Series |
Eurasian Studies
Edited book | Time in East Asian Endangered Languages
Chapter | Space in Time: Diachrony of Goal-Participant Marking in Ryukyuan Languages
Space in Time: Diachrony of Goal-Participant Marking in Ryukyuan Languages
Abstract
The purpose of the paper is a typological and diachronic study of goal-participant marking in Ryukyuan languages, with goal-participants understood as the participants encoding semantic and syntactic notions typically associated with indirect object, such as Recipient, passive agent, and causee. The study focuses on dative-spatial case polysemy, considering how in Ryukyuan languages G-participants are typically marked either by dative-locative or dative-allative markers. As a result of an examination of over twenty Ryukyuan topolects by studying language documentation examples of encoding of a wide semantic range of G-participants, Ryukyuan languages have been divided into three synchronic types with a range of subtypes, which also reflect a diachronic process of a transition from dative-locative to dative-allative marking. The process is explained as semantically motivated, and conceptualisation of G-participants as ‘destinations’ of a vectored movement is identified as the main factor of first locative/allative variation, and then a potential domination of allative in G-participant-marking.
Submitted: March 4, 2024 | Accepted: Jan. 20, 2025 | Published Feb. 20, 2025 | Language: en
Keywords Japonic • Spatial cases • Case polysemy • Case marking • Ryukyuan
Copyright © 2025 Aleksandra Jarosz. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-913-9/006
