Aspects of the grammar of Thulung Rai: An endangered Himalayan language (Nepal)

Thulung Rai is an endangered Tibeto-Burman language of eastern Nepal, currently spoken by approximately one thousand people. It is a member of the Kiranti group in the Himalayish branch of Tibeto-Burman, along with languages characterized principally by their complex pronominalizing verbal inflectional systems.; This dissertation provides an overview of the grammar of the Thulung language, along with selected texts and a glossary. The aspects of the grammar which are discussed are those which are particularly relevant as far as Thulung's heritage as a Tibeto-Burman language is concerned. The chapters discuss the phonological system of the language; the case marking system; the use of discourse particles; nominalization and its etymological and semantic relationship with relativization and genitivization; the finite verbs, with their complex agreement system and stem alternations; the augmentation of verbs with aspect-bearing derivational suffixes; clause-combining by means of converbs and sequencers.; Each of these topics bears a significance for Tibeto-Burman studies as a whole, and these are characteristic features of languages from this area. The areal context for Thulung is another important aspect of this dissertation. The endangered status of Thulung is a result of the inroads of the Indo-Aryan national language of Nepal, Nepali. Each chapter, in addition to describing and analyzing particular grammatical topics, also discusses the equivalent constructions in Nepali in light of whether they constitute the source for the construction in Thulung as it stands today.; This dissertation provides reliable and up-to-date information on a little-known minority Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal. Since this dissertation looks at grammatical features in one language in the context of their distribution over an entire linguistic area, the materials presented are useful as a case-study of an intense language contact situation.