Events
LILA talk: Pritha Chandra and Roberta D’Alessandro
The next Lectures on Iranian Linguistics in Arizona (LILA) talk will be given by Pritha Chandra (IIT Delhi) and Roberta D’Alessandro (ILS Utrecht University).
Title: The role of object marking in alignment shift
Time: 5pm (CET)
Abstract
This talk presents some findings on an ongoing shift from ergative alignment to accusative alignment, with an empirical focus on some
Western Indo-Aryan (WIA) varieties. We identify some language areas that exemplify different stages of language change, and consider them for a comprehensive study of ergativity attrition, and possible alignment shift. We show that there is a strong correlation between the emergence of agreement with a differentially-marked (DOM) object and alignment attrition; the DOM-triggered agreement on v is identified as the starting point of ergative attrition, culminating in an accusative-alignment. We also bring up some parallels with Iranian languages.