Language Studies in India: Cognition, Structure, Variation [1st ed. 2023] 9811952752, 9789811952753

Table of contents :
Contents
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Contributors
Introduction
References
A Troika For 21st-Century Indian Linguistics: Pragmatics, Cognition, And Language Acquisition
1 Pragmatics: Speech Act Theory, Implicature and the Criticality of Context
2 Cognition: Tool Using, Truth and Narrative
3 Language Acquisition: Is There an EAD?
References
Linguistic Variation, Discourse, and Culture
1 Preliminary Remarks
2 Significating and Discourse
3 Substance-Driven Study of Form
4 Defaults and Variation
4.1 Verbs Converted from Dyadic Nouns
4.2 Vapid Lexemes
4.3 Variation Across Genres
References
Variation, Conformity, and Possibility: What WE Are
1 Introduction
2 The Politics of Conformity and WE
3 WE and Globalization
4 Conclusion: Toward a Politics of Possibility
Notes
References
Representation, Narration, and Appropriateness in Hindi–Urdu Fiction
References
English in India’s Multilingual Ecology: Present-Day Use, Users and Usage
1 Introduction
2 The Multilingual Ecology of India
2.1 Linguistic Diversity of India
2.2 Changing Patterns of Bilingualism
3 Uses of English in India
3.1 Education
3.2 Administration
3.3 Judiciary
3.4 Legislature
3.5 Interstate Link Language
3.6 Media
3.7 Commerce
3.8 Advertising
3.9 Literature
3.10 International Communication
3.11 Religion and Spirituality
3.12 Transportation
3.13 Home Domain
4 Users of English in India
4.1 Variation in the Use of English
5 Usage: How English is Used in India
5.1 Indian English in the Unilingual Mode
5.2 Indian English in the Mixed or Multilingual Mode
6 Summary and Implications
References
Great Andamanese the Sixth Language Family of India: An Inquiry into the Possible Human Language
1 About the Great Andamanese
2 About the Great Andamanese Language
3 Is Great Andamanese Similar to Other Negrito Tribes of Andaman?
4 A Word About the Topography of the Islands
5 The World of Great Andamanese: Cultural and Environmental
6 The Nature of the Language and the Loss of Narrative Ability
7 What Does the Oral Tradition Symbolize?
8 The Concept of Space
9 The Concept of Time
10 Great Andamanese Comprehend Life in Some Sort of Hierarchy
11 Empirical Classification of the Names of the Great Andamanese Birds
11.1 Ethno-Ornithological Descriptions
12 The Naming of a Person
13 The Naming of a Location
14 The Great Loss of Knowledgebase
15 The Grammar of the PGA
15.1 Typology
15.2 The Sound System
15.3 The Concept of Inalienability and Inherency
15.4 The Basic Seven Divisions of Body and Proclitics
15.5 Possession and Genitive
15.6 Structuration of the Language
16 To Conclude the Discussion
References
Case and Lexical Categories in Dravidian
1 Introduction: The Importance of Destabilizing Received Knowledge
2 Case: The Traditional Notions and Some New Ideas
3 Lexical Categories: How They Are Generated in Grammar
4 The Dative Case in Dravidian: How It ‘Travels’
5 Adjective as a Derived Category
5.1 The Distributional Evidence: The Dative Subject Construction
5.2 The Morphological Evidence
5.3 Case Movement and Case Absorption
6 Verb as a Derived Category
6.1 The Dative Case in the Malayalam Verb
6.2 Adjective and Verb: What is the Difference?
7 The Dative Subject/Nominative Subject Alternation in Dravidian
7.1 Case Alternation on the Subject
7.2 The Nominative Subject
8 Sentences with Transitive and Ditransitive Verbs
9 Conclusion
References
Linguistic and Mental Landscaping in India: Reach and Impact
1 Introduction
2 Definition, Terms and Methodology
2.1 Methodology: Data and Selection
3 Multiple Diversity: Market and Communicative Environment
4 Wall Advertising: Ad-Internal Structure, Typology and Languages
5 Globalization: Two Views and Underlying Strategies
5.1 Think Global and Act Global
5.2 Think Local and Act Local
5.3 Social/Developmental and Service Campaigns
5.4 Globalization and Adaptation: Bridging the Gap
5.5 Patterns of Commercial Discourse
6 Ecological and Other Issues
7 Conclusions
References
Understanding Quasiregularity and Continua in Language: Beyond “Words and Rules”
1 Introduction
2 Quasiregularities in the English Past-Tense
3 English Orthography: Regulars Plus Exceptions, or Quasiregularity?
4 Summary and Preview
4.1 The Continuum of Context Dependence and Non-compositionality of Meaning
4.2 Discussion
4.3 Objections and Qualifications: Can Connectionist Networks Learn Rules?
5 Linguistic Questions and Predictions
6 Why Has the “Word and Rules” Perspective Remained Dominant?
7 Future Research
7.1 Investigating Language Continua as Distribution
7.2 Integrating History and Communication into Explaining Quasiregularity
References
Mistakes We Make and Do not Make When We Learn Language
1 Introduction
2 Scrambling and Its Acquisition
3 Scrambling in Child Tamil
4 A Preverbal Focus Position
5 A Post-verbal Topic Position
6 A Prediction that Stands Confirmed About Scrambling a Wh-Word
7 Children Do Make Creative Errors
8 Errors and Grammatical Conservatism
9 Conclusion
References
Natural Language Processing Meets Deep Learning
1 Introduction: Nature of NLP/CL
2 NLP and Machine Learning (ML)
3 Language Modeling and Word Embedding
4 Importance of “Features”
5 Cognitive NLP
6 Text Classification
7 Basic Neural Network Models
8 NLP as Sequence Processing
9 NLP Meets DNN: An Example Application
10 Summary, Conclusion, Future Work
References
Language Evolution: Theories and Evidence
1 Introducing a Hard Problem
2 Language—The Object and Its Nature
3 Evolutionary Accounts
3.1 The Gestural Origins
3.2 Language as Adaptation
3.3 Language as Exaptation
4 The Evidence or the Lack of It?
4.1 Paleontological and Genetic Evidence
4.2 Archeological Evidence
4.3 Comparative Animal Behavior Studies
5 Conclusion
References
A Grammar of Endangerment
1 Preliminary Remarks: Where Lies the Danger?
2 Endangerment and Linguistic Identities
3 Endangerment and Language Surveys
4 Endangerment, Othering and Assumptions
5 The Social Grammar of Endangerment
6 Concluding Remarks
References
Engaging with a Classical Text from a Linguistic Perspective: A Study of “Bad Language” in Sarala Mahabharata
1 Bad Language: An Explication
2 Bad Language in Sarala Mahabharata: An Analysis
Notes
References
Structure of Language in Multilingual Settings: Some Issues
1 Introduction
2 Multilingual Discourse
3 Discussion
4 Least Expansion Hypothesis
5 Multilingual Person’s Knowledge of Language: Rules
6 Concluding Remarks
References
The Politics of Language: Politics by Another Name
References
Language Documentation: Issues and Challenges of Field-Worker
1 Introduction
2 Situating the Issues of Language Documentation
3 Anthropocene: Assertion of Agency by Humans
4 ‘Positioning’: Dualism of Conscious Action and Unselfconscious Motivation
5 Terminological Conundrums—Some Reflections
6 Researcher as Explorer and Explainer
7 Problems of Identity in Singularity
8 Communicative Events in Documentation: Reaffirming the Agency in and Through Language
9 Conclusion
References
Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses in Nominalization Perspective
1 Introduction
2 Previous Works
3 The Formal Characteristics of the Modification Structure
3.1 Outline of Shibatani’s Theory of Nominalization
3.2 Re-appraisal of Noun Modification in Marathi
4 Conclusion: Clause, Sentence and Nominalization
References
Language of Religion: What Does It Inform the Field of Linguistics?
1 Introduction
2 Contribution of Language of Religion to Language Analysis (Grammars)
3 The Problematic of Language of Religion in Philosophy: Problems as Pointers
4 Sociolinguistic Approaches to Language of Religion and their Inadequacy
5 A Proposal: An Important Contribution of LR to the Study of Language
6 A Parameter for Differentiating Registers: Registers Can Vary in Their Underlying, ‘Conceptual Reality’ and the System of Its Signification
7 Implications of the Proposal: Religious and Non-language (Language: Toward a Theory of Di-system)
References

