up'  'go/take away'  'arrive'  'ascend'  'climb'

The combined motion verbs all involve a first verb  'to come'.

 'arrive up' (come+ascend)  'arrive down' (come+come down)/ 'bring down' (come+bring down)  'arrive up' (come +come up)

Verb+motion verb combinations

The following combinations were found in the corpus. These are clearly not lexicalized verb compounds, as the focus of the interpretation can vary from one context to the next. As described in section 2.6 on case marking, Koyi is an ergative-absolutive language. The single argument of an intransitive has no overt case marking.

There are two copulas: , for animate beings, and , for inanimate arguments.

Equational predicates do not use copulas, as in ( 56):

(56)      that woman 3SG-POSS mother 'That woman is his mother.' All other types of predication do.

Locational predication uses the locative marker and a copula, as in ( 57):

(57)    corn earth-LOC be.inan-3SG.NPST 'The corn is in the earth.' Existential predication uses a copula, as in ( 58) and ( 59 Possessive predication is expressed with a comitative case on the possessor (60), or with a possessed noun, followed by the copula ( 61

Transitive sentences

As described in 2.6 above, Koyi is an ergative language: the Agent of transitive sentences is always ergative marked, when it is a pronoun, either using an ergative pronoun, when such exists, or with ergative marker . Other nominal Agents are optionally marked.

As in other Kiranti languages (such as Thulung, see Lahaussois 2003), a single grammatical category covers the Patient in monotransitive sentences and the indirect object in ditransitives, namely the Primary Object. Primary object marking (with Nepali loan -lai, labelled DAT) is not obligatory, even for human patients. In elicitation contexts, where sentences are fairly simple,  is rarely used. In corpus examples, the use of  is much more frequent for primary object marking, possibly to disambiguate the arguments in the more complex sentences which occur in natural narrative.

( Koyi makes use of impersonal constructions, with the verb in the 3 rd person singular, for a number of experiential predication situations, such as feeling, fearing, etc. However, Koyi (unlike for example Thulung, or Nepali) does not make use of the dative to mark this experiencer. In fact, in some cases, even though the Nepali verb is borrowed directly for the predication (as in ( 68)), the experiencer remains unmarked (in Nepali, the experiencer would have been marked with ).

(

Relative clauses

There are two ways to form relative clauses:

• By nominalizing the clause with  (this works for both past and non-past clauses), as in (98). • By suffixing the non-past participle  to the root (for non-past, as in (99)) or by suffixing  (the past participle plus nominalizer) to the root (for past relatives, as in (100)).

(

  searched for wood the river brought down.' 

For

  intransitive  'go' the 2SG, 2DU and 2PL forms are as follows:  go-2SG.IMP (also go-3SG.PST)  go-2DU.IMP (also go-3DU.PST)  go-2PL.IMP (also go-3PL.PST)

(

  45)  give-bring.down-3SG/3DU.PST 'He gave [the comb] to them to bring down.' (46)  find-bring-3DU/3SG.PST 'They found and brought her there.' (47)  give-bring-3DU/3DU.PST 'They brought them the two (as a gift).' (48)  send-bring.up-3SG/3SG.PST 'She brought him up [ie. he was conveyed up]' The combinations of verbs described in (50)-(55), which were all taken from the corpus, have a resultative interpretation. With  'to eat meat' as second verb: (50)  rip-eat.meat-1SG/3SG.NPST 'I'll rip him up and eat him.' (51)  pick.up-eat.meat.3SG/3SG.PST 'He picked her up and ate her.' With  'kill' as a second verb: (52)  hit-kill.3SG/3SG.PST 'He hit him dead.' (53)  pinch.with.nails-kill-3DU/3SG.PST 'They pinched it dead.'

  ) give-3SG/3SG.NPST 'The aunt gives the child to its mother.'

.2 Possession by other nominals

	(23) 	
	dog-GEN	bone
	'the dog's bone'
	21) 	
	1DI-GEN	clan
	'our clan'
	(22)  
	1DI younger.sibling
	'our younger sibling'
	
	2.7The genitive marker -n is used to mark possession by animate beings.

  Table 2 are the endings for intransitive verbs. With open verb stems, the vowel-initial endings drop their initial vowels. 

