LINGUIST List 17.3368

Fri Nov 17 2006

Books: Language Description: Doctor

Editor for this issue: Maria Moreno-Rollins <marialinguistlist.org>

Directory         1.    Ulrich Lueders, A Grammar of Gujarati: Doctor
Message 1: A Grammar of Gujarati: Doctor
Date: 13-Nov-2006
From: Ulrich Lueders <lincom.europat-online.de>
Subject: A Grammar of Gujarati: Doctor


Title: A Grammar of Gujarati Series Title: LINCOM Studies in Indo-European Linguistics 28 Published: 2006 Publisher: Lincom GmbH
                http://www.lincom.eu

Author: Raiomond Dara Doctor Paperback: ISBN: 3895865494 Pages: 100 Price: Europe EURO 50.00
Abstract:

A Grammar of Gujarati

Raimond DoctorUniversity of Pune, India

Gujarati, belonging to the Indo-Aryan family, is spoken by approximately46,100,000 or more speakers. It is the official language of Gujarat stateand is also used in 16 other countries around the world, thanks to theGujarati diaspora. Having several dialects, which moreover have been littleexplored, Gujarati is very rich in literary style and has a long literarytradition. The grammatical analysis proposed here is of Gujarati as taughtand used by educated speakers of the language.

The grammar provides basic information on the phonology, writing system,morphology and the syntax of the language. A short introduction outlinesthe geolinguistic situation of Gujarati. The chapter on phonology studiesthe vowels, consonants as well as the syllable structure of Gujarati.Special attention is given to the murmur sounds of the language, sincethese are a marked feature of Gujarati. A short overview of the syllablestructure and of the prosody of Gujarati is also furnished. The analysis ofthe writing system starts off with a brief historical sketch of theevolution of Gujarati graphemes, followed by a script grammar of theconsonants, vowels/matras, and other modifiers. Conjuncts and ligaturesboth of the vowels and the consonants are also analysed.

Gujarati is essentially a morphological language and hence major stress islaid on its morphology. This chapter describes nominal and verbalmorphology as well as the adjuncts. There are two numbers, three gendersand three cases, with the nominal elements being declined according totheir final elements. The analysis of the verbal system outlines the tensesand the moods. Causatives, which are a special feature of Gujarati, are ofparticular interest. Non-declined elements constitute adverbs, clitics,particles and connectives. A special section is also given over toderivational morphology with a study of the most important suffixes andprefixes of the language, derived both from Sanskrit and Persian. The broadoverview of syntax describes the basic sentence types of Gujarati,word-order, participial structures, negation and coordination andsubordination. The last chapter provides a list of the most commonidiomatic structures of the language. The study is essentiallycorpus-linguistics driven and examples provided are based on a large oraland written corpus of present-day Gujarati. For the convenience of thosefamiliar with the Gujarati script, the examples are transcribed both in IPAand in Gujarati.

Linguistic Field(s): Language Description
Subject Language(s): Gujarati (guj)
Written In: English (eng )

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