Citation preview

Rajesh Kumar Om Prakash   Editors

Language Studies in India Cognition, Structure, Variation

Language Studies in India

Rajesh Kumar · Om Prakash Editors

Language Studies in India Cognition, Structure, Variation

Editors Rajesh Kumar Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Om Prakash School of Humanities and Social Sciences Gautam Buddha University Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

ISBN 978-981-19-5275-3 ISBN 978-981-19-5276-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rajesh Kumar and Om Prakash References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Troika For 21st-Century Indian Linguistics: Pragmatics, Cognition, And Language Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rukmini Bhaya Nair 1 Pragmatics: Speech Act Theory, Implicature and the Criticality of Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Cognition: Tool Using, Truth and Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Language Acquisition: Is There an EAD? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 13 15

17 23 27 34

Linguistic Variation, Discourse, and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Probal Dasgupta 1 Preliminary Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Significating and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Substance-Driven Study of Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Defaults and Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Verbs Converted from Dyadic Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Vapid Lexemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Variation Across Genres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

Variation, Conformity, and Possibility: What WE Are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rakesh M. Bhatt 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Politics of Conformity and WE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 WE and Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion: Toward a Politics of Possibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

37 39 42 50 51 52 55 55

57 58 64 68 69 69

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Contents

Representation, Narration, and Appropriateness in Hindi–Urdu Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anjani Kumar Sinha References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73 84

English in India’s Multilingual Ecology: Present-Day Use, Users and Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 S. N. Sridhar and Kamal K. Sridhar 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 2 The Multilingual Ecology of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 2.1 Linguistic Diversity of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 2.2 Changing Patterns of Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 3 Uses of English in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 3.1 Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 3.2 Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 3.3 Judiciary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 3.4 Legislature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 3.5 Interstate Link Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 3.6 Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 3.7 Commerce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 3.8 Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 3.9 Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 3.10 International Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 3.11 Religion and Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 3.12 Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 3.13 Home Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 4 Users of English in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.1 Variation in the Use of English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 5 Usage: How English is Used in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.1 Indian English in the Unilingual Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.2 Indian English in the Mixed or Multilingual Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 6 Summary and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Great Andamanese the Sixth Language Family of India: An Inquiry into the Possible Human Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anvita Abbi 1 About the Great Andamanese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 About the Great Andamanese Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Is Great Andamanese Similar to Other Negrito Tribes of Andaman? . . . 4 A Word About the Topography of the Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The World of Great Andamanese: Cultural and Environmental . . . . . . . . 6 The Nature of the Language and the Loss of Narrative Ability . . . . . . . . 7 What Does the Oral Tradition Symbolize? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Concept of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Concept of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

107 107 108 110 111 112 112 113 113 113

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10 Great Andamanese Comprehend Life in Some Sort of Hierarchy . . . . . . 11 Empirical Classification of the Names of the Great Andamanese Birds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Ethno-Ornithological Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Naming of a Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Naming of a Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Great Loss of Knowledgebase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Grammar of the PGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1 Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.2 The Sound System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3 The Concept of Inalienability and Inherency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4 The Basic Seven Divisions of Body and Proclitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Possession and Genitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6 Structuration of the Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 To Conclude the Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

114

Case and Lexical Categories in Dravidian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K. A. Jayaseelan 1 Introduction: The Importance of Destabilizing Received Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Case: The Traditional Notions and Some New Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Lexical Categories: How They Are Generated in Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Dative Case in Dravidian: How It ‘Travels’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Adjective as a Derived Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 The Distributional Evidence: The Dative Subject Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Morphological Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Case Movement and Case Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Verb as a Derived Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 The Dative Case in the Malayalam Verb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Adjective and Verb: What is the Difference? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Dative Subject/Nominative Subject Alternation in Dravidian . . . . . . 7.1 Case Alternation on the Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Nominative Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Sentences with Transitive and Ditransitive Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

129

Linguistic and Mental Landscaping in India: Reach and Impact . . . . . . . Tej K. Bhatia 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Definition, Terms and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Methodology: Data and Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Multiple Diversity: Market and Communicative Environment . . . . . . . . . 4 Wall Advertising: Ad-Internal Structure, Typology and Languages . . . .

143

115 115 117 117 118 118 118 119 120 121 121 122 125 126

129 129 130 131 133 134 136 136 137 137 138 138 138 139 139 140 141

143 145 145 146 152

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Globalization: Two Views and Underlying Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Think Global and Act Global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Think Local and Act Local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Social/Developmental and Service Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Globalization and Adaptation: Bridging the Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Patterns of Commercial Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Ecological and Other Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Understanding Quasiregularity and Continua in Language: Beyond “Words and Rules” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Quasiregularities in the English Past-Tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 English Orthography: Regulars Plus Exceptions, or Quasiregularity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Summary and Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 The Continuum of Context Dependence and Non-compositionality of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Objections and Qualifications: Can Connectionist Networks Learn Rules? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Linguistic Questions and Predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Why Has the “Word and Rules” Perspective Remained Dominant? . . . . 7 Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Investigating Language Continua as Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Integrating History and Communication into Explaining Quasiregularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mistakes We Make and Do not Make When We Learn Language . . . . . . R. Amritavalli 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Scrambling and Its Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Scrambling in Child Tamil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A Preverbal Focus Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A Post-verbal Topic Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A Prediction that Stands Confirmed About Scrambling a Wh-Word . . . . 7 Children Do Make Creative Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Errors and Grammatical Conservatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

154 154 155 155 158 159 160 162 163 165 165 166 169 171 172 174 174 175 176 177 177 177 178 183 183 184 186 188 189 191 194 196 197 197

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Natural Language Processing Meets Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pushpak Bhattacharyya 1 Introduction: Nature of NLP/CL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 NLP and Machine Learning (ML) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Language Modeling and Word Embedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Importance of “Features” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cognitive NLP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Text Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Basic Neural Network Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 NLP as Sequence Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 NLP Meets DNN: An Example Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Summary, Conclusion, Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Language Evolution: Theories and Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pritha Chandra 1 Introducing a Hard Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Language—The Object and Its Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Evolutionary Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Gestural Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Language as Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Language as Exaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Evidence or the Lack of It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Paleontological and Genetic Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Archeological Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Comparative Animal Behavior Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A Grammar of Endangerment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Udaya Narayana Singh 1 Preliminary Remarks: Where Lies the Danger? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Endangerment and Linguistic Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Endangerment and Language Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Endangerment, Othering and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Social Grammar of Endangerment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Engaging with a Classical Text from a Linguistic Perspective: A Study of “Bad Language” in Sarala Mahabharata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. N. Patnaik 1 Bad Language: An Explication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Bad Language in Sarala Mahabharata: An Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

199 200 202 202 203 205 206 210 210 212 213

215 216 219 219 221 223 225 225 227 228 230 231

235 236 238 241 243 245 246 249 250 255 263 263

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Structure of Language in Multilingual Settings: Some Issues . . . . . . . . . . Shreesh Chaudhary 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Multilingual Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Least Expansion Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Multilingual Person’s Knowledge of Language: Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

265 265 268 276 279 280 280 281

The Politics of Language: Politics by Another Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Arvind Sivaramakrishnan References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Language Documentation: Issues and Challenges of Field-Worker . . . . . S. Imtiaz Hasnain and Farooq Ahmad Mir 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Situating the Issues of Language Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Anthropocene: Assertion of Agency by Humans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 ‘Positioning’: Dualism of Conscious Action and Unselfconscious Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Terminological Conundrums—Some Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Researcher as Explorer and Explainer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Problems of Identity in Singularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Communicative Events in Documentation: Reaffirming the Agency in and Through Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses in Nominalization Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prashant Pardeshi and Masayoshi (Matt) Shibatani 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Previous Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Formal Characteristics of the Modification Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Outline of Shibatani’s Theory of Nominalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Re-appraisal of Noun Modification in Marathi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion: Clause, Sentence and Nominalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language of Religion: What Does It Inform the Field of Linguistics? . . . Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Contribution of Language of Religion to Language Analysis (Grammars) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Problematic of Language of Religion in Philosophy: Problems as Pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

303 303 305 306 307 308 311 312 314 317 318 321 322 323 325 327 330 349 351 353 353 355 357

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Sociolinguistic Approaches to Language of Religion and their Inadequacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A Proposal: An Important Contribution of LR to the Study of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A Parameter for Differentiating Registers: Registers Can Vary in Their Underlying, ‘Conceptual Reality’ and the System of Its Signification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Implications of the Proposal: Religious and Non-language (Language: Toward a Theory of Di-system) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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366 367 370

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Rajesh Kumar teaches linguistics in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He graduated with Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has taught in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in the USA and IIT Kanpur, IIT Patna, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai in India. His book Syntax of Negation and Licensing of Negative Polarity Items was published by Routledge in their series Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics. He has published papers in several journals and presented his work at professional meetings such as Annual Meeting of Linguistic Society of America and Chicago Linguistics Society among others. The broad goal of his research is to uncover regularities underlying both the form (what language is) and sociolinguistic functions (what language does) of natural languages. Om Prakash teaches courses in the areas of Applied Linguistics, English Language Teaching, Communication Theories in Media, and Corporate Communication in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Gautam Buddha University. He received his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in linguistics from University of Delhi. He has published in journals of national and international repute. He conducts workshops in language teaching and communication for school teachers. His broader areas of research include emerging fields in Applied Linguistics and an interface of Language, Media, and Contemporary Society. He seeks to explore changing forms and functions of language in the context of ever-emerging network society. He has edited a special issue on Language and Exclusion of the Journal of Exclusion Studies (February 2017 issue).