		NPST PST
	1SG t	u
	1DI isi	asi
	1DE isu	asu
	1PI	iki	aki
	1E ek	ak
	2SG ena	ana
	2DU isina asina
	2PL ini	ani
	3SG e	a
	3DU isi	asi
	3PL ini	ani
	Table 2. Intransitive endings
	
	3.1.2. Transitive endings
	Tables

Table 4 .

 4 with intransitive endings, vowel-initial endings drop their initial vowel in open stems. Past transitive endings

	
	NP NPST 1SG	1DI 1DE	1PI 1PE	2SG 2DU 2PL 3SG	3DU	3PL
	1SG					ne	nisi	nini d	dsu	dnu
							nusi
	1DE					isu	isu	isu	isu	isu	isu
									esu
	1DI								isi	isi	isi
									esi
	1PE					ek ek	ek	ek	ek	ek
	1PI								iki	iki	iki
									eki
	2SG	tana		isina	ekna				dana	dasina dana
		tna		isuna
	2DU	tsuna		isina	ekna				isina	isina	isina
				isuna
	2PL	tnu		ekna	ekna				ini	ini	ini
	3SG 3DU	tni t tsu	si si	su su	ik ek ik ek	ea isna in ea isna in	d dsi	das das	dan das
	3PL	tsi tnu	si	su	ii ek	ea isna in	dni	dni	dan dan
					Table 3. Non-past transitive endings

Table 6 .

 6 Intransitive stem finalsIn the case of transitives, verbs can have up to three stems, corresponding to pre-V, pre-C, and direct pre-V contexts, which is occasionally distinct from pre-V.

	
	Verb-Base Final Pre-V Pre-C	Verbs (in infinitive form)
	open	Ø	Ø
	 7	/Ø	/_dentals  elsewhere
	 r l s	 r l Ø	Ø r l s	 'dry';  'come up';  'enter'  'fly';  'hide';  'finish';  'snore';  'be angry'  'run'  'smile'

 'be (anim)';  'come';  'feel';  'be good';  'be (inan.)';  'climb';  'arrive up';  'fall';  'rot';  'rot';  'laugh';  'mature';  'walk';  'regain consciousness';  'arrive'  p /p   'sleep';  'be able';  'be spicy';  'be thin';  'be nice';  'stand';  'be full'  //Ø //Ø  'reach';  'wake up';  'break';  'be sick';  'die';  'come';  'be wet';  'be separated';  'burn';  'open';  'go';  'shout'  'arrive down';  'feel like';  'act like';  'become';  'come';  'come';  'cry' m m m  'dance';  'be dizzy';  'lose';  'give off smell';  'appear'  (n)   'ascend';  'descend';  'be created';  'cook';  'escape';  'be respectful of';  'arrive up';  'lie'  'pick';  'leave';  'bring';  'like';  'bite';  'burn';  'give birth';  'tease';  'find'  'understand';  'cut cane'; , 'give birth';  'build';  'knead';  'stir';  'hang';  'put on stick';  'scoop up liquid' m m m m  'search for';  'find';  'drop';  'meet';  'forget';  'smell';  'split wood'   'drink';  'crush';  'dress someone';  'pick';  'send'  'dry clothes';  'listen';  'dig';  'press';  'steal'

Table 7 .

 7 Transitive stem finals For T-transitives, verbs have up to three stems, with the same categories as for "simple" transitives, except that the direct pre-V stem is always marked by having an extra, postfinal d (this being the definition of the T-transitive category).

	Verb-Base Final Pre-V Pre-C Direct Pre-V Verbs (in infinitive form) oen  Ø   'bring up'  p /p  d  'apply';  'be able';  'cook';  'dress';  'err';  'embrace';  'catch';  'cover';  'respect';  'err'   /Ø d/d  'find';  'stand on all fours';  'build';  'spread';  'promise'   k//Ø d/d  'feed';  'reach very high';  'know';  'bring down';  'cut';  'know'; 
	 	m  n 	 	d d	'bring down'  'hit';  'stick';  'scratch';  'bury';  'play';  'surround';  'discover'
	 r	--r	--r	--rd	none  'throw'
	l	--	--	--	none
	s	--	--	--	none
				Table 8. T-transitive stem finals

 'transfer';  'create';  'scold';  'remember';  'establish';  'respect';  'unite';  'stretch';  'stretch';  'recognize';  'sell';  'fail';  'scold'

Table 9 .

