Animacy, postpositions, and the spatial cases in Niya Prakrit

In this paper, it is shown that (i) the synthetic ablative and locative case in Niya Prakrit have come to be restricted to inanimate nouns and pronouns, and that (ii) analytic formations with postpositions are used for animates: (pro)noun + <i>paride</i> 'from' for ablatival functions, and (pro)noun + <i>vaṃti</i> 'in, at, to' for locatival functions. In addition, it is argued that in the Khotan Prakrit document CKD 661 the postposition <i>sag̲aj̲i</i> /saγāźi/ 'in, at, to' is used in the same function as Niya Pkt. <i>vaṃti</i>.