The historical development of inverse marking in Khroskyabs: evidence from two modern varieties; Siyuewu and Wobzi

This paper describes the inverse marking systems of two closely related Khroskyabs varieties, Siyuewu and Wobzi, and hypothesises the historical development of the Khroskyabs inverse marking system. I propose that a hypothetical prefix, *Cə-, which is probably related to the second person markers attested in many Trans-Himalayan languages, existed in Proto-Khroskyabs, and that it has different reflexes in the two modern Khroskyabs varieties.1. Introduction 1.1. The Khroskyabs language 1.2. Dialects under investigation 1.3. Argument indexation 2. Inverse marking in Rgyalrongic languages 2.1. Scenarios 2.2. Inverse marking in Rgyalrong languages 2.3. Inverse marking in West-Rgyalrongic 3. Inverse marking in Siyuewu Khroskyabs 3.1. Morphophonology 3.2. With orientational prefixes 3.2.1. Local scenarios 3.2.2. Mixed scenarios 3.3. Without orientational prefixes 4. Inverse marking in Wobzi Khroskyabs 4.1. Morphophonology 4.2. Distribution 4.2.1. With orientational prefixes 4.2.2. Without orientational prefixes 5. Reconstruction of the Proto-Khroskyabs inverse system 5.1. Distributions of inverse marking in Siyuewu and Wobzi 5.2. Local inverse and non-local: the hypothetical prefix *Cə- 5.3. Possible origins of *Cə- 5.4. Mixed inverse: intra-scenario levelling 6. Conclusio