COMITATIVE PREPOSITION <i>ÆD</i> IN OSSETIC
In Iron Ossetic, the case marker -imæ and the preposition æd are used to convey comitative meanings. At the moment, there are only brief descriptions of these markers. In this paper, I discuss in detail the properties of the preposition æd in comparison with the marker -imæ, especially in connection with the results of typological works devoted to the comitative. The study is based on the data of the Ossetic National Corpus and grammars, as well as on the materials obtained during elicitation with native speakers in the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania, Vladikavkaz. I show that æd differs from -imæ both syntactically and semantically. For example, unlike the marker -imæ, the preposition æd is generally used without dependents and is not felicitous with pronouns; it is also used in a more limited number of comitative constructions identified by A. Arkhipov. Moreover, æd has a non-trivial semantics: two objects in a construction with æd must form a “set” (cf. throw away the refrigerator with the food = ‘throw away the refrigerator not taking out the food, the integrity of this “set” is not affected in the course of the action). The corresponding semantics of comitative markers (which I propose to call “holistic”) is not unique to Ossetic; however, it is not discussed in detail in typological works. Thus, the Ossetic data are of interest from both theoretical and typological points of view, complementing the existing descriptions of holistic comitative markers