Variation and change in the formal marking of Khotanese I. A diachronic study on the genitive-dative singular in Old Khotanese

In Khotanese, masculine nominals of the a-declension tend to lose the formal distinction between nominative singular -ä and genitive-dative singular -i. Likewise, the diphthongs ei and ai interchange freely in post-archaic Old Khotanese not only within but also at the end of a word, thus eliminating the distinction between nominative singular -ei and genitive-dative singular -ai of the secondary aa-declension. The aim of this article is to investigate the strategies of formal marking that arose in post-archaic texts in order to differentiate the genitive-dative from the nominative, applying morphological and syntactic criteria.