Demonstrative contrasts in Hindukush Indo-Aryan

Abstract: Hindukush Indo-Aryan (HKIA) is a disputed subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages spoken within a linguistically diverse area stretching from northeastern Afghanistan, across northern Pakistan to northwestern India, principally covering the mountainous region of Hindukush–Karakoram–Western Himalaya. A noteworthy feature of some of these languages is a three-way demonstrative system, or three deictic terms used by speakers to direct one another’s attention to referents at different distances in their environment. It has been suggested that the distinguishing feature of one such demonstrative in HKIA is its referents’ remote distance from the interlocutors, or their absence from the environment altogether. The purpose of this study is two-fold: first, it is to more closely examine the demonstrative systems of a sample of HKIA languages on the basis of fieldwork data; secondly, it is to compare the data to previous accounts of the systems, as well as to the demonstrative systems of other languages spoken in the region. The results provide evidence that two demonstratives in HKIA are distance-contrastive, and one is invisibility-contrastive vis-à-vis the other two. Such a three-term system is moreover shown to be present in languages of the area that span across three other genealogical families, which suggests that the feature may be areally influenced.