'A Historical Syntax of Indo-Aryan Dialects' (spoken in Northern India between the 6th - 12th c.)

What is it about?

This monograph explores changes in the grammar of Indo-Aryan languages during their medieval period (6th - 12th c.): restructuring of their nominal and pronominal systems (morphology of case and pronouns), evolution of their systems of tense and aspect (progressive aspect and expressions for the perfect), the emergence and development of the 'ergative' construction (diverging development of the ergative and passive construction), morphology of mood (various interactions between mood, modality and agentivity), absolute constructions, and syntax of subordinate clauses.

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Why is it important?

The perusal of representative linguistic titles in European and Indic languages reveals a neglect of the late Middle Indo-Aryan period when the real break with the synthetic typology of earlier Middle Indo-Aryan begins. This monograph aims at closing up the gap in our knowledge of the nature and pace of grammatical changes during the formative period of Indo-Aryan languages ushering directly into the early New Indo-Aryan period. On the basis of primary data it explores the causal nexus between the increased use of adverbial elements and the loss of distinctive values of Old and Middle Indo-Aryan fusional cases; it reports on the existence of a typologically rare double-oblique system known from contemporary Iranian languages (Pashto, Kurdish, Pamir languages); and argues for the appearance of the absolute case at the end of the Middle Indo-Aryan period as a necessary prerequisite for the development of the ergative construction, and the diverging development of the ergative and passive construction from the ambiguous but formally passive structure inherited from Old Indo-Aryan. The analysis is cast in the typological-functional framework.

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