The Evolution of the Tense-Aspect System in Hindi/Urdu: The Status of the Ergative Alignment

The paper deals with the diachrony of the past and perfect system in Indo-Aryan with special reference to Hindi/Urdu. Starting from the acknowledgement of ergativity as a typologically atypical feature among the family of Indo-European languages and as specific to the Western group of Indo-Aryan speeches, I first show that such an evolution has been central to the Romance languages too and that non ergative Indo-Aryan languages have not ignored the structure but at certain point went further along the same historical logic as have Roman languages. I will then propose an analysis of the structure as a predication of localization similar to other stative predications (mainly with "dative" subjects) in Indo-aryan, supporting this claim by an attempt of etymologic inquiry into the markers for °ergative± case in Indo-Aryan.