Inanimate demonstrative pronouns in Kullui (Indo-Aryan)

The article deals with two inanimate demonstratives in Kullui, an Indo-Aryan language of Himachali group — the proximal ũi and the distal tũi. They have not been previously studied and are not even mentioned in practically a half of the grammatical descriptions of Kullui. The present data comes from the field work conducted in the Kullu district (Himachal Pradesh, India) in 2014–2018.

As far as can be judged, the demonstrative systems of the majority of New Indo-Aryan languages are based on three reflexes of Old Indo-Aryan demonstratives, one proximal and two distal. The proximal demonstratives are considered to go back to the OIA eṣa ‘this’. The two distal demonstratives are derived from the OIA sa (non-direct stem ta-) ‘that’ and asau (OBL amu-) ‘that’. The presence of two distal demonstratives in NIA languages naturally leads to functional competition between them. As a result, one of the two usually serves as a distal pronoun, while the other either acquires an additional meaning or is completely lost.

Inanimate demonstratives, existing in Kullui alongside animate demonstratives, can refer to inanimate nouns, verbal phrases, or sentential arguments. In other Himachali languages, we find inanimate demonstratives with similar functions that etymologically go back to OIA neuter demonstrative pronouns. Since in the majority of Himachali languages the nominal system does not distinguish neuter gender, the neuter demonstratives acquire a set of new functions.

However, the inanimate demonstratives in Kullui show no neuter-pronoun heritage. While the other Kullui demonstratives derive from the OIA pronouns eṣa (proximal) and sa (distal), the inanimate proximal demonstrative ũi goes back to the OIA distal pronoun asau, with the distal pronoun tũi formed directly from ũi by analogy. Presumably, the reason is that after Kullui had lost its neuter demonstratives, under the influence of neighbouring genetically related languages that retained these demonstratives, their functions have been taken over by the previously little used reflex of asau.