The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with over 175 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka as well as having communities in Malay
The Dravidian language family is the world’s fourth largest with over 220 million speakers.This authoritative reference is ideal both as an introduction to the language family and for linguists lookin
The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world's fifth largest language family. It consists of about 26 languages in total including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing systems, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists.
The Dravidian language family is marked historically by a protracted struggle between Tamil and its aggressively assertive supremacy, and the consequent peripheralizing of other majoritarian languages
This book studies the development of Telugu — with its unique grammatical and lexical tradition as instrumental in the construction of the concept of the Dravidian language family in 1816, and in the
British rule of India brought together two very different traditions of scholarship on language, producing several intellectual breakthroughs of lasting value. Two of these breakthroughs were especial
South Asian languages are rich in linguistic diversity and number. This book explores the similarities and differences of about forty languages from the four different language families (Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan (Indo-European) and Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan)). It focuses on the syntactic typology of these languages and the high degree of syntactic convergence, with special reference to the notion of 'India as a linguistic area'. Several areas of current theoretical interest such as anaphora, control theory, case and agreement, relative clauses and the significance of thematic roles in grammar are discussed. The analysis presented has significant implications for current theories of syntax, verbal semantics, first and second language acquisition, structural language typology and historical linguistics. The book will be of interest to linguists working on the description of South Asian languages, as well as syntacticians wishing to discover more about the common structure
Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expe
Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expe
Malayalam is one of the four major Dravidian languages spoken principally in the southern part of India. It has a recorded history of eight centuries and is spoken by more than thirty million people o
Quantification forms a significant aspect of cross-linguistic research into both sentence structure and meaning. This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behaviour in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, covering French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu) and points to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages.
Quantification forms a significant aspect of cross-linguistic research into both sentence structure and meaning. This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behaviour in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, covering French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu) and points to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages.
Rajend Mesthrie examines the rise of a new variety of English among Indian migrant workers indentured on the plantations of Natal in South Africa. Considering the historical background to, and linguistic consequences of, language shift in an immigrant context, he draws significant parallels between second language acquisition and the processes of pidginization and creolization. In particular, he analyses universals of second language acquisition and the role of transfer from the Indic and Dravidian substrate languages. English in Language Shift observes the acquisition of language in its social setting, often outside the classroom. Its linguistic focus is on the distinctive syntax of South African Indian English, with respect to word order and clause structures; and it contains descriptions of lexis, phonetics and morphology, in terms of social variation. South African Indian English is compared with other dialects within South Africa, with English in India, and with Englishes generall
Malayalam is one of the four major Dravidian languages spoken principally in the southern part of India. It has a recorded history of eight centuries and is spoken by more than thirty million people o
