Na language

Na (or Narua, Mosuo) is a language of the Naish subbranch of the Naic group of the Sino-Tibetan languages.

Varieties

Yongning Na, which is spoken in Yongning Township, Ninglang County, Lijiang, Yunnan, China, has been documented by Jacques and Michaud (2011). It has three tonal levels. A trilingual dictionary is available online.

Lataddi Narua is notable for having only two tonal levels.

Phonology

Consonants

• /t, tÊ°, d, n, l/ can be heard as [ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ, ɳ, É­] when preceding vowel sounds /ɯ, u, vÌ©, ɤ, æ/.
• /p, pÊ°, b, m, w/ can be heard as [ʙ̥, ʙ̥ʰ, ʙ, ɱ, v] when preceding vowel sounds /ɯ, u, vÌ©/.
• /É£/ can also be heard as uvular [ʁ] in word-initial position.
• /w, h/ is also heard as voiceless [wÌ¥, x] in free variation.
• /n/ is heard as velar [ŋ] when before velar stops.
• [ʔ] is heard in initial position before vowels.

Vowels

• /ɯ/ can be heard as [ɨ] in syllable-initial position and as retroflex [ɻ̩] when after retroflex consonants.

Grammar

Syntax

Narua's default word order is agent–object–verb, although expression of all verb arguments is not obligatory.

Narua marks sentence topics with jjo after a topicalized clause or noun phrase.

References