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Ethnolinguistic contact across the Indo-Myanmar-Southwestern China mountains
Edited by Alexander R. Coupe, Randy J. LaPolla and Hideo Sawada
[Asian Languages and Linguistics 4:2] 2023
► pp. 251–272

The role of cognitive schemas in linguistic convergence

From nominative-accusative to ergative‑absolutive alignment in Nagamese

ORCID logo | Nanyang Technological University,
This article reports on some outcomes of language contact and linguistic convergence involving Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages in the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland. The primary focus falls on Nagamese, a lingua franca of the region that is undergoing a change in its morphosyntactic alignment typology. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that cognitive schemas are most likely responsible for the spread of replicated case marking patterns from local Tibeto-Burman languages to Nagamese, and that this has triggered a change in the alignment pattern of Nagamese over the past fifty years. The data presented in the paper are significant for demonstrating how language contact and the replication of cognitive schemas can be plausible drivers of grammatical change, even for something as fundamental to the syntax of a language as its morphosyntactic alignment.
Keywords: Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan, language contact, linguistic convergence, morphosyntactic alignment, linguistic typology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociolinguistic ecology
  • 3.The role of cognitive schemas in replication
  • 4.Core case marking patterns in the TB languages of Nagaland
  • 5.Ergative case marking in Nagamese
  • 6.Conclusion: The rise of para as an ergative case marker
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00014.cou
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