Valence-changing particles in Pwo Karen

• Main Author: Kato, Atsuhiko
• Other Authors: Osaka University
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities; Pwo Karen; Karenic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177729
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Pwo Karen has a large number of verb particles, some of which may increase or decrease the valence of the verb. This paper describes such valence changing verb particles. When Pwo Karen is compared with Burmese, a neighboring Tibeto-Burman language, from the viewpoint of valence-changing, the difference between these two languages is brought into high relief. Burmese only has a few valence-changing auxiliary-like morphemes, and especially it does not have a valence-decreasing one. Many of the situations which are expressed with the valence-changing verb particles in Pwo Karen are conveyed by using particles following the nouns in Burmese, therefore we can say that Pwo Karen shows stronger head-markingness than Burmese. Pwo Karen and Burmese are largely different not only in word order but also in the details of their grammars, though they are neighboring languages of the same linguistic stock.