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Ombule marker <=ya ~ -i ~ -e>

In this presentation, I will introduce a formal and semantic characterization of the Ombule marker <=ya ~ -i ~ -e>.This marker can be added to the following types of word classes:

1. nouns and pronouns, e.g. uŋgu ‘I’ > uŋgu=ya ‘me too’
2. interrogative pro-forms, e.g. ama ‘what’ > ama=ya ‘nothing (at all)’
3. verbs (only finite items) which occur in:

1. main clauses, e.g. Un thal baː-nu-i? ‘Where are you (s)?’
2. subordinate clauses, e.g. Un thal baː-nu-i, ung il ywa-ŋ-m.‘Where ever you (s) are, I will come.’
3. subordinate clauses after the ‘conditional’ suffix <-ŋwa>, e.g. Ama ja-m-ŋwa-i, ung khwakti gwa-ʔu-mei. ‘Whatever they (p) eat, I [will have] given it to them (p).’

Lexical items which contain marker <=ya~-i~-e> are generally translated into Nepali by means of the word pani ‘too, also’. This marker may examplify a general pattern with respect to the dependent elements in Ombule that morphophonological simplification or reduction is accompanied by a change in morphological status, i.c. clitic /ya/ becomes affix /i, e/.