Agreement Morphology: The Case of Rgyalrongic and Kiranti

Abstract

The question of whether verbal agreement should be reconstructed to proto- Sino-Tibetan is a very controversial issue. The bewildering diversity of this family and our poor knowledge of sound laws make comparisons across sub-branches difficult.This paper focuses on only two subgroups of the Sino-Tibetan family: Rgyalrongic and Kiranti. These two groups, although they have never been in contact, present striking similarities in their verbal morphology. The aim of this paper to is determine how much of this common morphology cannot be explained away as chance or parallel development, and must be reconstructed to their common ancestor.