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BY
USHASI DEV
REGN NO. - 01/SH/M.A. (LINGUISTICS)/2013-2015/008
SUPERVISIOR – DR. JAYATI CHATTERJEE
ASST. PROFESSOR
DEPT. OF LINGUISTICS
THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY
SHILLONG CAMPUS
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF THE MASTERS IN LINGUISTICS
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CERTIFICATE
Certified that the dissertation entitled “Tense and Aspect in Tangkhul – A short descriptive
201515/008) in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the M.A. degree in Linguistics to The
English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong Campus, Shillong – 793022 is an original
Supervisior Countersigned by
At the outset I seek this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people whose support and
Above all I would like to thank profusely my supervisor Dr. Jayati Chatterjee, whose support and
guidance gave me the necessary impetus and liberty to pursue this research work. She introduced
me to the concept of Syntax and motivated me to extend my visionary outlook, the outcome of
which is this thesis. It is my utmost fortune that I had the privilege of working with Dr.
T.Temsunungsang whose advice, and unsurpassed knowledge enriched me through and through.
I am thankful to the Director of EFLU, Shillong Prof. Dr. K.C. Baral for his support and
cooperation. I would like to also thank The English and Foreign Languages University for the
wonderful library, the historical significance of the place, the general ambience, and keenly
helpful people who provided a congenial climate for research. A special thanks to Kong Teresa
for her constant support and love. I extend my gratitude to Timee and Ringamso who have
Last but by no means least, I thank my friends Abhishek, Arunakshree, Abir, Alivi, Abeni and
Mhayani for their endless support and encouragement throughout my stayin EFLU. I am deeply
I extend my sincere gratitude and indebtedness to my parents and my relatives who never made
me feel their physical absence. Their patience and unequivocal support throughout helped me
Ushasi Dev
VOWEL INVENTORY
High i ɰ u
Mid e o
Mean-Mid ɛ ə ɔ
Low a
CONSONANT INVENTORY
ph th kh
Nasals m n ƞ
Fricatives f v s z ʃ h
Affricates ʧ ʤ
Laterals l
Approximants j
CONTENTS
Title
Acknowledgement
Phonemic Inventory of Tangkhul
Contents
Chapter I: Introduction
1.0 Language families in India
1.2 Tangkhul
1.3 Methodology
1.5 Informants
There are four major language families in India viz. Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro – Asiatic and
Tibeto – Burman. Tangkhul, which is spoken in the eastern district of Manipur state, belongs to
The Tibeto – Burman family belongs to the larger family of Indo – Chinese which covers the
Chinese – Thai and Burman family languages. The languages belonging to the Tibeto – Burman
family are spoken in Tibet in the north and extend upto Burma in the south. India’s densest
concentration of Tibeto – Burman languages is found in its far northeast where an almost
disconnected fragment of the country is nearly encircled by Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar and
Bangladesh. The eight North – East Indian states are low in population, but even by Indian
standards they are very high in linguistic and ethnic heterogeneity. At their center is Assam, the
only state of the eight that is predominantly lowland. A hilly extension to the south is still a part
of Assam, but the heart of the state consists of the low valley of the Brahmaputra River. The
great majority of the east speak Tibeto – Burman languages. Two or three generations ago
Tripura state was predominantly Tibeto – Burman but with recent increase in Bengali speaking
population in the state the Kokborok speakers have lessened in number. It is very difficult to
count the exact number of Tibeto – Burman languages in India because there are regions which
Tangkhul is spoken in the Ukhrul village of Manipur.Ukhrul District is the home of the
Tangkhuls. They are a highly cultured people. The name Tangkhul was given to them by their
neighbours, the Meiteis. The northern Tangkhuls were also called the Luhupas. The name Naga
was given to them by the Burmese (Myanmar), which, in Myanmar means people with pierced
earlobes. Piercing of the earlobes is wide-spread practice among the Naga people including the
Tangkhuls. The Tangkhuls belong to the great Mongolian race which is spread all over the
World. Linguistically, they belong to a large language family called Sino-Tibetan, within that
family to the sub-family Tibeto-Burman. In general this points towards an origin in the north,
that is south-west China and Tibet. The earliest home of the Tangkhuls was the upper reaches of
Huang heo and Yangtze Rivers which lies in the Zinjiang province of China. Like the other
desert areas of the world, the people including the Tangkhuls, due to hardship of life, dispersed
from this place to different directions. One group moved towards east and southeast to be
become known as Chinese, another group moved southward to become the tribes of Tibeto-
Burman which includes the Tangkhuls and other Naga sub tribes. That was between c, 10,000
B.C. to 8000 B.C. This movement has continued into recent historic times. S.K. Chatterjee noted
that from 2000 B.C. onwards, Sino-Tibetan speakers from China pushed south and west and
entered India. According to W.I. Singh, in his “The History of Manipur”, the Tangkhuls settled
in Samshok (Thuangdut) area in Myanmar. They belong to Yakkha tribe in China. The
Tangkhuls were first noticed in Manipur by operation, one of the earliest kings of a principality
in Manipur valley.
The Tangkhuls as also other Naga tribes came to Manipur, Nagaland, Assam and Arunachal
Pradesh through Myanmar. Some of them also settled down in Myanmar and did not venture
further. However, their movement over Myanmar and into India was spread over a period of
time. They entered the present habitat in waves following one another and in some cases in close
succession. The Tangkhuls came together with the Maos, Poumeis, Marams and Thangals
because all of them have references to their dispersal from Makhel a Mao village in Senapati
district.
