Morphosyntax and semantics of the Shughni marker -ard: Towards the development of new case markers in Iranian languages

The article is dedicated to the morphosyntactic properties and grammatical functions of the Shughni marker -ard. Shughni, like many other Iranian languages, has a reduced case system that seems to be gradually evolving and expanding. We demonstrate that the marker -ard is one of the main candidates for the status of a new case marker in modern Shughni. Using tests on word-class selectivity, detachability, morphological integration, and repeatability, we show that the marker -ard is closer to the affixal pole on the clitic-affix continuum (especially when combined with pronominal bases). In terms of its grammatical functions, the marker -ard is close to the dative: it marks the addressee, recipient, beneficiary, experiencer, the subject of judgment (dativus judicantis), purpose, as well as location, time, and point of application. Nevertheless, it shows a typologically unexpected pattern: the meanings it covers do not correspond to a connected segment on the semantic map of dative functions proposed by Martin Haspelmath (2003). In our view, this typological deviation results from diachronic processes occurring both in Shughni and in some related languages, particularly the loss of one of the core meanings within the dative grammatical domain, i.e., that of direction.