Resumen de South-Asian similatives: a typological perspective

Kalyanamalini Sahoo, Johan van der Auwera

• This is a study of the similatives, the category that English such resorts under, in Bangla, Hindi, Odia, Kannada and Telugu. The reason for focusing on these five languages is double. First, their similatives have not received any scholarly attention. Second, the properties of these South-Asian similatives significantly add to our understanding of the typology of similatives. The study focuses on how similatives are similar to ‘ordinary’ demonstratives, yet still also different. Like demonstratives, the South-Asian similatives come in proximal and distal forms and they form paradigms that also include interrogative and relative forms. But unlike demonstratives, they do not double up as third person personal pronouns, although they have forms expressing similarity to personal pronouns.