Ossetic comitative markers in intragenetic and areal perspective

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the description of comitative markers in Ossetic. First, we compare the distribution of basic comitative markers (which are used in prototypical comitative contexts like ‘Alan went to the mountains with Soslan’) in Iron and Digor Ossetic (the case marker -imæ and the postposition xæccæ, respectively). It is demonstrated that their usage contexts are similar overall, with the exception of plural pronoun constructions and attributive constructions, where the Digor postposition xæccæ has limited use. Second, we analyze the preposition æd, which exists in both language varieties. It is different from the basic comitative markers both in syntax and in semantics. It is typical in the context of “complete set” (e.g., ‘throw away the pot together with the flower’), thus being a socalled “holistic” comitative, like certain markers in some Uralic and Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages. The preposition æd also has a limited syntactic distribution, attaching mostly to nouns without dependents. The properties of æd also differ in Iron and Digor: in Digor, æd is more widespread in attributive constructions, and, unlike Iron, is used in coordinating constructions with double marking. Third,we discuss comitative markers in Iranian and in languages areally close to Ossetic in connection with the untypical semantics of æd. No reliable semantic counterparts to æd are found in Iranian. However, Georgian, which is found in the same linguistic area as Ossetic, has the marker -ian-ad, used in contexts similar to those where Ossetic æd is typical.