Project A-24

The Role of Semantic Fields in the Development of Postpositions and Case Markers

Project Abstract

In closely related South Asian languages the same case marker functions as an ergative in one language (e.g., ergative ne in Hindi), but as a dative in another (e.g., dative ne in Gujarati). Despite these overt differences, the modern case systems retain definitive characteristics of the ancestral system (Sanskrit/Prakrit). This project sets out to trace the sources of modern case in several South Asian languages in order to understand how the semantic fields occupied by ancestral case markers are mapped onto present day case systems, so as to result in a very different distribution of individual markers, but still retain the basics of the ancestral case system.

Publications