Contents:
It may be noted that the evidence for the diffusion of grammatical structure between Dravidian and Indo-Aryan in both directions led me to reconsider the possible importance of such a process in historical relationships among the language families of North and South America. My work suggested the following: 1 For language history in general, structural borrowing can be associated with an 'accommodative' mode of culture contact, attested throughout the history of South Asia, whereas constraints on linguistic borrowing are likely to be associated with a more 'separatist' mode of contact.
Similar views have recently become increasingly accepted in the field of historical linguistics see Thomason and Kaufman Lindenfeld is a descriptive study, using concepts from generative grammar, of the verb complex in an Ayyangar dialect of spoken Tamil. In retrospect, however, I must admit that what fascinated me most about the material was the historical development which it illustrated with respect to the conservative structure of written Tamil.
Through processes of phonological and analogical change, combinations of tense suffixes and auxiliary verbs—conveying reflexivity, completed action, progressive action, and perfective action—have been reduced to minimal suffix-like elements, and long periphrastic sequences have turned into 'polysynthetic' words; e. MASC kuduttunuttirundirukka 'he has been giving it away for himself 'Phonological rules in literary and colloquial Kannada' looks at data from the conservative written variety of Kannada and from the spoken dialects of several geographical and social communities, to consider the extent to which the relationships among them can be formulated in terms of ordered generative rules.
The last three papers are concerned with three questions regarding the relationship between the written and spoken variants of language a topic of much recent interest, cf. Tannen b , and the history of written language in ancient South Asia. Finally, 'Written and spoken language in South Asia' focuses on the puzzling fact that, after the decline of the Indus Valley civilization, we have no clear record of written language from South Asia for some 2, years including the period when classical Sanskritic civilization reached its zenith until the full-blown appearance of the Buddhist inscriptions of the Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BCE.
It is argued here that written language must have existed in ancient India during the pre-Asokan period, but that it played a very different social role than has been assumed by many modern scholars. My greatest gratitude for help and inspiration in South Asian studies goes to M. Emeneau; his work has always been a major source of knowledge, an inspiration in the development of a sociolinguistic approach, and a model of what scholarship should be.
South Asia presents the linguist with a bewildering variety of regional dialects, social dialects, formal and informal registers, literary standards, languages, writing. Offering a sociolinguistic approach, and encompassing both descriptive and historical studies, this collection of twelve of Bright's most important.
In addition, I want to acknowledge my particular indebtedness to some of the South Asian scholars who have shared their knowledge and friendship with me: T. Sreekantaiya, P.
Pandit, Bh. Krishnamurti, A. Ramanujan, and M. Boulder, Colorado May W.
This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments The following chapters appearing in this volume are based on previous publications as listed below. Permission to reprint has been granted by coauthors and by publishers of the original articles, and is gratefully acknowledged. Linguistic change in some Indian caste dialects.
In Linguistic diversity in South Asia, ed. Charles A.
Ferguson and John J. Gumperz, Sociolinguistic variation and language change with A. Horace Lunt, The Hague: Mouton, Dravidian metaphony. Language Language, social stratification, and cognitive orientation. In Explorations in sociolinguistics, ed. Stanley Lieberson Sociological Inquiry , Complex verb forms in colloquial Tamil with J. In Studies in Indian linguistics Prof.
Emeneau Sastipurti volume , ed. Krishnamurti, Poona: Linguistic Society of India, Phonological rules in literary and colloquial Kanada. Journal of the American Oriental Society Hindi numerals. In Studies in linguistics in honor of George L. Trager, ed. Estellie Smith Janua linguarum, series maior, no. The Dravidian enunciative vowel.
In Dravidian phonological systems, ed. Harold F. Schiffman and Carol M. Eastman, How not to decipher the Indus Valley inscriptions. Adapted from a review of Studies in the Indus Valley inscriptions, by J. Archaeology, linguistics, and Ancient Dravidian. In South Asian languages: Structure, convergence and diglossia, ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, Written and spoken language in South Asia. In On language: Rhetorica, Phonologica, Syntactica. A Festschrift for Robert P. Stockwell, ed. Caroline Duncan-Rose and Theo Vennemann, London: Routledge, Contents I. Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Change with A.
Ramanujan, 11 3. Dravidian Metaphony, 19 4. Lindenfeld, 44 6. Phonological Rules in Literary and Colloquial Kannada, 65 7. Hindi Numerals,' 74 8. The Dravidian Enunciative Vowel, 86 9. Written and Spoken Language in South Asia, Bibliography, Index, This page intentionally left blank Language Variation in South Asia This page intentionally left blank 1 Linguistic Change in Some Indian Caste Dialects Dialect differences in the languages of India may be thought of in a three-dimensional framework: in addition to the horizontal distribution of geographical dialects, as is found throughout the world, India offers exceptionally clear cases of dialects which are spoken in a single spot, but which may be arranged in a vertical scale correlated with social class.
These are the caste dialects, such as those of a North Indian village which have been described by Gumperz In the study of such dialects, the following question may be raised: Is there a correlation between the amount of linguistic change manifested in a dialect and the social status of the people who speak it?
In other terms, in what caste dialects are the more archaic features to be found? Investigation of this question may require separate consideration of various parts of the language: that is, phonemic change, grammatical change, and lexical change may not all operate at the same speed in a given dialect. This paper does not attempt to answer the question completely, but merely to contribute toward an answer, primarily by comparing data recorded from two Kannada dialects of Bangalore District, Mysore State, South India.
One is a Brahmin dialect, as spoken by a young woman born and raised in the city of Bangalore. Both informants have college educations. No attempt is made here to describe all existing differences between the two dialects in question; the differences which are described are those best attested in the data. Phonological Differences The phonemic systems of the two dialects display the following differences: 1 The Brahmin dialect hereafter abbreviated as B. Id, when intervocalic, sometimes corresponds to O.
The other cases noted are also loanwords. The data suggest that O. This is reminiscent of the situation in Tamil, where affricate and fricative are members of one phoneme Fowler ; the situation was probably the same in Primitive Dravidian. The B. After pause, B. This is in conformity with morphophonemic changes also operative in B. In all these cases, the B.
The examples are principally loanwords: B. Thus sequences of sibilant plus oral sonorant in B. Id: B. This element, having reflexive meaning in Ka. Both of these are contracted from forms such as the literary equivalents bar-uvu-da-kke and ag-uvu-dilla respectively.