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Hittite
Glottocode: hitt1242
Genalogical classification: Indo-European
Original alignment pattern: Nominative
Source construction: Neuter nouns occur in the bare nominative/accusative case form in S and P function, as in (1) and (2); in A function, they must take an additional morpheme -ant-, which is a derivational morpheme that indicates higher individuation, plus the common gender ending -s.
Developmental mechanism: The combination of the -ant- derivational morpheme and the common gender nominative ending -s is reinterpreted as an inflectional ergative case marker -ants (spelled
Resulting construction: Neutern nouns show an ergative pattern, with the new ergative case ending -ants used in A function, and the old nominative/accusative case ending used in S and P functions.
Type of change: Grammaticalization
Alignment in the resulting construction: Ergative-Absolutive
Global alignment pattern following the change: NP-based split ergativity
Constraints on the distribution of the resulting alignment: The new ergative pattern is restricted to neuter nouns.
Grammatical domains: Case marking
Symmetry: Symmetric
Type of data: Historical data
References: Goedegebuure 2018, Luraghi & Inglese forthc.
Examples
(1) Hittite (Indo-European; Luraghi & Inglese forthc.)
| kēdani=ma | paḫḫur | urāni |
| DEM.DAT=PTC | fire(N).N/A | burn.PRS.3SG.MID |
'And near to this one burns a fire.' (KUB 23.59 iii 9)
(2) Hittite (Indo-European; Luraghi & Inglese forthc.)
| LÚ.MUḪALDIM=kan | ḫašši | paḫḫur | warnuzzi |
| cook=PTC | hearth.DAT | fire(N).N/A | make.burn.PRS.3SG |
'The cook lights the fire on the hearth.' (KUB 11.53 v 16)
(3) Hittite (Indo-European; Luraghi & Inglese forthc.)
| man=an | paḫḫuwen-anza | arḫa | warnuzi |
| IRR=3SG.AC | fire(N).ERG | away | make.burn.PRS.3SG |
'May the fire burn him completely.' (KBo 32.14 ii 6-7)