Alignment System in Dolakha Newar

The research is carried out to discuss the alignment system of the language, Dolakha Newar and to offer an explanation on the relevant phenomena. Alignment is a marking system to distinguish the semantic roles of core arguments (being patient-like or agent-like) and their grammatical relations (being subjects or objects) (Song 2001: 139). Cross-linguistically, ergative, accusative, tripartite, and neutral system have been found to be employed in languages. Basing on the data from the reference, this research presents the main ergative case marking system and the two split case marking system, as well as the main accusative marking system and its splits. Furthermore, in order to explain these, the research attempts to relate the alignment system to the universal and the given explanation. It turned out the split case marking could be explained by the nominal hierarchy (Song 2001: 148), the dative experiencer clauses by active- inactive system, the verb disagreement by intentions of achieving pragmatic effects, and the conflict between case marking and heading marking by historical reasons (Dixon 1994: 95).