Saartje Verbeke

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at Ghent University

This article aims to explore the dynamics of differential object marking (DOM) in Hindi. In Hindi, the ko-marking of the direct object (DO) is known to be influenced by two factors: animacy and definiteness or specificity. The marking of the inanimate object depends on the definiteness or specificity of the object. Unmarked inanimate objects can be...

Since the pioneering paper by Emenau (1956) there have been many attempts (cf. Masica 1976, 2001; Ebert 2001; among many others) to select areal features which are shared among languages spoken in South Asia. However, there has been little consent on the number of such features and the possible direction of their spread. In this paper we are focusi...

Case marking and word order have often been related to each other; i.e. languages with an extensive case marking system, such as Latin and Sanskrit, seem to have a more free word order (Blake 2001: 15). A frequent functional explanation of this correlation is that both mechanisms, case marking and word order, share the same function: to identify an...

The collection of articles presented in this volume addresses a number of general theoretical, methodological and empirical issues in the field of Historical Linguistics, in different levels of analysis and on different themes: (i) phonology, (ii) morphology, (iii) morphosyntax, (iv) syntax, (v) diachronic typology, (vi) semantics and pragmatics, a...

The Bāāsurakathā is a sharada manuscript in Old Kashmiri composed by Avtar Bhatt, dated between the 14th and 16th centuries. It retells the love story of the demon Bāa’s daughter Uā with Krishna’s grandson Aniruddha, and the ensuing fight between Bāa and Krishna, as it is found in the Harivaśapurāa. This paper focuses on the linguistic features of...

Argument structure of Kashmiri is a study of the grammatical patterns one finds in the Indo-Aryan language Kashmiri. Kashmiri shows several unique linguistic features which sets it aside from more well-known Indo-Aryan languages. The book focuses on the grammatical relations and their coding in case marking and in verb agreement. The occurrence of...

This article explores a grammatical structure — differential object marking (DOM) — that is particularly difficult for L2 learners to acquire. DOM is a phenomenon in which some direct objects are morphologically marked and others are not. In Hindi, animate direct objects are always marked with the objective case marker ko , whereas specific direct...

Indo-Aryan languages are often described as ergative or split-ergative. The article investigates the extent of this claim, by looking at a number of constructions in 22 New Indo-Aryan languages. It is shown that ergative constructions are in general the minority, and that other mechanisms of alignment, such as transitivity-indicating agreement patt...

This article addresses the variable alignment properties of experiencer constructions in Indo-Aryan (IA) languages in the light of the available historical data from Vedic Sanskrit onwards. The first aim of the article is to shed light on the possible historical sources, emergence and expansion of constructions with non-canonically marked arguments...

We investigate Differential Subject Marking in Nepali imperfective constructions. No previous accounts were satisfying in explaining under what conditions the ergative marker is preferably used. Building on a probabilistic approach to syntactic variability, we conducted statistical analyses on the basis of corpus data, which compared and evaluated...

The dative alternation refers to the alternation between two constructions that denote some type of transfer: the double object construction (I give my sister a book) vs. the to-dative construction (I give a book to my sister). We examined the motivations behind the dative alternation in Indian English. A corpus study was performed based on a sampl...

In the Indo-Aryan language Nepali, the transitive subject A in perfective constructions is ergatively marked with the postposition le. However, in contrast to Hindi, also Indo-Aryan, le can mark A in imperfective constructions. The postposition is then optional and seems to occur on a highly irregular basis. Various hypotheses have been assumed to...

Als één van de oudste cultuurgebieden op aarde, wordt India sinds de oudheid gekenmerkt door een bijzonder rijke verhalenwereld. Sommige verhalen zijn (deels) gebaseerd op historische gebeurtenissen, andere geheel ontsproten aan de fantasie van getalenteerde vertellers. De regio Zuid-Azië kent een lange en woelige culturele geschiedenis, gekenmerkt...

Alignment differences in two Rajasthani languages, Marwari and Harauti, illustrate the distinct functioning of two mechanisms that determine alignment, case marking and agreement. In both languages, the agreement pattern is consistently ergative in sentences constructed with a perfect finite verb form. However, the argument marking pattern differs...

This article investigates the origins and development of the ergative patterning in Hindi. Following traditional Indo-Aryan scholarship, two evolutions are discerned: (i) the reanalysis of a passive as an ergative construction, and (ii) the development of an ergative case marker ne. Three different hypotheses have been postulated in the literature...