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Contributors Abbi Anvita is a renowned researcher on tribal and other minority languages of South Asia who has done first-hand field study on all the six language families from the Himalayas to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and has been received with great acclaim in India and abroad. She formerly taught Linguistics at the Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She identified a new language family of India, namely Great Andamanese, which is genealogically different from the rest of the languages of the Andamanese tribes. She has been awarded the Padma Shri (2013) by the President of India for her pioneering work on endangered languages of India. At present, she is associated with SFU as a visiting professor of Indian Studies and occupies India Chair by the ICCR, India. Amritavalli R. is a former professor of Linguistics at The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She obtained her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Simon Frase University. She has spent over three decades in the fields of syntax and syntactic acquisition, making important and landmark contributions in these areas. She specializes in theoretical syntax of variant languages, early acquisition among children, and English language. Bhatia Tej K. is a professor of Linguistics and director of South Asian Languages at Syracuse University, New York. He has also served as a director of Linguistic Studies Program and acting director of Cognitive Sciences at his university. He has published numerous books, articles, and book chapters in the areas of bilingualism and multiculturalism; sociolinguistics; forensic linguistics and security studies; social and psychological information extraction; accents, pain and trauma; cross-cultural advertising; and the structure of English and South Asian languages (particularly, Hindi–Urdu and Punjabi). e-mail: [email protected] Bhatt Rakesh M. is a professor of Linguistics and SLATE (Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education) at the University of Illinois. He specializes in sociolinguistics of language contact, in particular, issues of migration, minorities and multilingualism, code-switching, language ideology, and World Englishes. The empirical focus of his work has been on South Asian languages, particularly Kashmiri, Hindi, and Indian English. His study, Verb Movement and the Syntax of Kashmiri (1999, Kluwer Academic Press), was published in the prestigious series, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. He has also co-authored another book, World Englishes (2008, Cambridge University Press). e-mail: [email protected] Bhattacharyya Pushpak is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay and currently the director of IIT Patna. His research areas are natural language processing, machine learning and AI (NLP-ML-AI). His laboratory called ‘Center for Indian Language Technology’ (CFILT) at IIT Bombay is known internationally for its contribution to NLP and ML. He is the author of the

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text book Machine Translation. Three recent monographs by him Investigations in Computational Sarcasm, Cognitively Inspired Natural Language Processing—An Investigation Based on Eye Tracking and Low Resource Machine Translation and Transliteration describe cutting-edge research in NLP and ML. e-mail: [email protected] Caldwell-Harris Catherine L. obtained her Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Psychology from University of California, San Diego, in 1991. At present, she is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the Boston University. Her research interests are broad, encompassing diverse aspects of language processing, including second language acquisition, emotional aspects of language, and word recognition. She, along with Ayse Ayciceg, is the originator of the PersonalityCulture Clash Hypothesis which proposes that mental health is facilitated by having a personality in tune with cultural values. e-mail: [email protected] Chandra Pritha is a professor of Linguistics in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Delhi. She obtained her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Maryland College Park, Maryland (USA). She specializes in syntactic theory, linguistic typology, biolinguistics, and language and politics. Some of her books are The Lexicon-Syntax Interface: Perspectives from South Asian Languages, (Dis)Agree: Agreement Mechanisms Explored. e-mail: [email protected] Chaudhary Shreesh is a former professor of Linguistics in the Department of Humanities and Social sciences at IIT Madras. She obtained his Ph.D. from CIEFL, Hyderabad (now EFL University). He has done his research on the Phonology of Indian English. His research interests include sociolinguistics, language and education, phonology of English. Dasgupta Probal is a retired professor and head of Linguistic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India. His doctoral dissertation on Questions and Relative and Complement Clauses in a Bangla Grammar is considered one of the seminal works in Bangla Syntax. Apart from Syntax, he has worked and written a great deal on morphology and sociolinguistics. He has also written extensively on topics in Esperanto Studies, Sociolinguistics, and Literary Theory. His book entitled The Otherness of English: India’s Auntie Tongue Syndrome talks of the situation of English in India. Hasnain S. Imtiaz is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at Aligarh Muslim University, India. He obtained his Ph.D. in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India. His areas of research interests are broadly in the areas of sociolinguistics, minority language rights, critical discourse analysis, and field linguistics. His recent publications are Problematizing Language Studies: Cultural, Theoretical and Applied Perspectives, Alternative Voices: (Re)searching Language, Culture, Identity.

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Jayaseelan K. A. is an acclaimed linguist and a seasoned Malayalam poet. He has obtained Ph.D. in English Literature from Viswabharati University in 1970 and Linguistics from Simon Fraser University in 1980. He was among the pioneers of the study of Generative Linguistics in India. He has analyzed Dravidian languages (Malayalam grammar in particular) using Chomskian linguistic devices such as the Universal Grammar and Minimalist Program. In 2017, a collection of papers by him and R. Amritavalli was published under the title Dravidian Syntax and Universal Grammar by Oxford University Press. Mir Farooq Ahmad currently works in the Department of Linguistics at Aligarh Muslim University, India. His areas of research interests include cognitive linguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. Nair Rukmini Bhaya is a poet and professor emeritus of Linguistics and English at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Her research interests are in the fields of cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, narrative, English studies, philosophy of language, techno-cultures, literary and postcolonial theory, gender and creative writing. Her widely acclaimed academic books include Poetry in a Time of Terror, Narrative Gravity: Conversation, Cognition, Culture, Lying on the Postcolonial Couch, Translation, Text and Theory: The Paradigm of India, and Technobrat: Culture in a Cybernetic Classroom. Her ‘polyphonous’ literary style seeks to connect her varied interests in literary theory and cultural studies. email: [email protected] Pandharipande Rajeshwari V. is a professor emeritus in the Department of Religion at University of Illinois. She obtained her Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1981. Her research interests are Hinduism, languages and cultures of India, sociolinguistics, South Asian languages (Hindi, Marathi, and Sanskrit), Language of Religion, Asian Mythology, and Religion in Diaspora. Some of her books are: Language of Religion in South Asia: Theory and Practice, Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Marathi, A Grammar of the Marathi Language. Routledge, The Eternal Self and the Cycle of Samsara. Ginn Press. e-mail: [email protected] Pardeshi Prashant is a professor of Theory and Typology Division at National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo. He is interested in linguistic typology, a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. He primarily works on Japanese, Marathi, and a few more East Asian and South Asian languages. His books include Handbook of Japanese Contrastive Linguistics, A Functional Account of Marathi’s Voice. e-mail: [email protected] Patnaik B. N. is a retired professor of English and Linguistics in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Kanpur (1978–2004), fellow at CIIL, Mysore (2004–2006), and visiting faculty at IIIT Hyderabad (2011). He received his Ph.D. in English (Linguistics and Phonetics) from CIEFL in 1977 on Complementation in Oriya and English, the first study of Oriya grammar in the generative linguistics

