Himalayan Linguistics

DeLancey (1992) and Hongladarom (1994) suppose that ḥdug means 'sit' in Old and Classical Tibetan, and that these languages entirely lack the evidential use of this morpheme well known in 'Lhasa' Tibetan. In contrast, Denwood (1999) sees the Classical Tibetan use of ḥdug as broadly in keeping with its function in 'Lhasa' Tibetan. An examination of examples from Old and Classical Tibetan suggests that evidential uses of ḥdug emerged late in the Old Tibetan period and that the meaning 'sit' is idiosyncratic to the Mdzaṅs blun.