Descendants of Old Indo-Aryan apara ‘other’ as associative plural markers in the New Indo-Aryan languages: Distribution and grammatical development

The paper deals with associative plurals in New Indo-Aryan languages, which are found in many of these languages, but have not been studied in detail. Associative plural markers in many New Indo-Aryan languages go back to the Old Indo-Aryan apara ‘other’. An interesting feature of these markers is that, in many languages, under the influence of various kinds of factors, they lose their original function and acquire a different grammatical meaning. Among these factors contacts with non-Indo-Aryan languages play a significant role.