LINGUIST List 12.2004

Thu Aug 9 2001

Books: Indo-Aryan Linguistics, Chagatay Language

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. LINCOM EUROPA, Indo-Aryan Linguistics: Shekhawati by L. Gusain
2. LINCOM EUROPA, Chagatay Language: Chagatay by Bodrogligeti

Shekhawati
LAKHAN GUSAIN, Centre of Rajasthani Studies, Purabsar

Shekhawati is a dialect of Rajasthani language of Indo-Aryan family
and is spoken by about three million speakers in Churu, Jhunjhunu and
Sikar districts of Rajasthan. Though a very important dialect from the
grammatical and literary points of view, yet very little work is
carried out on it.

This grammar describes basic information on the phonology, morphology,
syntax of the language. In addition there is a short text with
interlinear tranlation. The introduction remarks outline a geographic
and sociolinguistic sketch of the Shekhawati and its speakers,
linguistic relations with other dialects of Rajasthani. The chapter on
phonology includes vowels, consonants, diphthongs and suprasegmentals.
The murmur vowels are highlighted. Retroflexion is an important
feature. The chapter on morphology describes nominal and verbal
morphology. There are two numbers, two genders, and three cases. Nouns
are declined to their final segments. Case marking is
postpositional. The third person pronouns are distinguished on the
proximity/remoteness dimension in each gender. Adjectives either end
in /-o/ or not. There are three tenses and four moods. Intransitive
verbs can be passivised. The chapter on syntax describes sentence
types, word order, coordination, subordination, and particles. Free
and interlinear translations are used in the chapter of sample text.

3 89586 399 8. 
Languages of the World/Materials 385. 
Ca. 100pp. USD 38 / DM 64 / � 23. Sept. 2001.


NEW: LINCOM electronic n.e.w.s.l.e.t.t.e.r. Monthly up-dates. 
Go to http://www.lincom-europa.com

A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. 


LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany;
FAX +49 89 62269404;
http://www.lincom-europa.com
LINCOM.EUROPAt-online.de.

Chagatay
ANDR�S J. E. BODROGLIGETI
University of California, Los Angeles

An acrolect of the Central Asian Turks from the fifteenth to the late
nineteenth century, the Chagatay language was a multilayered literary
idiom employed in Transoxiana, Khorasan Fergana and East Turkistan,
especially in cultural centers such as Samarkand, Bukhara, Herat,
Khiva, Kokand and Kashghar. Chagatay was also used in India in the
court of the Great Moghuls, in Kazan, and even in the Ottoman
Empire. Presently it is regarded as the Classical phase of Modern
Uzbek although the scope of Chagatay, especially of the lexion was
much broader than what the term Classical Uzbek would imply.

CONTENTS OF THE GRAMMAR:
	
Orthography: Chagatay works were written in Arabic script with
generous use of matres lectionis: a criterion that makes Chagatay
different from Ottoman and allows the reader an easier identification
of graphemes. Text publications mostly use transcription with
alphabets using modified characters of the Latin, or Russian writing
systems.
	
Morphology operates with suffixes, prefixes, postpositions,
prepositions Izafet markers, composition and coordination. Suffixes
have a definite hierarchy of sequence.

Chagatay nouns and pronouns have no grammatical gender. They have
singular and plural forms. By their final phoneme we distinguish light
and heavy nouns; by the behavior of their last consonant or their
second vowel under certain conditions we distinguish weak and strong
nouns. There are ten cases of nouns and pronouns. There are no
definite or indefinite articles.

Adjectives have no special class marker. Some of the means of
derivation may signal that the derivative is an adjective. There is no
strict boundary between adjectives and adverbs. Adjectives often occur
as nouns and can take case endings and plural signs. Adjectives have
three degrees: positive, comparative, and superlative. The superlative
also serves as the absolute degree. Intensive forms are created by
morphological and analytic means. Stems: weak and strong, light and
heavy, simple and derivative. Primary stems: positive, negative,
possibilitive, impossibilitive. Secondary stems: Active, passive,
reflexive, reciprocal, adjutative, cooperative, causative,
desiderative, similative, transitive, ditransitive,
intransitive. Coordinated [serialized] stems. Compound stems.

Finite forms: person (first, second, and third), number (singular and
plural). Structure: stems, particles, themes, personal signs. Tenses:
Present, future, past. Moods: imperative, voluntative, indicative,
optative, conditional, temporal. Aspects: perfect, imperfect,
progressive.

Negation: Negative stems, and negative particles are used. Affirmation
by affirmative particles and adverbs. Traces of an honorific system:
lexical, suffixal means.

Nonfinite forms: Verbal nouns (agent nouns, action nouns infinitives).
Gerunds (imperfect, antecedental, inceptive, purposive, resolutive,
terminative, compensative, copulative, negative. Participles (past,
present, aorist: positive, negative, necessitative, agental,
resultative and status-related).

Adverbs have no special category markers. There is no strict class
boundary between adverbs and adjectives. There are simple, derivative,
and phrasal adverbs.

Six types of noun phrases. Sentence structure: Simple [nominal,
verbal], expanded and compound sentences. Clause structure: finite,
nonfinite. Clause chaining: coordination by juxtapositon, connective
gerunds, and conjunctions. Subordination: The main sentence. Relative
clauses, completive clauses.

3 89586 564 8. 
 Languages of the World/Materials 340. 
 Ca. 300pp. USD 70 / DM 138 / � 48. Sept. 2001.


NEW: LINCOM electronic n.e.w.s.l.e.t.t.e.r. Monthly up-dates. 
Go to http://www.lincom-europa.com

A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. 


LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany;
FAX +49 89 62269404;
http://www.lincom-europa.com
LINCOM.EUROPAt-online.de.