The ergative–absolutive puzzle in Assamese

Abstract This paper analyses the ergative–absolutive case system in Assamese from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar. In Assamese, subjects of transitive verbs are obligatorily marked with the ergative marker /-ɛ/. Some intransitive verbs likewise require their subjects to take this marker, suggesting that Assamese exhibits an ergative system with split intransitivity. The current study claims that the occurrence of this marker is motivated by the semantics of the associated constructions, incorporating insights from image-schema theory and the action chain model, and argues that these markers operate as significant symbolic choices motivated by speakers’ conceptualisation of events. It challenges the existing literature on the ergative–absolutive cases in Assamese based on the thematic-role tradition in formal syntax and semantics, and argues that the ergative case is marked and makes the initiator, i.e. the ‘energy source’, of an action chain prominent in the discourse through the evoked image schema of container with an in - out relation of energy, while the absolutive case, which is zero-marked, involves the source – path – goal image schema. The ergative marker also reflects the speaker’s construal of the subject as the energy source.