Sangkong 桑孔 of Yunnan: secondary "verb pronominalization" in Southern Loloish

Abstract

The Chinese linguist Li Yongsui has described (1991) a newly discovered language called Sangkong, that evidently belongs to the "Bisoid" subgroup of Southern Loloish, close to Bisu, Phunoy, and Mpi. Aside from the intrinsic value of the new lexcial material Li provides, Sangkong has an extremely interesting syntactic property: a rudimentary system of "verb pronominalization", where the verb-phrase may contain either of two morphemes that refer to the person of the subject. In the case of the first person, this agreement morpheme is phonologically identical to the independent personal pronoun, na55 'I'. The etymology of the non-first person marker, ze 55 is not so transparent, though we offer a theory about its origin below.