The variability of ergativity in the Indo-Aryan languages of the South-Asian sub¬continent. A typological study of the ergative patterning of Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Assamese, Nepali, Marathi, Marwari, Sindhi, Punjabi and Gujarati.

This typological study of various Indo-Aryan languages comprises two objectives: i) to elucidate, by means of a synchronic comparison, the diachronic problem of the disappearance or degeneration of the ergative construction in split ergative languages ii) to offer an empirical grounding for a better understanding of the phenomenon of ergativity and to offer an attempt to a general definition of it.