A Descriptive Grammar of Yongning Na (Mosuo)

This dissertation is a descriptive grammar of Yongning Na (Mosuo), a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in southwestern China. The theoretical approaches taken are functional syntax and the discourse-based approach to language description and
documentation. The aim of this dissertation is to describe the ways that the language’s
features and subsystems intersect to make Na a unique entity: analycity; zero anaphora;
OV word order; topic/comment information structure; a five-part evidential system; a
conjunct/disjunct-like system that intersects with evidentiality and verbal semantics;
prolific grammaticalization; overlap between nominalization and relativization and
associated structures; representation of time through aspect, Aktionsart, adverbials, and
context; and the Daba shamanic register.
Topics covered in the grammar include a description of the sociolinguistic
environment; the phonemic inventory; phonological processes; compounding; word
classes; the structure of noun phrases; the classifier system; types of possession; methods
for quantification; grammatical relations and non-systemic ‘ergative’ and ‘anti-ergative’
marking; the structure of verb phrases; the multiple existential verbs; the aspectual
system; evidentiality; grammaticalization; clause-combining; narrative texts; and lexicon.