 9 Verbs (in infinitive form)     'be (anim)';  'arrive';  'come';  'feel';  'become';  'break';  'reach';  'be (inan.)';  'be good';  'come down';  'arrive down' Intransitive stem vowels For transitive verbs, there are up to four possible stems: pre-C, non-past pre-V, past pre-V and direct. Direct is defined as above, but in the case of vowel alternations, the direct scenarios in both non-past and past can trigger a different vowel.

	    	   a 	j    a 	 'fall';  'smile';  'rot';  'argue';  'laugh';  'mature';  'regain consciousness';  'walk';  'come'  'come up';  'enter'  'go';  'dance'  'dry';  'open'  'be angry';  'fly';  'be sick'
	Pre-C Non-Past Pre-V Past Pre-V Direct Verbs (in infinitive form)   j  
	i				 'take away';  'bring'; 
	o   	u   	u   	u   	'tease'  'dress someone'  'crush';  'pick';  'cut cane'  'see';  'finish'  'kill'

 'give';  'hear';  'press'   j    'place';  'eat';  'weave';  'eat';  'make'      'do';  'steal';  'dry'

Table 10 .

 10 Transitive stem vowels 

  For transitive  'carry' the imperative forms are the following.

	    	carry-2SG/3SG.IMP carry-2DU/3SG.IMP (cf kur-usi for indicative 3DU/3SG.PST) carry-2PL/3SG.IMP (cf kur-uni for indicative 3PL/3SG.PST) carry-2SG/3DU.IMP carry-2SG/3PL.IMP
	Need and obligation are marked with obligation marker  (see (25)) or the borrowed marker  (see (26)), both following an infinitive clause.
	(25) 				
	1POSS-parents	meet-PURP go-INF		OBL
	'You must go meet my parents.'
	(26) 	
	eat-INF	(OBL)
	'You must eat.'
	Ability is expressed with the verb , 'be able to', which takes an infinitive clause as
	its complement.
	(27)  				 		
	sleep-verb.filler-PROG.3SG.PST-NOM	3SG there-ABL	TOP
	  				
	3PL.ERG also carry-INF-SEQ bring-down-INF NEG-be.able-NPST.PRT
	'They were unable to carry and bring down the sleeping one.'
	(28)  	
	2DU go-INF		be.able-2DU/3SG.NPST
	'You two can go up there.'

  The main aspectivizers found in Koyi are listed in (34) through (42). Many of the terms used for the various aspectivizers are borrowed from van Driem's work on Dumi (van Driem 1993).

		End-point focus () 'FIN':
		29)   (36)       (five o'clock) become-FIN-3SG.PST-NOM 		 be.inan.3SG.PST
		hunger 'It got to be after 5 o'clock.' sway-DUR.3SG.PST
		'He swayed from hunger.'
		(30)  Continuous () 'CONT':  uncle-PLU pile.up-PROG-3PL.NPST (37)    
		'The uncles (=Maoists) are piling up [in the village].' 2SG-COM 1SG be-CONT-1SG.NPST
		'I will be with you.' [couple deciding to marry]
		b) The main and "augmenting" stem can be separated by a 'verb filler', which is a partial
		verb ending, according to the following formula: Ponent (di) 'PON', which lends a certain inevitability to the action:
		main stem-verb filler-"augmenting" stem-verb ending, (38)   
		2SG.ERG	love-PON-2SG/1SG.PST
	where the filler is the first syllable of the appropriate ending for the main verb. When the main 'You have loved me.' [and so you must now meet my parents...]
	verb ending contains a single syllable, the verb filler replicates it entirely.
		(31)   Progressive () 'PROG':   1SG.POSS father die-verb.filler-FIN-3SG.PST (39)     	 		
		'My father is dead.' boar sleep-verb.filler-PROG.3SG.PST-NOM	meet-3SG/3SG.PST
		(32)  'He encountered a sleeping boar.'  			
		water-LOC play-verb.filler-DUR-3SG.PST.refl-NOM HS Perseverative () 'PER', when an action is maintained:
		'He was playing in the water.' (40)     (33)   take.shelter-PER-1SG.PST NEG-be.good-3SG.PST
		that 'I continued to take shelter, but it was no use.' give-verb.filler-DEF-1SG/3SG.NPST
		'I will give it to him.'
		Generic aspect marker (a/a/e) 'ASP':
		(41)  	 
		Definitive () 'DEF', signifying that an action is definitively over: mother go-ASP-3SG.PST HS
		(34)  'Mother left.'				
	(nephew) It is unclear what specifically kill-DEF.3SG/3SG.PST	HS
		'[The water] killed the nephew off.'
		Durative () 'DUR':
		(35) 				
		1SG TOP sleep-DUR-1SG.PST HS
		'I was sleeping.'
	

