[Lingtyp] case suffix is "homonymous" with personal pronoun form

[Claire Bowern]

Wangkumara and Punthamara have this, and Diyari in some forms.
Claire

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:16 AM Eva Schultze-Berndt via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Dear Christian,
>
> I’m only aware of such an identity of pronouns and case markers for
> ergative case (not necessarily an ergative form of the pronoun - which is
> not unexpected because of split ergativity based on referential status).
> I’ve pasted below the one relevant paragraph that I have written about
> this for Jaminjung-Ngaliwurru (Mirndi), which also includes references to
> the phenomenon in other Australian languages (I think these are all that I
> am aware of, or was in 2016/17).
> I’d be interested to hear about any other overlaps of pronouns and case
> marking, or switch-reference marking for that matter.
>
> All the best,
> Eva
>
> “There is however some intriguing evidence that the diachronic origin of
> the Ergative marker *=ni *is more directly related to marking
> expectedness in discourse than it is to marking the semantic role of agent.
> The origin of the Ergative marker in Jaminjung/Ngaliwurru is, in all
> likelihood, a third person pronoun/demonstrative; compelling comparative
> evidence for this claim is gender agreement of ergative case in the related
> languages Nungali and Jingulu (Chadwick 1976b; Pensalfini 1999; McGregor
> 2008). Synchronically, in Jaminjung/Ngaliwurru, the pronominal *ni *is
> retained in 3SG>3SG verbal prefix *gani- *and is a plausible origin for
> the verbal enclitic *=ni *marking switch-reference across finite clauses
> (see section 44.3 for discussion and examples). Plausibly, a discourse use
> of a third singular pronoun to disambiguate reference in the case of a
> switched or new subject/agent could be the origin (via distinct pathways of
> grammaticalization) for both the switch-reference construction and the
> Ergative marker (the latter by an association of switched or new subjects
> in apposition with the pronoun with the role of transitive agent, a
> scenario discussed in more detail by McGregor (2008: 311– 316)). For a
> number of other Australian languages, too, there is evidence that markers
> of a special discourse status have been reanalysed as ergative markers, or
> vice versa (Jingulu, Pensalfini 1999; Kuuk Thaayorre, Gaby 2010).”
>  (Schultze-Berndt 2017: 1112)
>
> References:
>
> Chadwick, Neil. 1976. Ergative, Locative and Instrumental Suffices in
> Djingili. In *Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages*, edited by
> R. M. W. Dixon. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (= Linguistic
> Series 22).
>
>
> Gaby, Alice. 2010. ‘From Discourse to Syntax and Back: The Lifecycle of
> Kuuk Thaayorre Ergative Morphology’. *Lingua* 120 (7): 1677–1692.
>
>
> McGregor, William. 2008. ‘Indexicals as Sources of Case Markers in
> Australian Languages’. In *Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic
> Analyses*, edited by Folke Josephson and Ingmar Söhrman. Benjamins.
>
>
> Pensalfini, Rob. 1999. The Rise of Case Suffixes as Discourse Markers in
> Jingulu—a Case Study of Innovation in an Obsolescent Language. *Australian
> Journal of Linguistics* 19 (2): 225–240.
>
>
> Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2017. Interaction of ergativity and information
> structure in Jaminjung (Australia). In J. Coon, D. Massam & L. Travis
> (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Ergativity, 1089–1113. Oxford: Oxford University
> Press.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Prof Eva Schultze-Berndt (she/her) | Linguistics and English Language
>
> School of Arts, Languages and Cultures | The University of Manchester, UK
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Date: *Friday, 27 March 2026 at 10:30
> *To: *lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject: *[Lingtyp] case suffix is "homonymous" with personal pronoun
> form
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I dimly remember that in one or more languages of Australia, case suffixes
> look like forms of a pronoun declined for the case in question.
>
> Could someone with relevant expertise or a better memory than me please
> help me out? Name of the language(s) in question would be sufficient; a
> reference would be even better.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Christian
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> Tel.:
> +49/361/2113417
> E-Post:
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