External agreement in Khwarshi

Abstract

Abstract As in many other Tsezic languages, the variety of Khwarshi (Nakh-Daghestanian; Daghestan) spoken in the village of Khonokh has agreeing adverbs and postpositions. These typologically unusual agreement targets stand out as exceptional within the Tsezic group by virtue of their infixal agreement pattern. A syntactic analysis of agreeing adverbs in biabsolutive clauses and long-distance agreement constructions demonstrates that apparent variability in the possible agreement controllers of adverbs is structurally determined. Biabsolutive constructions in Khonokh Khwarshi are biclausal, and the adverb agrees with the absolutive of the clause it belongs to. While many constraints on adverb agreement in Khwarshi are syntactic, pragmatic factors determine the controller of agreement with one class of locative adverbials when they are used as discourse particles.