<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body><div>I am guessing Nepali has exactly what you are looking for (though I am saying that without yet checking the historical linguistics of it): </div><div>lagi (preceded by genitive postposition ko or by possessive pronoun) means "for, for the sake of" </div><div>and</div><div>lai which presumably developed from an earler lagi is the dative/definite accusative marker</div><div>Both occur in the modern language.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div id="composer_signature"><div style="font-size:85%;color:#575757" dir="auto">Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.</div></div><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage --><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Ludwig Paul <ludwig.paul@uni-hamburg.de> </div><div>Date: 2/10/18 01:52 (GMT+09:00) </div><div>To: lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org </div><div>Subject: [Lingtyp] grammaticalization ABL->? </div><div><br></div></div>Dear colleagues,<br>I am working on the grammaticalization of Old Persian radi "because of" <br>through Middle Persian ray "for (the sake of)" to the New Persian <br>indirect and (later) direct object marker -ra (all three follow the noun <br>they govern). This grammaticalization process was discussed by Bossong <br>1985, to whose inspiring study other scholars have referred since then <br>(e.g., Hopper/Traugott 1993, p. 158). (the account given of this <br>grammaticalization process is not very accurate in both these works, by <br>the way)<br>My focus is on the development of Old Iranian *radi in modern West <br>Iranian languages other than Persian, where postpositions or case <br>markers with the following functions have been derived from *radi:<br>a. ablative/source<br>b. general oblique case<br>c. benefactive, later indirect, later direct object marker (like in <br>Persian), or instrumental<br><br>The development of case c. is well-documented through Persian. To <br>explain a. and b., I looked - unsuccessfully so far - for <br>parallel/similar cases in other languages where a postposition meaning <br>"because of, on account of" (cf. German "wegen") has become a more <br>widely-used (grammaticalized) postposition, or case marker.<br>Does anyone know about such a development in any other language or <br>language group? I guess this is not very frequent typologically, and <br>would be grateful for any information. This may concern a similar <br>diachronic development, or a synchronic variation in closely-related <br>languages that allows a diachronic interpretation. There is no <br>information given on this issue in Heine/Kuteva 2002.<br><br>Bossong, Georg. Empirische Universalienforschung. Differentielle <br>Objektmarkierung in den neuiranischen Sprachen. Tübingen 1985.<br>Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva. World lexicon of grammaticalization. <br>Cambridge 2002.<br>Hopper, Paul J. and Elisabeth Closs Traugott. Grammaticalization. <br>Cambridge 1993.<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Lingtyp mailing list<br>Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp<br></body></html>