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framework. His interests include generative syntax, history of ideas in generative linguistics, computational linguistics, communication studies, and medieval Odia literature. His book Introducing Sarala Mahabharata is in press. e-mail: [email protected] Shibatani Masayoshi (Matt) is the Deedee McMurtry professor of Humanities and professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA. He is also a professor emeritus of Kobe University as well as a visiting professor at Osaka University and the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics in Tokyo. He specializes in language typology, syntax, linguistic theory, and Japanese and Austronesian linguistics. His publications include authored books Nihongo-no Bunseki/Analysis of Japanese (Taishukanshoten 1978) and The Languages of Japan (Cambridge University Press 1990). e-mail: [email protected] Singh Udaya Narayana is currently the Dean, Faculty of Arts and Chair-Professor of Linguistics at Amity University, Gurgaon, Haryana. He is a linguist, creative writer, translation theoretician, lexicographer, and a researcher in culture studies. He has received the Sahitya Akademi Award 2017 for his book Jahalak Diary for his contribution to maithili poetry. He published several collections of poems in Bangla and Maithili, 11 plays in Maithili, and six anthologies of literary essays in Bangla. His latest publications are a book in Bengali on Reading of Culture (Prativas), six bilingual Dictionaries (Longman) and an anthology of Ghost Stories, Bhut-Chaturdashi in Bangla (Karigar). Sinha Anjani Kumar was a former professor of Linguistics at University of Delhi. A well-known linguist with great deal of interest in the formal, applied, and social aspects of language. He obtained his Ph.D. in Linguistics from University of Chicago. His areas of interests include syntax, semantics, and sociolinguistics of English in India. His books include The Teaching of English in Indian Context and Elementary English Language Teaching. ‘How passive are passives? is one of his widely cited papers.’ Sivaramakrishnan Arvind is a former visiting professor in the Department of Humanities at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He was a senior deputy editor on the Hindu. He has published a range of academic papers in politics, political philosophy, public policy, and related fields. His books include Introduction to Political Ideologies (2017), Public Interest Journalism (2014), Public Policy and Citizenship (2012), and Short on Democracy (2007). e-mail: [email protected] Sridhar S. N. is a SUNY distinguished service professor, professor of Linguistics and India Studies, and director of the Mattoo Center for India Studies at Stony Brook University. He is an internationally recognized expert on multilingualism, Indian linguistics, World Englishes, and Kannada. His research areas include bilingualism, sociolinguistics of code-switching and code-mixing, language modernization, second-language acquisition in non-native settings, Indian English and other

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World Englishes, reference grammar of Kannada; psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, historical linguistics, and history of linguistics. Some of his books are: Kannada: Descriptive Grammar (Routledge, 1990 and Manohar 2001), Cognition and Sentence Production: A Cross-Linguistic Study (Springer Verlag, 1986), andIndia Kannada (Contemporary Kannada, Kannada University, 1995 and Abhinava, 2009) e-mail: [email protected] Sridhar Kamal K. obtained her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is recognized for her research on maintenance of languages and cultures among Asian Indian linguistic communities and on World Englishes. From 1986 to 1997, she directed the undergraduate and graduate TESOL program and served as the director of ESL at Stony Brook University. From 1989 to 1995, she served on the Editorial Board of TESOL Quarterly, A Journal Devoted to ESL Teaching and Research. Her books include English in Indian Bilingualism. New Delhi: Manohar. 1989, Ethnicity and Language Maintenance: The Case of Thanjavur Marathi in South India. e-mail: [email protected]

Introduction Rajesh Kumar and Om Prakash

Abstract The Indian language study tradition goes back to the P¯an.inian School of Grammar, which dates as back as the sixth century BCE. The study of language in ancient Indian Grammatical Tradition has its imprint on modern linguistic traditions across the world in general and in India in particular.

The Indian language study tradition goes back to the P¯an.inian School of Grammar, which dates as back as the sixth century BCE. The study of language in ancient Indian Grammatical Tradition has its imprint on modern linguistic traditions across the world in general and in India in particular. The As.t.a¯ dhy¯ay¯ı is not the study of ‘a language’; rather, it happens to be the science of language. It is the most comprehensive account of morphophonology and morphosyntax. Beginning from P¯an.ini to Bloomfield, Sapir, and all the way to Chomsky, the study of language by P¯an.ini has been of great interest. Bloomfield finds As.t.a¯ dhy¯ay¯ı as ‘one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence,’ whereas Kapoor (2005) observes that ‘after P¯an.ini, a whole tradition of language study in India developed and produced rich work by Patanjali, Chandrakirti, Bhartrihari, Bhojaraja, Hemachandracharya, Bhattoji Dikshita and Nagesh Bhatt among many others.’ The term India mentioned in the title of this volume refers to the ancient geographical expansion of present days India, which has been defined clearly in one of the oldest texts Vishunu Purana as:

R. Kumar (B) · O. Prakash Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India e-mail: [email protected] O. Prakash Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_1

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[The landscape that lies north of the ocean and south of the Himalayas is called India (Bh¯arat) and there dwells the descendants of India (Bh¯arat).] It is imperative to mention that the Indian Grammatical Tradition was a wellestablished School that continues to inspire modern studies in language and linguistic studies. In his presidential address delivered before the American Oriental Society meeting at Toronto on 20 April 1955, M. B. Emeneau said: India and Linguistics! It was, as this Society needs no reminding, the linguistics of the India of more than two millennia ago that was the direct germinal origin of the linguistics of the Western world of today. The historical sequences may be reviewed, perhaps with profit… …In the dawn of Western linguistics light certainly came from India. With the present resurgence of interest in linguistics in India, we can look forward to a new flood of light from India.

The above excerpt from Emeneau’s presidential address explains a long and established tradition of language studies in India much before the beginning of the Common Era. One of the most quoted and established references of studying language (i.e. Sanskrit) dates as back as the sixth century BCE by P¯an.ini and his extremely succinct and systematic work in Sankrit grammar As.t.a¯ dhy¯ay¯ı. A rich Sanskrit grammatical tradition carried forward by scholars like P¯an.ini, Katyayana, Bhartrhari, Yaska, Pingla, Patanjali, etc., to name a few, establishes an elaborate and systematic investigation of language(s) in India. However, this book does not map the diachronic trajectory of Indian grammatical tradition, which is already established and acknowledged. From the late eighteenth century extended up to nineteenth century, we witness studies in historical linguistics and reconstruction of Proto Indo-European language by tracing the divergence to contemporary languages of India, Iran and Europe. An early twentieth century saw an emergence of descriptive linguistics, which was primarily concerned with the description of a single language at a given point in time. The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed a very influential work Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale) by Ferdinand de Saussure, which was published posthumously in 1916 by two of his former students Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye out of their lecture notes that they had taken from Saussure’s lectures in Geneva (Macey, 2009). The ideas and approach of Saussure made significant paradigm shifts not only in linguistics but in a wide range of areas, such as literature, philosophy, sociology and other related disciplines. Saussure saw language as a formal system with various constituting elements and be analyzed despite complexities in real time of speech production. Drawing primarily from the works by Saussure, 1920s saw emergence of structuralism in language studies and linguistics. The decade witnessed a shift in approaches with meticulous and sophisticated methods in analyzing language as a system with subdisciplines such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc. This trend continued till 1950s, deepening our understanding of language structures and implied principles. The second half of the twentieth century consolidated such approaches and understandings with significant theoretical interventions marked by an influential generative theory by Noam Chomsky that began in 1957. Chomsky argued for language to

Introduction

3

be an innate grammatical systems and human mind to be programmed for acquisition of language and its underlined universal principles. The generative theory became the basis for intensified works and surge in publications of linguistic research in areas primarily concerned with major thrust on central properties of language as innate endowment. While the generative linguists led by Chomsky himself were busy in academic combat and consequent fallout with generative semanticists like Paul Postal, Haj Ross, George Lakoff and James McCawley on establishing supremacy of syntax over semantics, and otherwise, linguists like William Labov, Gohn J. Gumperj, Dell Hymes, Charlse Ferguson, Joshua Fishman, Susan Ervin Tripp and others were busy in laying foundation of a new approach in linguistics, which emerged as a new subdiscipline of Sociolinguistics in late 1960s. The latter half of the twentieth century established a canon of scientific investigations in language studies and formal linguistics emerged as an independent and popular discipline. Language Studies in India situates the discourse in our contemporary times by addressing a wide range of aspects of the study of language in a variety of domains such as cognition, change, acquisition, structure, philosophy, politics and education. It offers a renewed discussion on normative understanding of these concepts and opens up avenues for a fresh look at these concepts. Each contribution in this book captures a wide range of perspectives and underlines the vigorous role of language which happens to be central to all these arguments contained therein. The contributors of this volume belong to the generation of the second half of the twentieth century, who have witnessed the diachronic development of the canon and have received training in and worked through the shifting paradigms in the field. The idea of bringing these scholars together at one place gave shape to this book. This book collects simplified perspectives on various complex aspects of language. Traversing through various ideas and multiple perspectives, the books unfolds labyrinths of underlined properties of language and focuses on both formal and functional properties of complex language system. This book is not about a common theme in language studies; rather, we have deliberately made it a heterogeneous collection of perspectives encompassing a wide range of themes. The contributors represent two generations of scholars trained in different schools of the disciplines and have been practicing for over above three decades. The title of the book has been made simple without indicating any specific canon, and appropriate care has been taken in making it inclusive and open for all related ideas contained in the book. The following section presents a brief account of the contents and each paragraph represents the ideas of the chapters included in this book. The ideas and texts have been extrapolated from the respective chapters in the original form and the same are acknowledged implicitly in subsequent paragraphs against the names of each contributor. The citations can be found in the respective references of each chapter concerned. Rukmini Bhaya Nair outlines how properties of language account for the ability to produce and process complex linguistically encoded thoughts, and some of the methodologies they use in the context of India which has legendary reputation for

