Irrealis? Issues concerning the inflected t-form in Sylheti
- Jonas Lau
Abstract
Among the discussions about cross-linguistic comparability of grammatical categories within the field of linguistic typology (cf. Cristofaro 2009; Haspelmath 2007), one in particular seems to be especially controversial: is there really such a category as irrealis? This term has been used extensively in descriptive works and grammars to name all kinds of grammatical morphemes occurring in various modal and non-modal contexts. However, cross-linguistic evidence for a unitary category that shares invariant semantic features has not been attested (Bybee 1998:266). Moreover, many scholars doubt there is a cross-linguistic functional distinction between realis and irrealis (Bybee 1998; Cristofaro 2012).
The Indo-Aryan language Sylheti, like many of its relatives, features a verbal category that is often referred to in linguistic descriptions as ‘irrealis’, namely the inflected t-form (inflT). It occurs in various contexts, such as counterfactual conditionals, negations of the future tense, and before modal verbs. Furthermore, the same form is used to mark verbs in the past habitual tense. While some scholars describe this dichotomy as two separate categories (e.g. Plettner 2004), others attempt to find common features to justify the identical form (e.g. Masica 1991).
This paper intends to describe and analyse the various functions of Sylheti inflT. A diachronic ...
Keywords: Sylheti, Indo-Aryan language, irrealis, t-form
How to Cite:
Lau, J., (2020) “Irrealis? Issues concerning the inflected t-form in Sylheti”, Language Documentation and Description 18, 56-68. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd94
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