  Phasal predicates are often expressed through aspectivizers, morphemes that are combined with verbs to lend them aspectual and phasal characteristics. However, some examples of phasal complements are found in the corpus with the complement clause in the infinitive. Purpose is expressed by a dependent clause, with a suffix  on the verb. The vast majority of purpose clauses in the corpus are found with motion verbs in the main clause (81).The other regularly occurring main verb with purpose clauses was  'to feel', as in (82), as this is how Koyi expresses the notion of 'to feel like X-ing'. The agreement on the verb 'to feel' is impersonal, as discussed in 4.1.3. There are several ways to express reason. The morpheme  can be suffixed to a finite verb to form the dependent reason clause. The reason clause can come either before (86) or after (87) the main clause. There are three main markers used to indicate temporal relationships between clauses.The suffix  'TEMP' indicates simultaneity of actions, and is suffixed to the verb in a finite clause.The suffix  'SEQ', used to mark sequential actions, is suffixed to the verb in a finite clause. The marked clause describes the action which occurs first, the unmarked clause (which follows syntactically) the event which follows temporally. The suffix  'SEQ' is used with nominalized verb forms, and appears to highlight the conclusion of one event before the next is begun. It can often be translated with a perfect verb.

	4.2.1.3 	(73)  Phasals (84)      'When those dogs, having encountered a boar and chased him, went down  [     Dhungye-ALL banana cut-MAN cut-MAN to SungdelThar in Sungdel, they brought [the boar] down and then killed	
	1SG.ERG say-1SG/3SG.PST one.CL person dance-PURP-COM      Temporal clauses him.'  ] song listen-PURP go-1DI.NPST 'I said to someone "let's go dance and listen to music".' Indirect quotation is expressed with an infinitive clause followed by a finite verb of utterance. 4.2.2.4  (74) [ ] (79)     mother bury-INF finish-3DU/3SG.PST 'They finished burying mother.' (80)      (outside) jungle go-INF stop.3SG/3SG.PST come.up-3SG.PST HS 'Cutting bananas, he came up to Dhungye.' (85)      (other) elder.sister also run-MAN come.3SG.PST 'The other sister came running.'  4.2.2.5 Conditional clauses To form a conditional clause,  is suffixed onto a finite clause (which is sometimes  (90)       nominalized, as in (97)). Either clause can be negated, and the verbs can be in the past or non-past.  play.music-2PL/3SG.NPST-TEMP 1DE also hear-1DE/3SG.NPST 'When you play music, we too will hear it.'  (94)            2POSS-grandmother-ERG say.3SG/3SG.PST-COND 1SG later  snack eat-INF say-1SG.PST 'He stopped going into the jungle.' 4.2.2.3 Reason clauses 
	4.2.2 4.2.2.1  	'I said let's eat a snack.' Adverbial clauses descend-1SG.NPST.refl 68)    2PL (warm) (feel.3SG.PST) 'You feel warm.' (75)  [ ] (like.this) uncle-PLU meet-INF Purpose clauses (86) [ ]  (91)        say-1SG.PST   'If your grandmother said that, I will come down later.' 1SG.ERG this bread-LOC butter spread-1SG.NPST-SEQ   (95)         
	4.2.1.2 	(69)  1SG also basket make-PURP feel-3SG.PST      'I feel like making a basket as well.' 'And so I decided to come meet the uncles.' (lit. I said to myself to come meet the uncles) Perception Complements of perception can be expressed by using the hearsay morpheme at the end (81) [ ]   what search-PURP come.down-2SG.PST old.man suffer-3SG.PST-CAUS meet-PURP come.down-1SG.PST-NOM 'Because the old man is suffering, I came down to see him.' (87)      NEG-give-3SG/1SG.NPST-COND 1SG.ERG uncle-COM  eat-1SG.NPST 'I spread butter on the bread and then eat it.'     argue-1DE.NPST uncle kill-1SG/3SG.NPST     down.below Nayoma grandmother TOP earth-LOC mind 'If he doesn't give it to me, I will argue with uncle and kill him.'