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pluralism and consequently how linguistics could unfold in the next decades, in India and elsewhere. Pragmatics and cognition are intricately related disciplines and the contemporary research establishes their natural affiliation. The underlined understanding in both the disciplines dwell upon the fact that contextual meaning gets primacy over grammatical structure in decoding linguistic form and both favor empirical analyses of data from multilingual, multicultural and multimodal sources rather than an appeal to constructed examples alone for a theoretical analysis of ‘patterns’ in thought. The transition from the linguistics of codes, associated with structuralism and its neogrammarian ancestry to a linguistics of discourses capable of seriously contemporary concerns has been a protracted transition. The average linguist has tended to find this transition somewhat confusing. The moment we try to take a closer look at the domain, we notice one factor that may have played a role in this confusion—the fact that discourse as a technical term conveys two very different senses, both of them connected to the ordinary meaning of the word. Probal Dasgupta devotes attention to this problem in this chapter and craves your indulgence for what may seem unnecessary pedantry. To make up for the impression of unnecessarily pedantry about just the term “discourse,” he begins these preliminary remarks by clarifying the broader bibliographic basis of what is being attempted here. The empirical claim made in his 1993 book The Otherness of English—to the effect that English in India is an auntie tongue, neither a mother tongue nor a foreign language—is a contested claim. Several readers, no doubt, disagree and regard this disagreement as more important than issues concerning the term “discourse” or other details of the framework. At this juncture, one way to make the issues clear, thus enabling differences of opinion to be expressed articulately, is to compare India with Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. In those countries, English is a foreign language; while local varieties of English are indeed widely used there; these are far less entrenched in social life than is the case in India. Creative writing in English authored by Indians does not exhibit an internal intertextual continuity of its own and is not anchored in the type of cognitive sophisticated critical commentary that is available in modern literatures in Indian languages. Instead, Indian writing in English regularly takes its cue from developments occurring in British and American creative writing. He firmly argues that those wishing to register their disagreement with the empirical claim made in The Otherness will take these points on board when they articulate their views. Rakesh M. Bhatt discusses the role of “experts” in the global spread of English, bringing into focus the various semiotic processes invested in the ideological distribution of English language variation. The starting point for probing expert discourses is a recognition of the intellectual movement known as “liberation linguistics,” which closely examines the various forms of linguistic beliefs and practices that accent the socio-political dimensions of language variation—rooted in contexts of social injustice—and attempts to transform these contexts radically in the interest of the speakers of the “other tongue”. In the (postmodern) era of globalization in which the dominance of English is seen as displacing local linguistic practices, the world Englishes paradigm focuses on the forms of globalization that fertilize new forms of locality:

Introduction

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spanning literary works of creative writers such as Raja Rao to artistic performances of hip-hop and to globalized identities of English accents of outsourcing. He argues that the study of WE, if properly theorized, holds the key to the various understandings of the processes of linguistic globalization: the complexity and simultaneity of linguistic choices, the commodification of linguistic forms and functions, the worldwide patterns and stratifications of English language acquisition and use and the creative potential of bilingual English users. What constitutes narration is the representation of at least one or more real or fictive events and situations in a time sequence where “neither of which presupposes or entails the other.” (Prince, 1982, 4). There is a unanimity among the narratologists not only regarding the constitution of narration as the representation of events, but also concerning the importance and role of representation in the definition of narratology’s subject matter. They, however, differ on account of the amount of variation within this representational view (Richardson, 2000). Following the representation is the notion of appropriateness, which renders suitability or proper ordering in the context for turning the virtual world into real. Further, it is the context that provides a setting for an idea to be fully understood as appropriate, thus enabling or facilitating a good narration make a world of make-believe real. Anjani Kumar Sinha in his chapter takes the concepts of “representation,” “narration” and “appropriateness” to analyze extracts from select Hindi–Urdu fictions, namely Rahi Masoom Raza’s Aadha Gaaon (‘A Divided Village’), Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Dariya (‘River of Fire’) and Daalanwaalaa, Shrilal Shukl’s Raag Darbaari and Phanishwar Nath Renu’s Teesri Kasam and Panchlight. He establishes the fact that fiction as a narrative that presents mental representation of propositional attitudes of the author through its characters in the form of sentences which are organized in paragraphs according to motifs. Since the fictional world is a world of make-believe, the writer uses all linguistics devices to keep it as such and manipulates them by using various transformational or rhetorical tools to bring constituents into focus. The language of a fiction cannot be separated from its motifs and theme because the latter can be realized only when it is used appropriately. Liberalization and globalization have brought greater interaction with the outside world through English. Liberalization has brought in a less ideologically pure, more pragmatic attitude toward acquiring and enjoying wealth, including a view of English as a transactional, commodifiable resource. Accordingly, the goals of learning and teaching English are being reoriented from a liberal arts orientation to a pragmatic one. Drawing from Indian experience of a reference period since the economic liberalization introduced in 1991 to date of about three decades, S. N. Sridhar and Kamal Sridhar affirm the value of a reorientation in the study of English in India that has been taking place in recent years. They argue that the most insightful way to study English in India is to view it in relation to the multilingual communication matrix of India rather than in comparison with native varieties of English. Their second crucial argument is that English in India operates in two modes—a unilingual mode and a multilingual mode. In the unilingual mode, English is used in discrete discourse

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contexts without overt reference to or input from other languages, whereas in the multilingual mode, it not only complements but overlaps and interlaces with them in the same discourse contexts. So far, studies of Indian English have primarily focused on the unilingual mode and treated the mixed mode as if it was an aberration. They argue that the mixed mode is as important a use as the unilingual mode and that this new, synthetic mode carries distinctive social meanings and serves different communicative goals. They demonstrate that this perspective provides a more intuitive or insightful account of how communication works in India and why Indian English displays the structural characteristics that it does. This perspective also explains better the philosophical underpinning of language mixing that we see pervasive in India—it in fact, reflecting the complex hybridity of the contemporary educated Indian. The Great Andamanese is a generic term used to refer to ten different tribes who spoke closely related varieties of the same language in the entire set of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Their language is known by the same name, i.e. Great Andamanese. It constitutes the sixth language family of India, the other five being Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic and TaiKadai, all of them spoken in mainland India. Linguistic research undertaken by Abbi (2003, 2006, 2009) established for the first time that there were two distinct language families in the Andaman Islands, i.e. Angan (Onge-Jarawa) and Great Andamanese. This was made possible by drawing first-hand data from three accessible languages of the Andamans, viz. Onge, Jarawa and Great Andamanese, and employing two distinct but inter-related methods from comparative historical linguistics and language typology. Anvita Abbi proposes that various kinds of inherent, non-transferable, inter-dependent relations between two elements are represented by inalienable body division markings. The knowledge of the concept of inalienability and its various manifestations in the language as proclitics is very essential to comprehend the grammar of the Great Andamanese language. The structures discussed here, viz. body division classes and their pervading character, are culture-specific traits and developed in stages as a coevolutionary product. This is a coevolutionary journey of the language development. This proves that it was inherent feature of the grammar of the entire language family. Considering the sociohistorical aspects of the Great Andamanese, she argues that the Great Andamanese tribes are remnants of the first migration out of Africa from 70,000 years before present and have lived in isolation (Kashyap et al., 2003) all along without any contact till the late nineteenth century; the body division markers appearing on every grammatical category of content words appear to be very archaic in nature. The system is indicative of the early times when human beings conceptualized their world through their body and its divisions. This could be the evidence of the structure of the “possible human language” that ever existed in human evolution. K. A. Jayaselan raises questions on some settled beliefs about the nature of case in language and about lexical categories. He argues that some of these settled beliefs are in the process of being thrown out. Invoking evidence and arguments from Malayalam in support of his claim, he establishes that arguments come with three cases: genetic + accusative + dative; and if nothing happens to any of these cases, then the argument

