genitives

[Frans Plank]

Dear Leon,

on genitives in Indo-Aryan see John Payne's chapter in DOUBLE CASE (with a
few additions from myself, concerning Sinhalese and Maldivian).  The
agreeing "genitival" postpositions derive from participles of 'do', 'be',
'give'.  In some modern Indo-Aryan lgs where such postpositions don't agree
they derive from the same sources but with agreement discontinued (Eastern
Indic, including Bengali), while in others (Sinhalese and Maldivian) their
source is locational: viz. the locative singular of a locational noun, gehi
'in the house'.

Elsewhere in this book a frequent theme is that of genitives deriving from
anaphoric pro forms (Leon's query = Leon his query) rather than locationals.

Best
Frans