Himalayan Linguistics

This chapter will survey agreement marking in the Pangwa group within Tangsa-Nocte (see Tangsa-Nocte Introduction). After briefly introducing the Pangwa group, I will suggest a sub-grouping within Pangwa, based on the verbal morphology in the form of examples of the markers in the ‘negative’, ‘past’ and ‘future’ for 17 Pangwa varieties and comparative information for 5 Non-Pangwa Tangsa varieties. This will be followed by an overview of the functions of the agreement markers. These markers, which can be termed agreement words (DeLancey 2015, this volume) consist of two parts, a verbal operator, generally an onset consonant that appears to be an eroded verbal auxiliary or copula, and the agreement marker. The forms and functions of the verbal operators are then treated in more detail as are the forms of the agreement markers. We conclude the chapter with some suggestions about the historical development of these agreement words within Pangwa Tangsa