A Typological Study of Local Cases in EIA Languages

Abstract

The paper describes the local cases of four of the eastern Indo-Aryan languages (EIA) using the cognitive framework. The languages under observation are Asamiya, Bangla, Maithili, and Oriya. The local cases are used to mark the position or location of an object which is always stated in reference to another object. These languages use local cases to mark three spaces; location of a static object, source, and path of a moving object. The local cases have been divided into two basic categories; static and dynamic. The paper begins with the description of the static local cases and then refers to the cases used for dynamic location through this process it discovers that Maithili seems to have dichotomy between basic locations on and in but it has just one general spatial term like the other three languages. Moreover it was also observed that static and dynamic markers can overlap into each other’s sphere in certain circumstances. Along with the local cases used with the concrete objects, uses of these case markers with abstract locations too have been explored to mark the extended semantics of these local cases.