| Japhug | |
| Nativename: | pronounced as /kɯrɯ skɤt/ |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /tɕɤpʰɯ/ |
| States: | China |
| Region: | Sichuan |
| Speakers: | ? |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Qiangic |
| Fam3: | Gyalrongic |
| Fam4: | Gyalrong |
| Iso3: | none |
| Iso3comment: | (included in [jya]) |
| Glotto: | japh1234 |
| Glottorefname: | Japhug |
Japhug is a Gyalrong language spoken in Barkam County, Rngaba, Sichuan, China, in the three townships of Gdong-brgyad (Japhug pronounced as /ʁdɯrɟɤt/), Gsar-rdzong (Japhug pronounced as /sarndzu/) and Da-tshang (Japhug pronounced as /tatsʰi/).
The endonym of the Japhug language is pronounced as /kɯrɯ skɤt/. The name Japhug (pronounced as /tɕɤpʰɯ/; Tibetan: ja phug;) refers in Japhug to the area comprising Gsar-rdzong and Da-tshang, while that of Gdong-brgyad is also known as pronounced as /sɤŋu/ (Jacques 2004), but speakers of Situ Gyalrong use this name to refer to the whole Japhug-speaking area.
Japhug is the only toneless Gyalrong language. It has 49 consonants and seven vowels.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Alveopalatal | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occlusive | nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| prenasalized | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| aspirated | pronounced as /pʰ/ | pronounced as /tʰ/ | pronounced as /tsʰ/ | pronounced as /tʂʰ/ | pronounced as /tɕʰ/ | pronounced as /cʰ/ | pronounced as /kʰ/ | pronounced as /qʰ/ | |
| Continuant | voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
| voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| Trill | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||
The phoneme /w/ has the allophones [β] and [f].
The phoneme pronounced as /link/ is realized as an epiglottal fricative in the coda or preceding another consonant.
The prenasalized consonants are analyzed as units for two reasons. First, there is a phoneme /ɴɢ/, as in /ɴɢoɕna/ "large spider", but neither /ɴ/ nor /ɢ/ exist as independent phonemes. Second, there are clusters of fricatives and prenasalized voiced stops, as in /ʑmbri/ "willow", but never clusters of fricatives and prenasalized voiceless stops.
Japhug distinguishes between palatal plosives and velar plosive + j sequences, as in /co/ "valley" vs. /kjo/ "drag". These both contrast with alveolo-palatal affricates.
There are at least 339 consonant clusters in Japhug (Jacques 2008:29), more than in Old Tibetan or in most Indo-European languages. Some of these clusters are typologically unusual: in addition to the previously mentioned clusters of fricatives and prenasalized stops, there are clusters where the first element is a semivowel, as in /jla/ "hybrid of a yak and a cow".
Japhug has eight vowel phonemes: pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/. The vowel pronounced as /link/ is attested in only one native word (pronounced as //qaɟy// "fish") and its derivatives, but appears in Chinese loanwords.
The mid-open unrounded vowels /ɤ/ and /e/ are only marginally contrastive: /ɤ/ does not occur in word- final open syllables except in unaccented clitics (like the additive nɤ), and /e/ only occurs in the last (accented) syllable of a word. They are clearly contrastive only with the coda /-t/.[1]
Not all speakers of Kamnyu Japhug have a phoneme /y/ in the native vocabulary. Even for those speakers, it is only attested in the word ‘fish’ and the verbs derived from it. It nevertheless contrasts with /ɯ/ and /u/, as shown by the quasi-minimal pairs /qaɟy/ ‘fish’, /waɟɯ/ ‘earthquake’ and /ɟuli/ ‘flute’. Other speakers pronounce ‘fish’ with a medial /w/ as /qaɟwi/. However, [y] is found in the speech of all Japhug speakers in Chinese loanwords such as 洋芋
Jacques (2008) is a short grammar and Jacques and Chen (2010) a text collection with interlinear glosses. Other studies on morphosyntax include Jacques (2010) on direct–inverse marking, Jacques (2012a) on valency (passive, antipassive, anticausative, lability etc.), Jacques (2012b) on incorporation and Jacques (2013) on associated motion.
Japhug lacks case inflection. However, Japhug does have few adverbializing derivations that display functions for oblique cases, for example, the comitative kɤ́- and perlative reduplication. In noun phrases, grammatical relations are denoted by following clitics:
| Case | Markers | |
|---|---|---|
| ɯ-ɕki, ɯ-pʰe | ||
| zɯ, tɕu, ri | ||
| Approximate locative | -cʰu | |
| ɣɯ | ||
| kɯ | ||
| kɯ | ||
| cʰo, cʰondɤre, cʰonɤ | ||
| mɤɕtʂa | ||
| ɕaŋtaʁ, ɕaŋpa, ɕaŋlo, ɕaŋtʰi, ɕaŋkɯ, ɕaŋdi |
Japhug lacks grammatical number. It has two clitic number determiners, dual ni and plural ra, both do not have syntactic relationship with noun argument.[2]
Demonstratives in Japhug can be either pronominal or post-nominal.[3]
| Function | Proximal Singular | Proximal Dual | Proximal Plural | Distal Singular | Distal Dual | Distal Plural | Medial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base form | ki | kɯni | kɯra | nɯ | nɯnɯni | nɯra | nɤki |
| Reduplicated | kɯki | (kɯkɯni) | kɯkɯra | nɯnɯ | nɯnɯni | nɯnɯra | – |
| Emphatic | ɯkɯki | (ɯkɯkɯni) | ɯkɯkɯra | ɯnɯnɯ | (ɯnɯnɯni) | ɯnɯnɯra | – |
In Japhug, verbal inflection is overwhelmingly dominated by prefixes, though it does support limited suffix slots. The Japhug prefixation template can be described as following
Modal- Negation- AM- Orientation- second person- Inverse progressive- Extended verb stem (Outer prefixes)
Inter prefixes do not have rigid order.[4]
Japhug suffixation template is run as following
verb stem -past transitive -First person -Dual/Plural - peg (circumfix)
Japhug finite verbs can form agreement with one or two arguments, depending on the transitivity of the verb. Verb indexation can use a combination of prefixes, suffixes and stem alternation. Person indexation in Japhug in general have neutral alignment, though ergative-absolutive alignment can occur.