NOMINALIZATION IN TENYIDIE

Authors

  • Kikrokhol Kraho University of Hyderabad

Keywords:

grammatical, phenomenon, transpositional, transposition

Abstract

The practise of changing the grammatical category of a word is a very common phenomenon, and natural language employs different means for the purpose. For instance, a verb xerox can be changed into a noun xeroxing, and an adjective sad can be changed into an adverb sadly. While the processes involve differ from language to language, it is possible that every language has ways of altering the category of a root word.  Nominalization is one such operation where a word from another category is turned into a noun. According to Haspelmath (2002), nominalization covers a broad range of transpositional phenomena, and by transposition, he means a word class changing operation.

In this paper, I will describe the different nominalization processes and the properties associated with them in Tenyidie[1]. Since the nominal expressions are derived mostly from verbs and adjective, I have divided the paper into two major sections; section two deals with verbal nominalization, and section three deals with adjectival nominalization. In the different subsections, I will describe the different processes Tenyidie employs. In the fourth section, I will summarise and conclude the paper.


[1] Tenyidie, also known as Angami, belongs to the Western sub-group of the Naga group of Tibeto-Burman languages. Shafer (1955) in The classification of Sino-Tibetan languages places Tenyidie within the eastern sub-group of the Kukish section, within the Burmic division of the Tibeto-Burman language family. Graham Thurgood in The Sino-Tibetan Languages (2003:12) claimed that Tenyidie belong to the Angami-Pochuri subgroup within the Kuki-Chin-Naga branch of Tibeto-Burman. Tenyidie is spoken mostly in and around the districts of Kohima and Dimapur.

References

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Published

2015-04-30

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