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will surface with dative, because it is the topmost case. In other words, his claim is that the default case of arguments is dative. He is not the first person to say that dative is the default case; this has been claimed for oblique arguments (i.e. PP’s) of German by a linguist named Henk von Riemsdijk. This chapter iterates that Malayalam verb is a non-primitive lexical category, which is derived when a predicate which is N0 “absorbs” the Dative case of the first argument that it merges with. Tej K. Bhatia presents a comprehensive overview of the rural and urban linguistic landscape of India. In order to achieve this goal, various facets of what is termed ‘nonconventional’ advertising and outdoor signage are examined from three perspectives—language, advertising and marketing. He investigates two key issues: one, how do marketers and advertisers craft their outdoor linguistic landscape to reach out to their audience/consumers in a linguistically and geographically superdisperse country such as India; and the other, as what factors determine media and linguistic choices as advertisers tailor their message to the specific linguistic context of the Indian rural market. His study is based on the analysis of more than two thousand samples of wall adverting, drawn from three geographical zones (Northern, Eastern and Western India) and from six languages, English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali. This study fills a major gap in language landscaping research as it focuses on rural demographics of advertising, which is a neglected area in western as well as non-western societies. He argues that wall adverting has been a permanent fixture in the language scape of India for at least the past four thousand years. Wall advertising is essentially an information-based modality and is an effective way of reaching out to Indian rural consumers scattered over more than half a million villages and representing staggering linguistic diversity. The content analysis together with linguistic landscape analysis draws several generalizations and identifies complex patterns which are valid for Indian wall advertising to a great extent. Because of the centuries’ old tradition of wall advertising and its overwhelming presence in the linguistic landscape, this modality has come to symbolize an integral part of mental landscape of rural India. Nothing excites as much passion and disagreement as scientific proposals for what are the foundational building blocks of a field of study. Chomsky (1965) launched the view of language as a mental module of the brain, drawing attention to the hierarchical structures and rules of language. Catherine Cadwell-Harris reviews the continua of orthographic regularity, past tense regularity and context-dependence. She sketches ideas for the shape of these continua in English. A project for ongoing research is to verify these proposals with computerized language corpora, and to investigate how the shape of continua may vary in other languages. In his book, Words and Rules, Pinker (1999) emphasized that a basic division in language is the vocabulary/syntax division, and that meaning is obtained by consulting rules in order to combine units into larger structures. The opposing view is that language is not divided into words on the one hand and rules for combining them (Bybee & McClelland, 2005; MacWhinney, 1998, 2010). There are words, and there are rules, but other patterns in language are quasiregular: for example, such as irregular grammatical forms and partially productive formulaic expressions (McClelland, 2015).

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In this chapter, she describes three debates about continua in language and sets out the quasiregularity manifesto: Many aspects (and perhaps every aspect) of language cannot be divided into the categories of rules and exceptions, but demonstrate quasi regularity. Phenomena lie along a continuum from regular to exceptional. Why does the debate about rules + exceptions versus continua occur repeatedly in the study of language? The answer may lie in the logic of domain exploration. This chapter underlines these factors and establishes that dividing a problem space into two categories confers a large knowledge payoff due to cognitive ease in learning and representing dichotomies. However, once one has noticed the basic dichotomy of rules versus exceptions, a second look reveals a middle space of quasiregularity. Language is acquired during a time of life when the infant is not yet ready to go school for “learning” or an “education,” at a time of life that most of us have no conscious memory of. We say a child “learns” to walk and “learns” to talk, although we are aware that walking and talking happen before the age of three, and almost universally. They are not learnt or taught in the same sense as physics, linguistics or gymnastics are. Rather, they are fundamental human abilities that appear to unfold according to a bioprogram, given the appropriate environment. So, when we collect information about how a child speaks or understands language, larger questions about the nature of language must continually inform the way we look at the data. R. Amrithavalli deliberates on how human infant picks up the languages of its environment within the first three years of its life, regardless of its genetic or racial roots. Her careful analysis of systematically collected acquisition data for Tamil suggest that language appears full-blown in the child, in so far as word order and its variations that reflect information structuring in terms of topicalization and focalization are concerned. Even at the two-word utterance stage, when the child’s productions superficially differ from the adults,’ the word order appears to be set, and departures from it are clearly rare. If the claim that the child zeroes in on the grammar of his language with minimal excursions into wrong pathways is indeed true, then she argues, child data can provide insights into the validity of our analyses, and also prove a useful corrective to laborious or inaccurate adult analyses of language data. Natural language processing (NLP) also known as computational linguistics (CL) is concerned with the question of how to endow computers with the ability of analyzing and generating language. Pushpak Bhattacharya deliberates on how one embeds knowledge and insight obtained from linguistics, cognition, philosophy and even natural science research in a computer. He iterates that the need for NLP is real. Any situation requiring a machine’s interaction with people can make use of NLP. This chapter describes the nature and need of Natural language processing. Ambiguity at all levels is the main challenge of NLP. Machine learning steps in to choose the right option, the option that has the highest probability. Probability has become the de facto scoring or ranking function for choosing correct option at any stage of NLP pipeline. ML-NLP became feasible because of the availability of huge quantity of text data in electronic form. Drawing inferences from the growing human– machine interactions and emerging new avenues for deep learning, he concludes that the repository of fundamental units available to language is huge: characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, emojis, punctuation, syntax trees, meaning graph, silence,

Introduction

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disfluency, modulation. But when we use neural networks, we have to work with only vectors and matrices. Vectors and matrices are no match for the rich repository of building blocks that a language has. When it comes to operators too, neural nets are found wanting. As operators in a language, we have concatenation, reversal, reordering, implicatures, irony, metaphor, sarcasm and so on. In neural networks, on the other hand, we only have vector and matrix addition and multiplication and passing quantities through nonlinearity. Evolution is a hard problem and language evolution even more so. There is no easy algorithmic answer to the problem of how language evolved and developed to its present state in the human species. In the absence of direct archeological evidence for language in earlier forms, the subject matter of language evolution becomes an almost intractable problem. Conjectures on this matter are at best, inferential, drawing upon data from ancient tools and cultural artifacts, brain sizes and the varied shapes and positions of the larynx in the vocal tract. Pritha Chandra attempts to answer some of the pertinent questions, such as where does the field stand now? What are the main achievements since its re-emergence? Does the problem of language remain a hard problem, or do we now have enough evidence from multiple fields to generate better and solid theories of how language came about in humans? She concludes that understanding of language as a computational system or as a constituent of a larger cognitive space or as an emergent phenomenon to meet the needs of social beings is the key to understand language evolution. When a language or a culture is in the ‘endangered’ category, one could assume that its use has shrunk in terms of all four parameters: Space (i.e. ‘spatially delimited’), time (i.e. used infrequently—mostly replaced with other forms of expression), value (i.e. social price or utility) and vitality (or, limited life span). The area of occupancy or habitat fragmentation can both contribute to this state. It is often the case that its speakers do not occupy a contiguous space but live in a scattered manner over a few districts or states with no direct everyday connection. Their number of matured individual speakers dwindle, and the occasions to use the mother tongue become more and more limited in a multilingual context. The annual and decadal decline in its population could mean the death of disappearance, or it could also mean a shift of identity tag by the new generation of people. Uday Narayan Singh locates the factors of language endangerment and subsequent losses it brings to the language, speakers and culture. Some may argue that debasement, obliterations and endangerment are changes that are inevitable in modern times. One could argue that modernity demanded universalization and fusion of cultural canons and a resultant proximity of linguistic structures. However, he argues that modernization of languages or language development must not be viewed as a ‘homogenizing’ process brining in linguistic uniformity. The inherent linguistic and cultural diversity in human societies may rather encourage blooming of a large basket of varying styles and such other speech varieties. Sarala Mahabharata, as any version of the ancient story, is a narrative of greed, deceit, jealousy, hatred, manipulation, intrigue and the like, and there is a great deal of violence in language, thought and action. In Sarala’s retelling, the characters are not sanitized; as such, there are no purely virtuous or completely vicious characters.

