The verbal morphology of Dumi Rai simplicia

Abstract

Dumi Rai is a 'complex pronominalizing' Kiranti language spoken in Khopin district, SagaramathA zone, in eastern Nepal. A verb in Dumi Rai may have one or more different stems. Dumi verbs may be divided into various conjugations on the basis of paradigmatic stem alternation. A conjugation therefore is a fixed pattern of stem alternation, not a fixed set of inflectional affixes. The inflectional affixes of the intransitive, transitive and reflexive paradigms are constant throughout all conjugations. Once the conjugation of any given verb has been specified, it is predictable which stem will occur in a given inflected form.