Relative clauses in Lai Chin, with special reference to verb stem alternation and the extension of control theory

• Main Author: Lehman (Chit Hlaing), F. K.
• Other Authors: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178180
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

I shall begin with some fairly comprehensive examples of the way relative clauses are constructed in the Lai (Haka) Chin language, a Tibeto-Burman language of the Kuki-Chin branch, spoken in the Central part of the Chin State, in the mountains on the West of Burma (Myanmar). It will be seen, inter alia, that two things need to be accounted for. On the one hand, one wants a proper account of the relative clause construction, where the language gives no evidence of overt movement,1 especially wh-movement, but where, none the less, the clause is introduced by a noun phrase with a wh-determiner. On the other hand, when such a construction relativises on the subject of a transitive clause, it will be noticed that the form of the verb stem changes, and this, too, wants a systematic and coherent account.