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This paper investigates the phenomenon of gender as it appears in 25 Indo-Aryan languages (sometimes referred to as “Dardic”) spoken in the Hindu Kush-Karako- rum region – the mountainous areas of northeastern Afghanistan, northern Pak- istan and the disputed territory of Kashmir. Looking at each language in terms of the number of genders present, to what extent these are sex-based or non-sex- based, how gender relates to declensional differences, and what systems of assign- ment are applied, we arrive at a micro-typology of gender in Hindu Kush Indo- Aryan, including a characterization of these systems in terms of their general com- plexity. Considering the relatively close genealogical ties, the languages display a number of unexpected and significant differences. While the inherited sex-based gender system is clearly preserved in most of the languages, and perhaps even strengthened in some, it is curiously missing altogether in others (such as in Kalasha and Khowar) or seems to be subject to considerable erosion (e.g. in Dameli). That the languages of the latter kind are all found at the northwestern outskirts of the Indo-Aryan world suggests non-trivial interaction with neighbouring languages without gender or with markedly different assignment systems. In terms of com- plexity, the southwestern-most corner of the region stands out; here we find a few languages (primarily belonging to the Pashai group) that combine inherited sex- based gender differentiation with animacy-related distinctions resulting in highly complex agreement patterns. The findings are discussed in the light of earlier obser- vations of linguistic areality or substratal influence in the region, involving Indo- Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, Tibeto-Burman, Turkic languages and Burushaski. The present study draws from the analysis of earlier publications as well as from en- tirely novel field data. &nbsp

Khowar (ISO 639-3: khw) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by 200,000–300,000 (Decker 1992: 31–32; Bashir 2003: 843) people in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly North-West Frontier Province). The majority of the speakers are found in Chitral (a district and erstwhile princely state bordering Afghanistan, see Figure 1), where the language is used as a lingua franca, but there are also important pockets of speaker groups in adjacent areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and Swat District as well as a considerable number of recent migrants to larger cities such as Peshawar and Rawalpindi (Decker 1992: 25–26). Its closest linguistic relative is Kalasha, a much smaller language spoken in a few villages in southern Chitral (Morgenstierne 1961: 138; Strand 1973: 302, 2001: 252). While Khowar has preserved a number of features (phonological, morphological as well as lexical) now lost in other Indo-Aryan languages of the surrounding Hindukush-Karakoram mountain region, it has, over time, incorporated a massive amount of lexical material from neighbouring or influential Iranian languages (Morgenstierne 1936) – and with it, new phonological distinctions. Certain features might also be attributable to formerly dominant languages (e.g. Turkic), or to linguistic substrates, either in the form of, or related to, the language isolate Burushaski, or other, now extinct, languages previously spoken in the area (Morgenstierne 1932: 48, 1947: 6; Bashir 2007: 208–214). There is relatively little dialectal variation among the speakers in Chitral itself, probably attributable to the relative recency of the present expansion of the language (Morgenstierne 1932: 50). Language contact and relatedness in the Hindukush region

The Hindukush Indo-Aryan (‘Dardic’) languages (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir) display a great range of variation in alignment patterns. The diversity is primarily evidenced in the case marking of core argument noun phrases and verbal person marking properties. Along these parameters, six distinct alignment types emerge, each, in combination with language-specific developments, reflecting contact-induced changes that can be attributed to three significant areas or subareas that conflate in the region: first, a large Persian-dominated area overlapping with the Western part of the region, characterized by overt patient marking; second, an area in the East with e.g. ancient Tibetan influences, characterized by overt agent marking; and third, an area in the South bordering on the influential Hindi-Urdu belt, stretching over large parts of the Indian Subcontinent, characterized by patient agreement in the perfective.

The present study investigates discourse markers in Dardic languages (Indo-Aryan; Pakistan), focusing on the discourse markers ba and ta in Palula in comparison with other languages of the region, particularly Dameli in which two markers with the same form and similar functions have been observed. The results showed that Palula ba functions as a topic-marker, in addition to other functions, whereas ta only signals subsequence, except in an adversative construction ta... ba. In Dameli, both ba and ta function as topic-markers, in addition to other functions such as ta marking subsequence, and the ta... ba construction functions similarly to Palula. Interestingly, Kalasha and Gawri showed some similarities, as both have a topic-marker surfacing as ta and tä respectively, which can be used in the adversative constructions ta... o and tä... i respectively, both of which have another marker as the second element. No other language in the sample was found to have a construction similar to the ta... ba construction nor a marker similar in form and function to ba, but all have a subsequence marker resembling ta. These results indicated that the Palula markers ba and ta are part of an areal phenomenon encompassing at least the Chitral, Panjkora and Swat valleys, where Palula originally only had the Shina subsequence marker and later adapted the Dameli system into the language. Denna studie undersöker diskursmarkörer i dardiska språk (indoariska; Pakistan) med fokus på diskursmarkörer ba och ta i palula i jämförelse med andra språk i regionen, i synnerhet dameli i vilket två markörer med samma form och liknande funktion har observerats. Resultaten visade att palula ba fungerar som topikmarkör, tillsammans med andra funktioner, medan ta enbart signalerar subsekvens, förutom i den adversativa konstruktionen ta... ba. I dameli fungerar både ba och ta som topikmarkörer, tillsammans med andra funktioner så som att ta markerar subsekvens, och konstruktionen ta... ba fungerar i likhet med palula. Av intresse är att kalasha och gawri uppvisade en del likheter, så som att båda har topikmarkörer i form av respektive ta och tä, vilka kan användas i språkens respektive adversativa konstruktioner ta... o och tä... i, varav båda använder en annan markör för det andra elementet. Inget annat språk i urvalet observerades ha en konstruktion lik ta... ba eller en markör lik ba i form och funktion, men alla har en subsekvensmarkör lik ta. Dessa resultat indikerar att palulas markörer ba och ta är en del av ett arealt fenomen som innefattar åtminstone dalgångarna Chitral, Panjkora och Swat, och att palula ursprungligen enbart hade shinas subsekvensmarkör och därefter integrerade damelis system in i språket.

