Morphosyntax of the Bangla Affix -ta
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2017
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en
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Abstract
In this thesis, I provide a mid-level descriptive analysis of the Bangla suffix / -(aI. I provide a discussion
of the distribution of the affix in regards to other nominal markers of the language, the different
meanings which it marks and how those manifest, and provide some basic analyses of its functions in
the language. -ta is used as a semantically bleached component of numeral phrases, as in tEk-ta mach
'one fish'. It marks definiteness as well as singularity on nouns, demonstrated with contrastive examples
such as boi 'a book, books' versus bOi-ta 'the book'. There is a brief discussion of -{i, the marginal,
honorific variant of -tao I discuss how -ta interacts with other systems of the language, such as the
demonstratives ei and oi, which carry no innate denotation of number and must be assigned number by
the presence of either -ta 'sG' or -gulo 'PL'. -ta also participates in the nominative-accusative, partially
animacy-based case marking system of Bangia, co-occuring with the accusative clitic ~ke to mark less
animate patients such as mach 'fish'. I also discuss information structure in Bangia, and demonstrate
that, while -ta shows a correlation with topic in Bangia, it does not do so in a consistent, obViously
principled way. I then outline future lines of research which will provide a greater understanding of
-ta and its history.
Fail