Practical issues of pragmatic case marking variations in the Kenhat varieties of Ladakh

Abstract

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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