Alexander R. Coupe

On the diachronic origins of converbs in tibeto-burman and beyond

12.

Non-structural case marking in Tibeto-Burman and artificial languages

This paper discusses the diachronic development of non-structural case marking in TibetoBurman and in computer simulations of language evolution. It is shown how case marking is initially motivated by the pragmatic need to disambiguate between two core arguments, but eventually may develop flagging functions that even extend into the intransitive domain. Also, it is shown how different types of case-marking system may emerge from various underlying disambiguation strategies.