Pronominal enclitics on floating flags in Sindhi and Brahui

Making a case for language contact with Balochi

Abstract

The present paper is the first of a series of planned studies looking at weak pronouns in Indo-Aryan and language contact centered around Balochistan. We introduce the weak pronoun inventories in Brahui, Balochi and Sindhi, discuss their historical origins, and provide a starting description of their main uses. In particular, the ability of floating case-flags to host objective pronominal enclitics in Sindhi and Brahui is emphasized and a likely origin of this construction in Balochi is suggested.