The languages belonging to the group commonly known as the “Dardic languages” are on some levels insufficiently researched and have barely been subject to any comparative research on their finer grammatical structures, such as their tense and aspect systems. This comparative study analyses three Dardic languages spoken in the central Dardic speaking area (Khowar, Gawri, Palula) in view of their tense and aspect system, to find out how similar the languages are in this respect. The comparison is based on Dahl‟s 1985 Tense and Aspect questionnaire, partly to have an equal, comparable data set, and partly to be able to tie the results to the greater field of language typology. The study shows that the languages studied have a common primary focus on IPFV:PFV distinction, where past tense often is a secondary implicature following perfective aspect. There are notable differences in how and if the languages mark future tense and habitual aspect. The subject merits further studies on an extended sample and with more languages from the Dardic group.

This dissertation aims to provide a grammatical description of Dameli (ISO-639-3: dml), an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 5 000 people in the Domel Valley in Chitral in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in the North-West of Pakistan. Dameli is a left-branching SOV language with considerable morphological complexity, particularly in the verb, and a complicated system of argument marking. The phonology is relatively rich, with 31 consonant and 16 vowel phonemes. This is the first extensive study of this language. The analysis presented here is based on original data collected primarily between 2003-2008 in cooperation with speakers of the language in Peshawar and Chitral, including the Domel Valley. The core of the data consists of recorded texts and word lists, but questionnaires and paradigms of word forms have also been used. The main emphasis is on describing the features of the language as they appear in texts and other material, rather than on conforming them to any theory, but the analysis is informed by functional analysis and linguistic typology, hypotheses on diachronical developments and comparisons with neighbouring and related languages. The description is divided into sections describing phonology, morphology and syntax, with chapters on a range of individual subjects such as particular word classes and phrase types, phonological and syntactical phenomena. This is not intended to be an exhaustive reference grammar; some topics are only touched upon briefly while others are treated in more detail and suggestions for further research are given at various points throughout the work.

The main purpose of this volume is to provide a complement to Towards a grammatical description of Palula (Liljegren 2008). The 1460 main entries included in the present work are limited to those lexical items that are cited or exemplified in the aforementioned work. The work is the result of linguistic research in and with the Palula community (Pakistan). It contains much of the basic vocabulary used in today's Palula, presented along with illustrative example sentences, grammatical information, and comments on word origins. Henrik Liljegren is a field linguist at Stockholm University, Sweden, and Naseem Haider, himself a native speaker of Palula, is a local researcher with the Forum for Language Initiatives in Islamabad. The book can be ordered from the Forum for Language Initiatives, see www.fli-online.org

Avhandlingens syfte är att ge en grammatisk beskrivning av det indoariska språket palula, ett språk med ca 10000 talare i Chitraldistriktet i Pakistans nordvästprovins. Ingen tidigare studie har presenterat detta hittills mycket litet kända språk i detalj och med den omfattning som detta arbete gör. Det är också en av ett fåtal ingående studier som finns tillgängliga vad gäller språk i hela den omgivande Hindukushregionen. Analysen är baserad på språkdata som företrädesvis insamlats av författaren själv under perioden 1998-2006, huvudsakligen i form av inspelade texter som kompletterats med enkäter, dokumenterad observation av språkanvändning samt elicitering av ordlistor och paradigm. Fältarbetet har utförts i nära samverkan med talare av språket. Beskrivningen omfattar delområdena fonologi, morfologi, syntax och ett antal centrala ämnen inom vart och ett av dessa större områden. Arbetet ska dock inte betraktas som en helt uttömmande referensgrammatik. Somliga ämnen har getts större utrymme, då de ses som speciellt centrala i språket, medan andra behandlas mer summariskt. Förslag till fördjupade studier ges genomgående i verkets olika kapitel och sektioner. Inriktningen som valts är teorimedveten utan att vara teoribunden. Terminologin och det bakomliggande resonemanget anknyter däremot i stora delar till lingvistisk typologi och icke-formell lingvistik. Den diakrona utvecklingen diskuteras i viss utsträckning, i synnerhet inom morfologin. Även jämförelser med andra språk samt referenser till areala företeelser förekommer i den mån de har varit tillgängliga och bedömts som välmotiverade. This dissertation is intended to provide a grammatical description of the Indo-Aryan language Palula, spoken by approximately 10,000 people in Chitral District in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. No study with the scope and detail of the current work has been presented in the past for this little-known language, and it is one of only a few in-depth studies available for languages in the immediate surrounding of the Hindu Kush region. The analysis is based on original data primarily collected during the period 1998-2006, mainly in the form of recorded texts but supplemented by questionnaires, notes of observed language use and the elicitation of word lists and paradigms. The field work has been conducted in close cooperation with native speakers and their communities. The description covers phonology, morphology, syntax and a range of the most important topics within each of these sub-disciplines, but it is not meant to be an exhaustive reference grammar. Some topics have been given greater prominence in the work, as they have particular importance to the language, whereas others have been covered more summarily. Suggestions for further research that should be undertaken are given throughout the study. The approach chosen is theory-informed rather than theory-driven, but an underlying framework of linguistic typology and non-formalism is assumed. Diachronic development is taken into account, particularly in the area of morphology, and comparisons with other languages and references to areal phenomena are included insofar as they were motivated and available. För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se