Optionele ergatieve naamvalsmarkering in Hindi
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2016-05-19
Language
nl
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
The Indo-Aryan language Hindi displays a case-patterning split along the lines of aspect: ergative case is assigned to the subject of highly transitive verbs only in perfective aspect. In addition, some intransitive verbs allow for ergative case marking on their subject as well. When the subject of an intransitive verb is marked with ergative case, this indicates that the action was performed deliberately (Mohanan, 1994; Butt, 2001; Bhatt, 2005).
This paper aims to provide a possible explanation for the optional ergative case marking on certain intransitive subjects in Hindi. Since some, but not all intransitive verbs can be passivized (Davison, 1982; Bhatt, 2003; Richa, 2008), it is possible that the reanalysis that underlies the ergative clause in Hindi never took place for these verbs, which may be why some intransitive verbs allow for ergative case marking on their subject, and others do not.
The ergative construction in Hindi is the result of a development at an earlier stage of the Indo-Aryan languages. Due to the loss of the inflectional perfect, a periphrastic passive construction was used to refer to completed events, and it was reanalysed as an active, perfective, ergative-patterning construction (Anderson, 1977; Butt, 2001).
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Letteren