Interdisciplinary Journal of Linguistics (IJL Vol .9) Volue -2), 2012 72 Interdisciplinary Journal of Linguistics Volume [9] 2016, Pp.72-84 Nominal Inflections in Tsum: An Areal-Typological Perspective Dubi Nanda Dhakal * Abstract This article has examined the inflectional affixes in Tsum in areal-typological context of Tibetan languages spoken in the Himalayan region. Tsum nouns inflect for the biological gender, number, classifier, classifier and emphatic marker, definiteness and case. As expected in Tibetan languages, a number of nouns end in - po and -mo to mark the biological gender. In addition to the numeral classifier -po, Tsum also possesses the numeral classifier plus the emphatic marker -kar attaching to the numeral. The plural marker is added to the last element of the noun phrase, rather than to the head nouns. Tsum shares all the case forms with Written Tibetan. These case forms are also shared by a number of immediate and distant Tibetan neighbours of Tsum. Keywords: Tibetan, Classifier, Gender, Case, Definitenes. 1. Introduction and Typological Features Tsum is a Tibetan variety spoken in northern Gorkha, Nepal. The Tsumbas are recorded as one of the nationalities by Government of Nepal as Siyars. Ethnologue (Eppele 2012) has classified Tsum as: Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Western Tibeto-Burman, Bodish, Central Bodish, Central, gTsang. Similarly, Bradley (1997) classifies Tsum as : Tibeto-Burman, Western TB, Bodish, gTsang, Tsum, and Nubri is its closest neighbour. Only a few materials directly related to the Tsum language are available, viz. Dhakal and Donohue (2015), Liu (2015), Donohue and Dhakal (2016). Typologically, Tsum shares a number of features of central Tibetan languages. Tsum is an SOV language, tonal like other languages spoken in the buffer zone between Nepal and China (cf. Hildebrandt 2007), and is heavily monosyllabic. Some constituents precede the head nouns in noun phrase structure whereas others follow them. Liu (2015) reports that there are as many as eight distinct tones in Tsum, and this is typologically interesting. There are different sets of plain and honorific nouns ni Tsum like in other Tibetan languages (cf. DeLancey 1998; Denwood 1999). The honorific nouns are typically used to refer to the monks, and monasteries whereas plain nouns are used elsewhere. 2. Gender We don’t find the grammatical gender in Tsum. While the masculine nouns end in -pa feminine nouns end in -ma. Examples follow. (1) ghjalbo ‘king’ ghjalmo ‘queen’ tʃawo ‘rooster’ tʃau ̃ ‘hen’ pho ‘male, or husband’ mo ‘female, or wife’ ki ‘dog’ kimu ‘bitch’ ʃara ‘young man’ nadzuŋ ‘young.girl’ The marking of biological gender with these suffixes is common in Tibetan varieties. For example, the feminine nouns end in -mo in Ladhaki (cf. Koshal 1979:56 ). The suffix -ma and - pa frequently occur with the masculine and feminine nouns respectively. The suffixes -po, -mo * Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu Nepal