	Sometimes, the experiencer is marked as a possessive, as in (70). (70)     much feel.shy-INF feel-3SG.NPST 1SG.POSS 'I feel very shy.' of an independent clause (76), or by having a main verb of perception either after (77) or before (78) a nominalized clause. (76) [     ]  3SG-GEN also basket make-PURP feel-3SG.PST HS 'What did you come searching for?' (82) [ ]   [   ]  (96)          what eat-PURP feel-3SG.PST 'What do you feel like eating?' lose-3SG.PST husband love do-INF NEG-see-3SG/3SG.PST-CAUS 'Because she couldn't find a husband to love, Goddess Nayoma lost her mind down on earth.' (92)     m-me rain NEG-come-3SG.NPST-COND agriculture  boil-3SG.PST-NOM-SEQ millet flour apply-1PI/3SG.NPST-NOM-SEQ 
	4.2 4.2.1 4.2.1.1 Utterance predicates Clause combinations Complement clauses Direct quotation is expressed with an independent finite sentence, as in (71) and (72), or is begun by a conjugated verb of utterance with no specific complementizing morphology on the reported clause, as in (73). (71)  [   'I heard he also wants to make baskets.' (77) [  ] 3SG-ERG now cough-verb.filler-DUR.3SG.NPST-NOM Another way to express purpose, this structure being borrowed from Nepali, is with dative marker  following a nominalized clause, as in (83). (83)    The ergative/instrumental marker can be suffixed to a nominalized finite clause to express reason: (88)    1SG (English) NEG-understand-1SG/3SG.NPST-NOM-INSTR  NEG-become.3SG.NPST 'If it doesn't rain, there won't be any agriculture.'   spatula-INSTR stir-INF OBL 'Once it has boiled, once the millet flour is added, you must stir it with a spatula.'   (97)          last.year time-LOC rain NEG-come-3SG.PST-NOM-COND   hear-1SG/3SG.NPST 'I hear him coughing now.' stir-1PI/3SG.NPST-NOM-(DAT) stir-INF stir-1PI/3SG.NPST 'To stir it, we stir it and stir it.' 'Because I don't know English...' This construction is similar to Nepali, where  (the Nepali ergative/instrumental marker) In (93), all three temporal markers occur together:  (93)               suffering become.3SG.PST-NOM  Sjurime-ERG 2POSS-face hide.2SG.IMP-SEQ sleep-2SG.IMP here  ]     uncle-PLU come-3PL.NPST say.3SG/3SG.PST HS-NOM (78)   [     uncle-ERG see.3SG/3SG.PST 3SG.POSS nephew       ] 4.2.2.2 Manner clauses A converbal suffix  is used to express manner. The converb is often, though not always, reduplicated (as in 84). expresses reason in clauses. (89)  [      yesterday [3SG.ERG lots cold-NOM water chase-MAN chase-MAN go-3DU.PST-TEMP TOP down.below                                  Yet another means of expressing reason is with the ablative marker  11 : that dog-COM that boar meet-3DU/3SG.PST-NOM-SEQ 'If it had not rained last year, there would have been suffering.'
		'Syurime told him: hide your face when you sleep, the gods will come.' (72) []       arrive-3SG.PST-NOM 3SG.POSS self kill-PURP 'Uncle saw that his nephew had arrived to kill him.' ] [place.name]-LOC [place.name] bring.down-3DU/3SG.PST-SEQ  drink-3SG-NOM-ABL] cough-3SG.NPST-NOM        
		NEG-give-3SG/2SG.NPST say.3SG/3SG.PST 'Yesterday he drank lots of cold water therefore he coughed.' HS kill-3DU/3SG.PST HS
		'"He won't give it to you" she said.'

10

  98) Unsurprisingly, the subject and object arguments are the ones that are most frequently relativized on. All other arguments in the relativization accessibility hierarchy are found expressed with relatives in Koyi. They didn't find the snack where they had put it.' Head as oblique of possessor:(106) [   ]  nose eye mouth be.inan-3SG.NPST-NOM person 'A person with a nose, eyes, mouth'  As a main clause, the relative would be expressed as any possessive predication, as described in 4.1.1, with the comitative marker on the possessor: The person had a nose, eyes and a mouth.' (108) exemplifies a sentence with two relatives with the same head, with different grammatical relations within each relative:12 As a main clause, the content of the relative is expressed as: Your older brother comes earlier than you.' Superlatives are very unnatural in Koyi, and elicitation resulted in rather contorted sentences. This is apparently not a functionally relevant concept for Koyi speakers.

