Miriam Butt, Universitaet Konstanz
Title: Optimal Case Realization in Historical Change
Abstract:
The first part of the talk will provide an overview and survey of the types of optimality theoretic
approaches that deal with case alternations from the point of view of linking theory.
I will then move on to provide specific examples of case alternations in Urdu and connect these
to a systematic pattern of case alternations in the ancestor languages Sanskrit and Pali.
The third and last part of the talk will then have more of an experimental character in that I
will attempt to understand the changes in case marking and the subtle shifts in the use of particular
case alternations that have occurred over the ages within an optimality theoretic approach.