1.3 METHODOLOGY
A list of approximately 500 words had been prepared which had covered various word formation
structures and morphological processes that the language makes use of, the informants were then
asked to provide with the appropriate Tangkhul counterparts. The list of words was prepared by
1) Kinship terms
2) Address terms
3) Pronouns
4) Household items
5) Seasons, weather, time and celestial bodies, contains mostly words that are very common
in human life.
6) Body Parts
7) Numerals
A set of English sentences were provided to the informants and the Tangkhul counterparts were
collected. The sentences were analyzed and the necessary conclusion was drawn. Tense and
Aspect is a necessary linguistic trait in a language. The sampling was done such that the tense
There are few earlier works in the languages. The missionaries have studied the language only
with the main purpose of translating the Holy Bible and to use the language for the preaching of
Christianity. Rev. Fr. Pettigrew has written Tangkhul – Naga grammar (1918), Otshan, an
elementary arithmetic in Tangkhul Naga (1911). Brown has written three short vocabularies of
Phadang and Khangoi. Phadang and Khangoi are dialects of Tangkhul spoken in Phadang and
The book Tangkhul – English translation and composition, written by Z. Marasan (1973)
Luikham is a book intended for young learners of the language. ‘A grammar and syntax of
Tangkhul dialect’ – written by Rev. Fr. Mathew (unpublished, 1971) gives a short account of the
Abbi, A. (1992) Reduplication in south Asian Languages : An Areal, Typological and Historical
Allied Publishers.
----------- (1994) Semantic Universals in Indian Langauges. Shimla : Indian Institute of Advance
Study.
------------ (ed) (1997) Languages of the Tribal and Indigenous Peoples of India: The Ethnic
Ahum, V. (1990) Konkani Verb Morphology. M.A. Field Report J.N.U., New Delhi, Ms.
Cambridge: CUP.
McCulloch, Major W., (1859) ‘Account of the Valley of Munnipore, etc.’, in Sopvomā [Mao
Pettigrew, Rev. Fr. W. (1918) Tangkhul-Naga Grammar and Dictionary, (reprinted 1979),
Baptist Convention.
Timee Shimrey
She is a native speaker of Tangkhul and a resident of Thoyee village in Manipur. Timee is
currently pursuing her M.A. in English from The English and Foreign Languages University,
Shillong Campus and is in her final semester. She can speak 13 different dialects of Tangkhul.
Ringamso Kashung
pursuing his M.A. in English from The English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong
A category used in the grammatical description of verbs (along with aspect and mood), referring
primarily to the way the grammar marks the time at which the action denoted by the verb took
place. Traditionally, a distinction is made between past, present and future tenses, often with
further divisions (perfect, pluperfect, etc.).In linguistics, the relationship between tense and time
has been the subject of much study, and it is now plain that there is no easily stateable
relationship between the two. In English, for example, the past-tense form (e.g. I knew) may
signal a tentative meaning, and not past time, in some contexts (e.g. I wish I knew – that is,
‘know now’). Nor is there a simple one-to-one relationship between tense forms and time: the
present tense in English may help to refer to future or past time, depending on context (e.g.I’m
going home tomorrow, Last week I’m walking down this street . . . (see historic present)).
Furthermore, if tenses are defined as forms of the verb, it becomes a matter of debate whether a
language like English has a future tense at all: constructions such as I will/shall go, according to
many, are best analyzed as involving modal auxiliary verbs, displaying a different grammatical
function (e.g. the expression of intention or obligation, which may often involve futurity).
English illustrates several such problems, as do other languages, where tense forms, if they exist,
regularly display analytic difficulties, because of overlaps between tense and other verbal
functions, such as aspect or mood.There are different types of verb corresponding closely to the
different types of object and complement. Verbs which only have the subject complements are
called Intransitive verbs and other verbs which have one or more object complements are called
Transitive verbs.
Example :
This sentence shows the timeline in which the sequence of action takes place.
0.3 Data Analysis
1. See- kəthei
They see me
Past:
PROGRESSIVE:
I take We take
Ana khui-je
He/she takes
PAST:
PROGRESSIVE:
I make-NFUT We make-NFUT
I make We make
Athum sa:-je
They make-NFUT
They make
PAST:
PROGRESSIVE:
I cry-NFUT We cry-NFUT
I cry We cry
athumʧəp-je
They cry-NFUT
They cry
PAST:
PROGRESSIVE:
inaʧəp-dɛlei ƞəʧəp-dɛlei
Tangkhul language like most Tibeto – Burman languages do not possess an overt tense marking
ie unlike English and other Indo – Aryan language which possess an overt tense marking for past
and present is absent in Tangkhul. The simple past and simple present forms are similar and can
only be distinguished by a time adverbial. Time in Tangkhul is recognized by Future and Non –
Future. Aspect in Tangkhul is marked. The Present progressive aspect marker is /- dɛləi/; the past
progressive marker is /- saije/ and the perfective marker is /- haire/. It is observed that the
markers are uniform and does not change with agreement. The markers agree with the subjects
and no change is noticed with intransitive and transitive verbs. It is also observed that adjectives
function as a verb with the appropriate affixation. In Tangkhul the nominalaizer /kə/ is also the
adjectivizer.
It is yet to figure out as to why the subject takes a /- na/ marker in case of some verbs like take,
shout etc. One needs to delve further into the topic to come up with a proper reason.
Bibliography
Abbi,A. (2001) A Manual of Linguistic Field work and Structures of Indian Languages.
Muenchen: Lincom Europa
Morey. S, Post, M. (ed) (2008)North East Indian Linguistics Delhi: Cambridge University Press