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This article examines several grammatical developments that have received relatively little attention, but that may be more pervasive than previously recognized. They involve the functional extension of markers of grammatical dependency from sentence-level syntax into larger discourse and pragmatic domains. Such developments are first illustrated with material from Navajo and Central Alaskan Yup'ik, then surveyed more briefly in several other unrelated languages. In some cases, secondary effects of such changes can reshape basic clause structure. An awareness of these processes can accordingly aid in understandingcertain recurringbut hitherto unexplained arrays of basic morphological and syntactic patterns, exemplified here with cases of homophonous grammatical markers and of ergative/accusative splits. Like developments described by Gildea (1997, 1998) and Evans (2007), they involve the use of dependent clauses as independent sentences, but the processes described here differ from those in both the mechanisms at work and their results.

A kind of case marking—termed variously active, active-neutral, active-inactive, active-static, stative-active, agentive, agent-patient, split S, and split intransitive—is shown to be less arbitrary than is sometimes assumed. Its semantic bases can be missed if sought only in immediate one-to-one correspondences between meaning and form. Case systems of this kind are often the products of successive diachronic developments, each individually motivated. Several factors can obscure the motivations, including not only crosslinguistic differences in detail, but also shifts of defining features over time, grammaticization, and lexicalization. To explain why these case systems have the shapes they do, we must appreciate both the diversity of features that can underlie them and the dynamic processes that mold them.

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