A New Grammaticalisation Pathway: From Non-Finite Verb to Ergative Marker

doi:10.13173/centasiaj.57.2014.0053

A New Grammaticalisation Pathway: From Non-Finite Verb to Ergative Marker

Seiten 53 - 59

DOI https://doi.org/10.13173/centasiaj.57.2014.0053

Studies on the diachronic origin of ergative and agentive markers (Palancar 2002, Heine and Kuteva 2002) have focused on the development of ergative from other case markers, in particular spatial cases (ablative, locative, allocative, perlative) as well as genitive and instrumental. These diachronic pathways are indeed widespread. For instance, the ergative -s, -k^jis in Tibetan is obviously related to the -s in other cases such as the ablative -las, the elative -nas and the comparative -bas (see Hill 2011 on the use of these cases in Old Tibetan). This is however far from being the only attested origin of ergative markers. In this paper, we present data from Tangut showing a grammaticalisation pathway from a converbial form of the verb ‘to do’ to the ergative. We first describe some syntactic properties of the ergative in Tangut, and then propose a path of grammaticalisation accounting for this development.

本文以西夏語能格動詞為題，辯論西夏語動詞經過語法化自非限定動詞終於發展到能格動詞。

Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France

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A New Grammaticalisation Pathway: From Non-Finite Verb to Ergative Marker

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