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They are thus intensely human with all human limitations. It is through the lives of these ordinary mortals that profound questions of dharma and adharma have been raised and explored in the narrative. In the dark world of the text, there are numerous verbal engagements among the characters where bad language is almost aggressively used. The existing scholarship on Sarala Mahabharata contains no study of the use of bad language in this text, to the best of our knowledge. B. N. Patnaik deals with the use of “bad language,” in Sarala Das’ Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata, which is a highly creative retelling of Vyasa Mahabharata in Odia. It was composed in the fifteenth century. Incidentally, Sarala Das is the first poet who retold all the eighteen parvas (cantos) of the canonical text in a local language (“regional language” in contemporary terminology) and he is also the first non-Brahmin to retell this highly celebrated ancient text. To that extent, this chapter tries to fill a gap in Sarala scholarship. This chapter is organized in two parts. The first explicates the concept of bad language and analyses some examples for illustrative purposes. It also provides an outline of H. P. theory of conversation, which is used here as reference for analysis. The second part analyses some select interactions between characters in Sarala Mahabharata that contain the use of bad language. Study of structure is central to the linguistic study of language. Meaning may arise from more than language, but without the study of rules and lexical units, making up structure of language, language cannot be studied. But, in spite of advances in the study of structure of language, there are unresolved issues. One issue of this kind is knowledge and use of language by multilingual people. Shreesh C. Chaudhary raises some issues of this kind for further discussion by linguistic theory leading to a better understanding of structure and use of language and of the architecture of its knowledge. He argues that an enquiry into a multilingual person’s knowledge of language can proceed in this direction and the true nature of the knowledge of language and its structure can be understood better by looking at the use of language in multilingual settings. It need be no surprise that the politics of language—almost anywhere in the world and at any time in history—is part and parcel of politics in any wider sense of the term. Among contemporary democracies, Arvind Shivaramakrishnan cites examples of Canada and India to underline issues of the politics of language that permeate every detail of people’s lives and also raise significant issues in law, philosophy and political philosophy or political thought. Both inherit a complex range of legal and cultural traditions and as contemporary democracies both countries have to navigate extremely difficult consequences which put their legal and constitutional systems under considerable strain in different ways; these include reconciling different philosophies of law, including different conceptions of rights, and recognizing profound wariness—even suspicion and distrust—of the process and institutions of public, democratic, life themselves. He argues that linguistic coercion amounts to political coercion—of a kind no democracy can justify, or perhaps even survive. It would be thoroughly consistent with democracy, therefore, for whole bodies politic to celebrate multilinguality rather than multilingualism; quite apart from the pleasure and enjoyment, and quite apart from the frequent necessity to have even fragments of a language other than our principal language(s), multilinguality,

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as much as multilingualism, is part and parcel of the achievement of communication and intelligibility. Language documentation engages with the textual materials derived from the unwritten language of the researched. The textual materials can be the language structure, knowledge of the folk, music, cultural beliefs and practices of speakers of the languages of the powerless. Language documentation is textually mediated, and it is also about interpretation of these textual materials by the researcher. This desired mandate, consequently, makes language documentation an act of interpretation. As interpreters, we interpret extinction or loss of language not simply as a problem of inability or unpreparedness to cope with changes in society, or as an existential issue as to how to keep pace with the development and meet the expectations and aspirations of the speaking community, but we interpret it for its moral valence. S. Imtiaz Hasnain and Farooq Ahmad Mir delineate the challenges and issues of a field-worker with an aim to make the process of language documentation a fruitful process for the researcher and the researched. By discussing various aspects of the challenges of this process, i.e. the theorization, the field work, empowerment and advocacy and the identity formation, it has been amply demonstrated that the language documentation needs to be viewed as a process of abundant challenges that actually lie in front in myriad shapes for the field-worker. A field-worker, thus, needs to consider the essentiality of an epistemic, social and democratic balance between researcher and the researched; the latter needs to be engaged in the process of language documentation as an indispensable centripetal agency. They argue that communication involves intention, context, gestures and relations of power, etc., and these are different situations where interpretation takes place which contribute toward making communication as a communicative event. Language documentation must, therefore, also pay attention to both the communicative practices and functions and use of language for exploring the ways in which they are executed. They call for adopting a method and methodology which has a realistic edge and a survivalist flavor. The studies on the noun-modification in Marathi typically claim the structure modifying the head noun in the so-called relative clauses and the noun complement clauses to be a sentence or clause. Drawing from Marathi data, Prashant Pardeshi and Masayoshi (Matt) Shibatani critically examine the nature of modifying structures involved in relative and complement clauses in light of the new nominalization theory developed by Shibatani (2009, 2017, 2018, 2019) and conclude that, contrary to the usual assumptions, modifying structures are grammatical nominalizations that denote substantive/things like ordinary nouns, rather than clauses and (declarative) sentences that respectively predicate and assert. They argue that structures modifying the head noun in the relevant constructions are not a clause or sentence that performs the predication or assertion function, but it is rather a ‘(grammatical) nominalization,’ which, like ordinary nouns, denotes a substantive/thing (including abstract ones such as events, facts and propositions), and which performs referential function when it heads a noun phrase and restricting or identification function when it modifies a head noun.

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Language of religion is one of the oldest forms of language, which has been studied from diverse perspectives of theology, philosophy, sociology and linguistics. Language of religion is a multifaceted entity, and therefore, it is not surprising that different fields focus on various, mutually exclusive aspects of religious language and analyze it differently. Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande critically examines language of religion in linguistic perspective, where she argues that LR differs from other registers as well as its non-religious counterpart in terms of the underlying conceptualization of reality. Drawing evidence from the language of religion in the Hinduism in the US diaspora, she observes, unless the underlying framework is understood, language of religion (with its structural and functional features) remains either mysterious or meaningless. The linguistic structures of language of religion derive their meaning with reference to its underlying conceptual framework, the worldview, that is, its “deep structure” or the conceptualization of reality is based on their religious beliefs, which marks it different from other registers. This distinctiveness of religious language provides a criterion for separating it from other registers (i.e. it differs from other registers in its conceptualization of reality). The users of language of religion can have two different conceptual frameworks of reality (as she says, ‘can have’ as opposed to ‘do have’ because in some cultures, there may not be any difference between the two), the one expressed by non-religious language and the other expressed by language religion. Finally, she suggests that a community’s repertoire can include more than one conceptual framework. It is a well-known fact that the speech community’s repertoire can consist of many linguistic codes (languages), which is multilingualism. She concludes that similar to diglossia (Ferguson 1959), according to which, speakers use language which is functionally appropriate to a domain, there is a need to assume a di-system (more than one system of underlying conceptualization, “world view” of reality) which people use in different social contexts. We cannot thank our contributors enough for their unconditional support and readiness for contributing a chapter in this book. We firmly believe that this book will help in deepening our understanding of the ongoing discourse in language studies. We hope that the perspectives presented in this book will engage researchers and scholars across discipline in problematizing the phenomena of language and help them investigate the settled issues in language studies. We would like to thank Satvinder Kaur for her continuous support and bearing with us through delays and disruptions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We owe a great deal to Thapasya Jayaraj and Elizabeth Eldho, who are research scholars at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Madras, who have been instrumental in reading through the texts multiple times and helping us put this work together. Finally, we extend our gratitude to the many individuals who have directly or indirectly been supportive in our endeavor.

