Grammaticalization of Postpositions from Nouns in East Caucasian Languages

One of the diachronic sources of postpositions in East Caucasian languages are relational nouns, which is a cross-linguistically frequent situation. This study attempts to cover the following topics: properties of postpositions derived from nouns in East Caucasian languages and differences and commonalities in the semantic group of nouns attested as lexical sources of postpositions across East Caucasian. The study aims to answer how many such postpositions are attested in individual languages and discusses the topic of possible grammaticalization paths (e.g. postpositions derived from body part terms, from the noun ‘reason’ etc.). In many cases, postpositions derived from nouns retain many nominal properties, an indication that they are only weakly grammaticalized. The number of postpositions derived from nouns, especially from body part terms, varies from language to language, with less such postpositions in the north and east and more in the south. where Lezgic languages are spoken. While the distribution of the postpositions derived from body part terms may suggest this is a contact phenomenon, the data suggests that there is a bias towards such postpositions in the languages of Lezgic branch, which probably appeared at the proto-level. As for the nouns that do not denote body parts, many East Caucasian languages share such grammaticalization paths as ‘reason’ > ‘because of’ and ‘place’ > ‘instead’, where abstract notions are grammaticalized into non-spatial postpositions.