Pronouns Nouns Number Kham nouns are marked for three numbers: singular (unmarked), dual (
-ni) and plural (
-rə). The plural marker has an allomorph
-ra that appears when it is followed by another suffix.
Case Kham nominals are marked for various morphosyntactical and locational cases.
Core case markers: •
Nominative -Ø •
Ergative -e/-je •
Oblique/Objective
-lai •
Tripartite marking: The
split ergativity patterns in Kham is overlapped for most of the argument's person/number and thus when both the agent and object arguments are both in the higher ranks of the argument hierarchy, the transitive subject/agent must be marked with ergative, while the object takes the oblique in order to distinguish it from the S/A arguments. There is no semantic and discourse-orientated variations in Kham alignment marking.
Peripheral case markers: •
Genitive (third person only)
-e/-je •
Comitative and
associative -sə. •
Instrumental -e/-je •
Locative -kə •
Ablative -ni •
Allative -da •
Elative -kin •
Delative -tin •
Adessive -ŋa •
Inessive -lə •
Superessive -tə Possessive Kin terms are marked by inalienable possessive unless they are used as vocatives or referential proper nouns. Eg.
ŋa-bəhrca ('my nephew') vs.
phubu ('Aunt').
Gender In Kham, a small number of lexical items are marked for gender, but not affecting elsewhere in the morphosyntax:
-pa masculine,
-ma feminine, and
-za diminutive. Indo-Aryan gender distinction -a/-i is also borrowed, creating a semi-productive 'similative' class of nouns, i.e. lexical object is conceptualized as representative of an attribute.
korop ('stitch') >
koropcya ('[masculine] scar-face') / 'kurupci' ('[feminine] scar-face').
Verbs Verbs in Kham inflect for various tense, aspect, mood, and mode categories, voices, negation, person/number of the subject, agent, and of the object in active voice. Kham person indexation have different paradigms for intransitive and transitive verbs as well for indicatives, optatives, and imperatives. ==Reconstruction==