A Study on Morphological Case in Gurezi Shina

Abstract

Gurezi Shina is spoken by 25,000 ethnic Dards in the Gurez valley of Kashmir in India. Among the Dardic languages, now referred to as North-West Indo-Aryan languages, Shina has a very rich morphological case system. This paper is an in-depth study on the morphological case system in Gurezi Shina. Various morphological cases found in the language include one oblique form, two forms of agentive, and eight other forms. The work is based on original data collected from native speakers of the language in Gurez during three field trips.