Differential Recipient Marking in the Bangla GIVE Construction
Abstract
This study investigates differential recipient marking (DRM) in Bangla ditransitive constructions employing the verb ‘give’. Bangla DRM exhibits a split-fluid system, where animate recipients receive dative marking, while inanimate recipients alternate between dative and locative marking. Based on both quantitative and qualitative analyses, this paper argues that Bangla DRM primarily serves an identifying function in which the extended animacy hierarchy and event semantics play a central role as determining factors. An inanimate recipient receives dative marking when higher on the extended animacy hierarchy or when the event is conceptualized as caused possession. Conversely, it receives locative marking when lower on the hierarchy or when the event semantics deviates from caused possession. These findings highlight the gradience of the inanimate category in Bangla, reflecting how speakers conceptualize events and referents of arguments.
Presentato: 27 Aprile 2026 | Accettato: 12 Maggio 2026 | Lingua: en
Keywords Ditransitive construction • New Indo-Aryan languages • Differential recipient marking • Bengali • Bangla • Give
Copyright © 2026 Sakura Ishikawa. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/bhasha/2785-5953/2026/01/003