Practical issues of pragmatic case marking variations in the Kenhat varieties of Ladakh
The two Ladakhi dialect groups: Kenhat (Upper Ladakh) and Shamskat (Lower Ladakh) behave differently with respect to case marking variation. The Kenhat dialects are more sensitive to downgrading on the transitivity scale and allow more pragmatically conditioned variation between ergative and a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177651 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | The two Ladakhi dialect groups: Kenhat (Upper Ladakh) and Shamskat
(Lower Ladakh) behave differently with respect to case marking variation. The
Kenhat dialects are more sensitive to downgrading on the transitivity scale and
allow more pragmatically conditioned variation between ergative and absolutive
marking of agents. The more transitive a verb is, the more likely the ‘subject’ is to
receive an ergative marker and vice versa. Pragmatic alternations occur mainly in
the middle field, and are less likely to occur on the highest or lowest level.
Several other Tibetan varieties have reduced case marking to a minimum.
Depending on how severely case marking is reduced, there may be different
solutions to the problems of elicitation and of creating an appropriate lexical entry.
In this contribution, I will mainly focus on that type of varieties where case marking
is (still) quite robust, and will exemplify this type with the dialect of Gya-Miru of
the Kenhat group. |
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