In this chapter I will deal with a number of minor word classes that have little in common apart from the fact that all of them are small classes with closed memberships – memberships ranging from six or seven to a few dozen. Traditionally, some of the topics I treat here, like pronouns, demonstratives, and a few others, are treated with nouns. Their inclusion in this chapter makes no theoretical claims; I have lumped them together simply as a matter of organizational convenience.

Pronouns

True personal pronouns in Kham are limited to 1ST and 2ND persons in singular, dual, and plural numbers. The so-called ‘third person pronouns’ are easily relatable to demonstratives and will be dealt with in more detail in §9.2. Table 69 gives the full paradigm. The 1ST and 2ND person singular pronouns, ŋa: and nɨ~: < *n∂ŋ, are clearly related to the TB proto forms *ŋa and *n∂ŋ. A different TB first person form, proposed by Bauman (1975) as a bisyllabic root #gyaŋa and found in forms like Lushei kei-ni ‘we,’ etc., is apparently the source of the non-singular forms gi-n and ge:. The source of the palatal ‘j’ in the 2ND person non-singular forms is not clear.

The dual forms gi-n- and ji-n- are reductions of an earlier *ge-nis and *je-nis, where *nis is the PTB form for the numeral ‘two.’