Agentive and non-agentive light verb constructions in Pahari-Pothwari

Abstract This paper investigates two classes of Pahari-Pothwari (an understudied South Asian language) light verb constructions (LVCs), which comprise a light verb (LV) and nominal/adjectival/verbal coverb, forming one single verbal predicate. It is shown that four LVs contribute minimally two lexical semantic features: agentivity and, in a subset of cases, causation via language-internal and external diagnostics (Cruse 1973: 11–23). The agentivity distinction coincides with case marking patterns: non-agentive LVs e ‘come’ and lag ‘attach’ are restricted to an accusative/dative case marked experiencer subject; agentive LVs maɾ ‘hit’ and kaɾ ‘do’ are restricted to an ergative/nominative case subject. Using a series of morphosyntactic and syntactic diagnostics, the study shows that nominal coverbs are morphosyntactically distinct from nominal complements, despite sharing some surface properties. The data indicates that the LV and coverb contribute to the argument structure, and there are possible combinatory restrictions of N + V LVCs, which can give an insight into the status of nominal coverbs.