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The Tangut verbal template from a cross-West Gyalrongic perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2025

Mathieu Beaudouin Open the ORCID record for Mathieu Beaudouin [Opens in a new window]
Mathieu Beaudouin*
Affiliation:
INALCO-CRLAO, Paris, France / Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
*
Email: mathieu.beaudouin@inalco.fr
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Abstract

The past decade has seen an increase in attention to Tangut, an extinct Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the rulers of the Western Xia xīxià 西夏 empire. The question of its classification has become a subject of discussion especially since the documentation of its closest relatives came to light recently. The present paper builds on the study of the Tangut verb template by Jacques (2011) to question the place of Tangut with regard to the Horpa languages (Beaudouin 2023b). By doing so, it identifies a phenomenon of attraction encompassing synchronic and diachronic analysis and proposes that verbal templatic morphology in West Gyalrongic is nuclear.

Keywords

TangutWest GyalrongicTemplatic morphologyHead attractionStem selectionAmphicrony

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Article
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Bulletin of SOAS , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , June 2025 , pp. 347 - 357
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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