Subject-Verb Relation in North Dravidian Language

The main objective is to highlight some of the distinctive features pertaining to agreement phenomenon and language structure in Kisan. It is a agglutinative language having nominative-accusative case markings. The characteristics of an agglutinative language has gradually beenconverged with those of analytic language like Hindi and Odia which are the dominant languages of the region.

Verb + verb sequences in Dravidian

This chapter analyzes compound verb constructions in the Dravidian language family. Drawing on data from all four subgroups, two broad constructions emerge: auxiliary compound verbs and lexical compound verbs. The former provide complex morphosyntactic vehicles for verbal categories or combinations of categories not found in the simple verb inflections of a language; the latter provide similar vehicles to encode lexical meanings not found in simple lexemes of the language. A third construction, reduplicated compounds, is also analyzed. A brief comparison in made between the pattern of these verb + verb sequences in Dravidian and patterns found in other language families.

Sweet, sweet language: Prakrit and Maṇipravāḷam in premodern Kerala

This paper studies the connections between Prakrit and early Maṇipravāḷam literature from premodern Kerala. Maṇipravāḷam (literally, ‘gems and corals’) is the emic term for a dominant part of Kerala’s premodern vernacular literature, binding together Kerala’s local language and Sanskrit. As a highly Sanskritised register of a Dravidian language, Maṇipravāḷam has generally been viewed as having been inspired and influenced by either Sanskrit or Tamil literature, grammar, and poetics. This paper, however, highlights a rarely discussed aspect: the role of Prakrit in shaping both Maṇipravāḷam literature and theory. I discuss the relation between Prakrit and Maṇipravāḷam in two connected ways: first, by considering the similarities between the practices themselves, especially in terms of their themes and aesthetics; and second, by examining the implicit ways in which Maṇipravāḷam theory, as it is presented in the Līlātilakam, Kerala’s first grammar and work on poetics, is structured on Prakrit materials or on Sanskrit materials dealing with Prakrit.

PERCEPTION OF FUTURE TEACHERS ABOUT MOTHER TONGUE EDUCATION IN BRAHUI LANGUAGE AT PRIMARY LEVEL

Brahui language has its own uniqueness and value as it is one of the oldest languages of Pakistan and considered as a Dravidian language. The purpose of this study was to explore the perception of future Brahui speaking teachers about mother tongue education in Brahui language at primary level in Balochistan. In this study, a qualitative approach was used. The research design was case study and site of the study was Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University Quetta. Semi-structure interviews were conducted from the Brahui speaking future teachers of B.Ed. (Hons.) 7th semester (5), M.A Education 3rd semester (5) and M.Phil. (5). The participants were selected through purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was used as method for data analysis. The data analysis revealed two main themes as need of Brahui mother tongue education in Brahui majority schools and teacher training for Brahui mother tongue education.

Non-Dravidian elements and (non)diasystematic change in Malayalam

By introducing a distinction between diaconstructions, which are language non-specific, and idioconstructions, which are language-specific, Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG) cap- tures the fact that the borders between languages are often blurred (Höder 2012). Building on other construction-theoretic approaches, DCxG characterizes all languages as consisting of emergent sub-patterns of constructions. This includes hybrid or high-contact languages, which differ only in that those sub-patterns can be attributed (by analysts, not necessarily speakers) to a particular language. As such, DCxG provides an ideal framework for analyzing high-contact languages while also capturing smaller-scale contact effects. Crucially for those studying language contact, this does away with a need for a fundamental distinction between high- and low-contact languages (e.g., Faraclas & Klein 2009, Mufwene 2000).This chapter presents a DCxG analysis of non-Dravidian sounds and words in Malayalam, a Dravidian language with considerable influence from Sanskrit and English, as spoken in Kerala, India. Both Sanskrit- and English-origin words are highly frequent and appear across a variety of semantic domains. Analogous to Latinate and Germanic morphophonological sub-patterns in English, Sanskrit and English words in Malayalam have phonological patterns which are not found in Dravidian-origin words, such as heteroorganic clusters, certain codas, and voiced aspirated stops. I argue that any analysis of Malayalam must account for non-Dravidian sub-patterns, and I consider DCxG to be an attractive alternative to constraint-based approaches to loanword phonology.

Interpreting ‘Front’: Perception of Space in Bengali and Kannada

This paper is concerned with the nature of ‘front’ along the front/back axis. The languages taken up for the study are Bengali, a language belonging to Indo-Aryan language family, and Kannada, a language belonging to Dravidian language family. The terms for denoting ‘front’ for Bengali are ‘samne’ and ‘aage’ and for Kannada are ‘yeduru’ and ‘munde’. Experience and embodiment of spatial arrangements play an important role in the spatial cognition, and language use takes into account the different points of view. Many factors such as proximity, vantage point, specificity, etc. play an important role in describing a given situation. It is worth mentioning that the choice of the usages of the words for denoting ‘front’ as location or direction has been seen as different in some situations and overlapping in others. The data were collected using a questionnaire which aimed to elicit the expressions for ‘front’ for the entities, whose relationship is described in terms of Figure and Ground (Talmy, 1983; 2000), from the speakers of both the above mentioned languages, and then analysed for the factors involved.