Modern Kannada Grammar

Kannada, one of the major languages of the Dravidian family, isspoken by over 40 million people, mainly in the state of Karnataka,South India, where it is the official language. It is one of thetwenty-two languages recognised by the Indian Constitution. It hasa rich literary tradition going back to the ninth century, andexhibits a complex pattern of socio-linguistic and stylisticvariation, marked, in part, by a thorough assimilation ofIndo-Aryan (Sanskrit, Prakrit. indi-Urdu, etc.,) and more recently,English elements. "The present descriptive grammar gives a detailedand sophisticated account of the standard language, drawing on theinsights of traditional structuralist, and generative linguists,and on the authors own extensive research. Keeping the needs ofboth the theoretician and the descriptivist in mind, the work givesa lucid explicit and in many cases original account of the majorand minor structures of the language in syntax, morphology, andphonology. A valuable feature of this grammar is the authorsconsistent attempt to relate formal and functional aspects of thelanguage. Although the variety described is the standard literaryvariety (because of its greater morphological transparency), theforms of the colloquial varieties are continuously referred to, andthe examples convey the flavour of spoken idiomatic Kannada. Withits descriptive rigour, range of phenomena covered, wealth ofexamples, and ethnographic insights, this volume is the mostcurrent, comprehensive, and authoritative description of modernKannada to date. The book will interest students and researchers inthe areas of linguistic theory, descriptive linguistics, languagetypology, comparative/contrastive linguistics, language contact andconvergence, and South Asian linguistics as well as translation andKannada language and literary studies.