	 	[ river-ERG Head as recipient of relative: 1SG.ERG  (108) [  ]  (103) [   ] ] bring.down-3SG/3SG.PST-NOM   [ ]   [1SG rice give-NSPT.PRT] person [rice eat-NPST.PRT]  wood  1SG.ERG rice give-1SG/3SG.PST-NOM] person much-INT      
			search-1SG/3SG.PST 'I searched for wood brought down by the river.'  person CONTR much-INT fast come-3SG.NPST  'The person I give rice to, the person who is eating the rice, comes really
		(99) [] 'The man I gave food to left very fast.'  fast go-3SG.PST fast.'
	go-NPST.PRT 'place to be visited' Head as oblique of relative: 4.2.4 Comparison The ablative  is used to mark the object of comparison: (place)
		(100) [] (104) [   ]    (109)     	    
			go-INF-PST.PRT-NOM 1SG.ERG butter spread-1SG/3SG.PST-NOM bread eat-1SG.PST (place) this stone-ABL this CONTR small be.inan.3SG.NPST
			 'I ate the bread spread with butter.' 12 'This stone is smaller than this stone.'
		(105)  (110) 	    	  	  
			snack 2SG-ABL	put-3DU/3SG.PST-NOM-LOC TOP early TOP 2POSS-elder.brother NEG-find-3DU/3SG.PST
	Head as subject of relative: (101)  [  ] 1SG.ERG corn rice eat-3SG.NPST-NOM pig    see-1SG/3SG.NPST 'I see the pig eating corn-rice.' Head as object of relative:  come-3SG.NPST-NOM 'Gloss abbreviations used:  '(107)   ( ) denotes borrowings ERG ergative PLU plural (nominal)    . portmanteau FIN end point focus PON ponent
	(102) [ person-COM nose eye   mouth be-3SG.PST   ablative GEN genitive POSS possessive pronoun    2POSS-house-LOC 2SG.ERG-INT bring-2SG/3SG.PST-SEQ ]      place-2SG/3SG.PST-NOM 1.CL person that-ERG   cook-3SG/3SG.NPST 'The person you brought back to your house and placed there is cooking.'   allative generic aspect benefactive CAUS cause ABL ALL ASP BEN CL counter COM comitative COND conditional CONT continuous CONTR contrastive DAT dative DE dual exclusive DI dual inclusive DU dual DUR durative HS hearsay IMP imperative INF infinitive INSTR instrumental INT intensifier LOC locative MAN manner NEG negative NOM nominalizer NPST non-past OBL obligation PER perseverative PI plural inclusive PL plural (pronoun) PROG progressive PRT participle PST past PURP purpose Q question marker refl reflexive SEQ sequential SG singular TEMP temporal TOP topic X/Y X-agent acting on ' DEF definitive PE plural exclusive Y-patient
		1SG.ERG this bread-LOC butter spread-1SG/3SG.NPST
		'I spread butter on this bread.'

The variants for 20 came up in different circumstances: one, sks, I elicited, whereas the other, spus, came up in a story when someone was telling me his age. It looks like s might be a nominal meaning "10 unit" (uks '10', sks '20', tiks '100'), which would explain the use of the classifier form in the spus variant, ie s-pu s='2-CL decimal unit'.

This said, the distinction between the two is sometimes difficult to sort out: many of the possessed nouns could be interpreted as being inalienable, within the specific cultural and narrative context: , 2POSS-flower, seems clearly alienable, except that in this particular story, the flower represents the possessor's life (when the physical flower withers, that signifies that its possessor has died).

The distinction between k and t bases was made on a rather simplistic basis: when a k appeared in the paradigm, it was assumed the base was k-final; otherwise, the verb was put in the t-final base class.

The stems that become open in pre-V environments also have vowel alternation.

It was found, in the corpus, with kurmu 'to carry' giving 'to cause to bear a child'; senmu 'to see' giving 'to show'; tmu 'to spread', giving 'to spread out'; ismu 'to hear' giving 'to make listen'; bermu 'to fly' giving 'to make fly'; oimu 'to vomit' giving 'to make vomit', and hmu ' to dry (intr)' giving transitive 'to dry up'.

This actually looks like English "he coughed from drinking cold water"