Cover not available

Article published In: Asian Languages and Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

The ergative–absolutive puzzle in Assamese

A Cognitive Grammar analysis

ORCiD logo with link | Indian Institute of Technology BHU
ORCiD logo with link | Indian Institute of Technology BHU
Published online: 5 October 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.26013.sha
Abstract
This paper analyses the ergative–absolutive case system in Assamese from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar. In Assamese, subjects of transitive verbs are obligatorily marked with the ergative marker /-ɛ/. Some intransitive verbs likewise require their subjects to take this marker, suggesting that Assamese exhibits an ergative system with split intransitivity. The current study claims that the occurrence of this marker is motivated by the semantics of the associated constructions, incorporating insights from image-schema theory and the action chain model, and argues that these markers operate as significant symbolic choices motivated by speakers’ conceptualisation of events. It challenges the existing literature on the ergative–absolutive cases in Assamese based on the thematic-role tradition in formal syntax and semantics, and argues that the ergative case is marked and makes the initiator, i.e. the ‘energy source’, of an action chain prominent in the discourse through the evoked image schema of container with an in-out relation of energy, while the absolutive case, which is zero-marked, involves the source–path–goal image schema. The ergative marker also reflects the speaker’s construal of the subject as the energy source.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A brief review of earlier analyses
  • 3.Theoretical framework
  • 4.Data presentation and analyses
    • 4.1The ergative case in Assamese
      • 4.1.1Split intransitivity in Assamese: Split-S
      • 4.1.2Split ergativity in Assamese
    • 4.2The absolutive case in Assamese
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (38)
References
Amritavalli, R., & Sarma, Partha Protim. (2002). A case distinction between unaccusative and unergative subjects in Assamese. Snippets, (5), 6–7.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Banerjee, Sayantani, & Dash, Biswanath. (2024). Loss of ergativity in Eastern Indo-Aryan languages. Asian Languages and Linguistics, 5(2), 187–209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barbora, Madhumita, & Nath, Diganta Kumar. (2016). The agentive ergativity in Assamese. In M. Barbora & G. K. Borah (Eds.), Aspects of modern Assamese (pp. 65–83). Bhabani Books in association with the Department of English and Foreign Languages, Tezpur University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bhattacharjya, Manmee. (2014). Case in Assamese (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The English and Foreign Languages University.
Borah, Gautam K. (2016). The indeterminacy of the bare noun in Assamese and its determination. In M. Barbora & G. K. Borah (Eds.), Aspects of modern Assamese (pp. 25–64). Bhabani Books in association with the Department of English and Foreign Languages, Tezpur University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borkotoky, Reetom. (2024). Argument structure constructions: The case of Assamese (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Tezpur University.
Bubenik, Vít. (1989). On the origins and elimination of ergativity in Indo-Aryan languages. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 34(4), 377–398. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Butt, Miriam. (2001). A re-examination of the accusative to ergative shift in Indo-Aryan. In M. Butt & T. H. King (Eds.), Time over matter: Diachronic perspectives on morphosyntax (pp. 105–142). CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chatterji, Suniti Kumar. (1926). The origin and development of the Bengali language. Calcutta University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Eystein, & Stroński, Krzysztof (Eds.). (2016). Indo-Aryan ergativity in typological and diachronic perspective. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert Malcolm Ward. (1979). Ergativity. Language, 55(1), 59–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gomola, Aleksander. (2024). Analogy in Cognitive Semantics. In Handbook of Cognitive Semantics Online. Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kakati, B. K. (1941). Assamese: Its formation and development. Government of Assam, Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Narayani Handiqui Historical Institute.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konwar, Diksha. (2022). Verbs of motion in Assamese: Predicate case alternation and causativization (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, & Johnson, Mark. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald Wayne. (1986). An introduction to cognitive grammar. Cognitive Science, 10(1), 1–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar (Vol. 1: Theoretical prerequisites). Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1991a). Concept, image, and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1991b). Foundations of cognitive grammar (Vol. 2: Descriptive application). Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2008). Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luraghi, Silvia. (2009). Case in cognitive grammar. In A. Malchukov & A. Spencer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of case (pp. 136–150). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nikiforidou, Kiki. (1991). The meanings of the genitive: A case study in semantic structure and semantic change. Cognitive Linguistics, 2(2), 149–206. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Obana, Yasuko. (2019). Politeness. In P. Heinrich & Y. Ohara (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Japanese sociolinguistics (pp. 190–202). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, Günter, & Dirven, René. (2007). Cognitive English grammar. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saikia, Pori, & Camilleri, Maris. (2019). Assamese case alignment shifts in progress. In M. Butt, T. H. King, & I. Toivonen (Eds.), Proceedings of the LFG’19 Conference (pp. 251–271). CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saha, Atanu, & Patgiri, Bipasha. (2013). Ergativity in Axomiya. Language in India, 13(12), 35–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarma, Naranarayan. (1990). The verb phrase in Assamese: A constituent structure analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Gauhati University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stroński, Krzysztof. (2009). Approaches to ergativity in Indo-Aryan. Lingua Posnaniensis, 51(1), 77–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stump, G. T. (1983). The elimination of ergative patterns of case-marking and verbal agreement in Modern Indic languages. Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics, 27, 140–164.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In Proceedings of the seventeenth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session and parasession on the grammar of event structure (pp. 480–519). Berkeley Linguistics Society. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics (Vols. 1–2). MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, John R. (1995). Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory (2nd ed.). Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verbeke, Saartje, & De Cuypere, Ludovic. (2009). The rise of ergativity in Hindi: Assessing the role of grammaticalization. Folia Linguistica Historica, 43 (Historica-vol-30), 367–389. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verbeke, Saartje, & Willems, Klaas. (2012). Ergativity in modern and middle Indo-Aryan: a critical digest. In J. S. Klein & K. Yoshida (Eds.), Indic across the millennia: from the Rigveda to modern Indo-Aryan (pp. 209–226). Hempen Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue