Silvia Kutscher, "When "towards’ means "away from’: The case of directional-ablative syncretism in the Ardeşen-variety of Laz (South-Caucasian)", in: Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 63 (2010), 252–271
Abstract
This paper deals with morphosyntactic and semantic characteristics of the spatial case called motative in the Ardeşen-variety of Laz. The motative can be used to mark the ground-nominal in allative as well as in ablat
ive spatial expressions, while the ground-nominal in static spatial expressions is unmarked for case. Hence, the motative case shows a conflation of the allative with ablative spatial semantics, while at the same time excluding
locative spatial meaning. Given that this kind of syncretism has been claimed to be non-existent, the findings for Ardeşen-Laz are of special relevance for the refinement of the typology on spatial case-systems.