VARIATION OF ERGATIVITY PATTERNS IN INDO-ARYAN

Abstract

Ergativity in the Indo-Aryan languages is a very intricate phenomenon. At the morphological level, we can observe a certain continuum, from disappearance of ergativity to its reinforcement. The first tendency is clearly visible not only in Eastern Hindi and Bihari dialects, but also in Western Rajasthani. The second tendency can be noted in the Pahari dialects. Somewhere in be- tween are the Western Hindi dialects, which have introduced analytical marking for agent and pa- tient. The transitional character of ergativity in Indo-Aryan can be observed in considering the alignment of the three syntactic-semantic Dixonian primitives, namely A, S, and O (Dixon 1979; 1994). It appears that, in fact, all possible alignments are traceable, even that in which A and O receive the same marking and which has been excluded by typologists (Comrie 1978). However, extending the Dixonian three-primitive system by Obl. (Klimov 1983), we can also observe that the same treatment of A and Obl. (perceived as one of the implications of ergativity) is shared by, for example, early Rajasthani, contemporary Pahari and Western Hindi, where it is closely con- nected with the polyfunctionality of the ergative postposition.