Sumi agentive and topic markers: No and Ye

Abstract

Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Nagaland, typically marks S and A arguments with one of two enclitics: no and ye. A preliminary analysis of these two markers posits no as an agentive marker that can also mark contrastive focus on the argument and ye as a topic marker that can also mark a referent for low agentivity. By presenting new data, the paper highlights how the boundary between their semantic and pragmatic functions is not always clear and that categorising no and ye is not always unproblematic. Show more