On the Tangut Verb Phrase in The Sea of Meaning, Established by the Saints

Compared with other Tangut material, the Sea of Meaning, Established by the Saints, kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Russia and first studied by Prof. Kychanov, includes only a limited number of sentences using complicated verb-phrases. The number of prefixes is also rather small, considering the overall size of the textual material. However, we can observe interesting examples of Pref1 functioning as directional markers and it may therefore be suggested that the Pref1 originally had a directional function before evolving into a 'perfective' marker. Besides, we have found differing types of verb-phrases, such as 'Negative prefix-Verb stem-Auxiliary verb' and 'Verb stem-Negative prefix-Auxiliary verb'. The analysis presented here will contribute to the future study of the verb-phrase structure of the Tangut language.