Japhug language

Japhug is a Gyalrong language spoken in Barkam County, Rngaba, Sichuan, China, in the three townships of Gdong-brgyad, Gsar-rdzong and Da-tshang.
The endonym of the Japhug language is. The name Japhug refers in Japhug to the area comprising Gsar-rdzong and Da-tshang, while that of Gdong-brgyad is also known as , but speakers of Situ Gyalrong use this name to refer to the whole Japhug-speaking area.

Phonology

Japhug is the only toneless Gyalrong language. It has 49 consonants and seven vowels.

Consonants

and are allophones, more precisely, pronounced as .
The phoneme /w/ has the allophones and .
The phoneme 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, 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".

Vowels

Japhug has eight vowel phonemes:,,,,,, and. The vowel is attested in only one native word 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, and /e/ only occurs in the last syllable of a word. They are clearly contrastive only with the coda /-t/.
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, is found in the speech of all Japhug speakers in Chinese loanwords such as 洋芋 ‘potato’.

Grammar

Jacques is a short grammar and Jacques and Chen a text collection with interlinear glosses. Other studies on morphosyntax include Jacques on direct–inverse marking, Jacques on valency, Jacques on incorporation and Jacques on associated motion.

Nouns

Case marking

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
Dative	ɯ-ɕki, ɯ-pʰe
Locative	zɯ, tɕu, ri
Approximate locative	-cʰu
Genitive	ɣɯ
Ergative	kɯ
Instrumental	kɯ
Comitative	cʰo, cʰondɤre, cʰonɤ
Terminative	mɤɕtʂa
Egressive	ɕaŋtaʁ, ɕaŋpa, ɕaŋlo, ɕaŋtʰi, ɕaŋkɯ, ɕaŋdi

Number

Japhug lacks grammatical number. It has two clitic number determiners, dual ni and plural ra, both do not have syntactic relationship with noun argument.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives in Japhug can be either pronominal or post-nominal.

Noun class marking

Many Japhug nouns are prefixed with noun class markers, most of which are unproductive.

Prefix	Semantics	Example	Notes
qa-	animals, plants, tools, materials	qapri	reduces to χ- or ʁ- in some words.
kɯ-	animals	kɯrtsɤɣ	reduces to ɣ- or x- in some words. Cognate with Tibetan g- as in གཟིག .
m-	body parts	mke	cognate with Tibetan m- as in མགོ
ɕ-	body parts	ɕkrɯt	appears as ʑ- in some words. Cognate with Tibetan s- as in སྐེ

Verbs

Overview

In Japhug, verbal inflection is overwhelmingly dominated by prefixes, though it does support limited suffix slots. The Japhug verb template can be described as following:

+10

core

-1

-2

-3

-4

MOD/POSS

NEG

TRANSLOC

Inverse

REFL

CAUS

PASS

Autobenefactive

verb stem

PST TR

2/3 SUBJ/OBJ

PEG

Referent indexing

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.

Noun incorporation

Japhug noun incorporation is attested in denominal derivations. The complex verb, formed from the prefixation of a noun-verb compound, has its direction following the head movement with a strong head-final tendency. The IN precedes the verb root. A Japhug verb can incorporate intransitive subject, object and semi-object, goal/location adjunct, and instrument. Indirect objects and transitive subjects are never incorporated into the verb. Japhug likely has an antipassive NI effect; the noun incorporation subject is not marked with the ergative.