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References Abbi, A. (2003). Vanishing voices of the languages of the Andaman Islands. Paper presented at the Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, 13 June 2003. [Published online in 2004 at http://www.andaman. org/BOOK/originals/Abbi/art-abbi.htm] Abbi, A. (2006). Endangered languages of the Andaman Islands. Lincom. Abbi, A. (2009). Is great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa? Language Sciences, 31, 791–812. Bybee, J., & McClelland, J. L. (2005). Alternatives to the combinatorial paradigm of linguistic theory based on domain general principles of human cognition. The Linguistic Review, 22(2–4), 381–410. Ferguson, C. A. (1959). Diglossia. WORD, 15(2), 325–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956. 1959.11659702 [retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00437956.1959. 11659702] Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. MIT Press. Emeneau, M. B. (1955, July–September). India and linguistics. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 75(3), 145–153. Retrieved on July 2021 from https://www.jstor.org/stable/595166 Kapoor, K. (2005). Dimensions of Panini grammar: The Indian grammatical system. DK Printworld. Kashyap, V. K., Sitalaximi, T. Sarkar, B. N., & Trivedi, T. (2003). Molecular relatedness of the aboriginal groups of Andaman and Nicobar Islands with similar ethnic populations. International Journal of Human Genetics, 3, 5–11. Macey, D. (2009). The Penguin dictionary of critical theory. Crane Library at the University of British Columbia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure July 2021. MacWhinney, B. (1998). Models of the emergence of language. Annual Review of Psychology, 49(1), 199–227. MacWhinney, B. (2010). A tale of two paradigms. In M. Kail, & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 17–33). John Benjamins Publishing. McClelland, J. L. (2015). Capturing gradience, continuous change, and quasi-regularity in sound, word, phrase, and meaning. In B. MacWhinney, & W. O’Grady (Eds.), The handbook of language emergence (pp. 53–80). Wiley & Sons. Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules: The ingredients of language. HarperCollins. Prince, G. (1982). Narratology: The form and functioning of narrative. Mouton. Richardson, B. (2000). Recent concepts of narrative and the narratives of narrative theory. Style, 34(Summer 2000), 168–175. Shibatani, M. (2009). Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t: The case of relative clauses. In T. Givón, & M. Shibatani (Eds.), Syntax complexity: Diachronic, acquisition, neurocognition, evolution: Typological studies in language (Vol. 85, pp. 163–198). John Benjamins. Shibatani, M. (2017). Nominalization. In M. Shibatani, & S. Miyagawa, & H. Noda (Eds.), Handbook of Japanese syntax: Handbooks of Japanese language and linguistics [HJLL] Series, (Vol. 4, pp. 271–331). De Gruyter Mouton. Shibatani, M. (2018). Nominalization in crosslinguistic perspective. In P. Pardeshi, & T. Kageyama (Eds.), Handbook of Japanese Contrastive Linguistics: Handbooks of Japanese language and linguistics [HJLL] Series, (Vol. 6, pp. 345–410). De Gruyter Mouton. Shibatani, M. (2019). What Is nominalization? Towards the theoretical foundations of nominalization. In R. Zariquiey, M. Shibatani, & D. Fleck (Eds.), Nominalization in languages of the Americas (pp. 15–168). John Benjamins.

A Troika For 21st-Century Indian Linguistics: Pragmatics, Cognition, And Language Acquisition Rukmini Bhaya Nair

Consider, for a moment, the second word in the title of this essay. Well, it may be part of the English lexicon; it may have a vaguely Russian feel to it but, if we are to be frank, most of us would be hard put to remember the last time we came across it, let alone used it. Time, then, for a magic trick with polysemy: let’s look for a lexical equivalent for ‘troika’ in the cultural context of India. And immediately, hey presto, a word, a concept, springs to mind. It is the image of a noisy, everyday vehicle in which we hurtle down Indian roads: namely, a ‘three-wheeler.’ For people in many countries across the globe, this hyphenated English word would probably mean very little, even if they technically ‘understood’ it. Yet for millions of Indians, a three-wheeler is as familiar as home; it involves the semantics of movement and space, the speech act of ‘hailing’ and the visual imagery of the colors yellow, green and black (but not, say, red, purple or blue). It might even evoke embodied sensations of the wind rushing past; of being driven, if one is the passenger, by someone else who is positioned in front of oneself rather than at one’s back; of non-ownership (unlike, let’s say, the word ‘car’), as well as of ‘grounded-ness’ (since three-wheelers are not water-borne and nor do they fly but are, we know from empirical evidence, terrestrial). Ideas of gender are presupposed since the mental image of a three-wheeler driver is stereotypically male and human. Further, the discourse ‘script’ associated with a three-wheeler involves monetary payment at the end (but not the beginning) of the drive; it may have connotations of bargaining and, possibly, some understanding of the mechanics of a ‘meter-reading.’ Linguistically, the word invokes the concept of number when it conjoins the count noun ‘three’ with the common noun ‘wheel’; of animacy (the wheel is –animate) with the derivative morpheme ‘-er’ attached to it and forms a contrast with a ‘four-wheeler’ (bus, car, truck). It can thus summon up fantastical fictional counterfactuals such as a ‘thousand-wheeler’ driven by a genii, for instance, which also constitutes as we R. B. Nair (B) Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_2

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will see below, part of the immense creativity and interpretive latitude attaching to language. Then again, we know that the whole compound word ‘three-wheeler’ can itself be replaced with another compound word ‘auto-rickshaw.’ This synonymy is also important as the latter can be handily shortened to ‘auto’ in context, which is of course a widespread aspect of efficient communication. Why, however, do I at all spend so much time on such a markedly trivial word as ‘three-wheeler?’ It is because it will be my argument in this essay that deep processes of cognition, pragmatics and culturally embedded language acquisition come together almost miraculously in our instantaneous processing of the extremely complex, encyclopedic information associated with everyday words like ‘three-wheeler,’ not to mention a myriad sentences replete with abstractions such as ‘freedom of speech is a fundamental right.’ We effortlessly manage these feats of comprehension in language in milliseconds without even thinking about it. In the three sections that follow, I will try and outline how the three areas I’ve mentioned above formulate their central hypotheses about those properties of language that account for the ability to produce and process complex linguistically encoded thoughts and some of the methodologies they use. I will also bear in mind throughout that we are not discussing these matters in a vacuum but in the context of India which has an almost legendary reputation for pluralism; it follows that my examples shall as far as possible be from the subcontinent. Current research in pragmatics and cognition indicates that these disciplines are natural allies in that both contest the traditional view of syntax as central to linguistic analysis. As Geeraerts and Cuyckens put it rather pithily in Cognitive Linguistics (2007): “where Generative Grammar is interested in knowledge of language, Cognitive Linguistics is interested in knowledge through language.” They add the cognitive linguistics offers “a flexible framework rather than a single theory of language,” a position with which most researchers in the field of pragmatics would concur wholeheartedly. Both pragmatics and cognitive linguistics are also in agreement over according to contextual meaning rather than grammatical structure primacy in decoding linguistic form and both favor empirical analyses of data from multilingual, multicultural and multimodal sources rather than an appeal to constructed examples alone for a theoretical analysis of ‘patterns’ in thought. This last point about databases is of some importance since the twenty-first century is one where such large, recorded ‘corpora’ are increasingly available cross-culturally for ‘data-mining.’ It is true that neither pragmatics nor cognitive linguistics has at present paid much attention to the area of language development but both acknowledge that this is a critical area for future enquiry. For example, Michael Tomasello writes in his contribution to Cognitive Linguistics that: …there is very little research on children’s understanding… this would seem to be an area of developmental research wide open for exploration by cognitive linguists. (2007, 1096–97)

I cannot agree more with this opinion and feel that, in India in particular, where so much still needs to be achieved in the arena of early language learning and education (see the National Education Policy Document 2020 in this connection), this is a critical research area that could be rewardingly pursued at least over the few next

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decades. I will therefore return to the research theme of language acquisition in the last section of this paper, with a short report on some of the initial work we have done at IIT Delhi in this field that seeks to connect the pragmatic emphasis on linguistic interaction in cultural contexts to cognitive concerns about meaning is processed in the mind/brain. I now move on to a discussion of the basic contours of the discipline of pragmatics.

1 Pragmatics: Speech Act Theory, Implicature and the Criticality of Context The website for the biennial International Pragmatics Association conference, last held in Hong Kong in 2019 just before COVID-19 struck, had this brief definition to offer: The field of linguistic pragmatics, broadly conceived, is the interdisciplinary (cognitive, social, cultural) science of language use.

A couple of keywords that stand out in the sentence above are obviously ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘language use,’ both of which seem, at first sight, to be quite opposed to the view proposed by the unquestionable doyen of contemporary linguistics, Noam Chomsky, who has long argued that that the core of linguistic processing consists in autonomous syntactic recursion handled by the independent ‘language module’ of the human brain. According to the Chomskyan position, a broad conception of linguistics that takes in aspects of cognition not directly related to language (vision, touch and so on) and also integrates a spectrum of sociocultural behaviors (politeness phenomena, speech acts, etc.) is beyond the scope of ‘linguistics’ as a well-defined discipline. These matters belong to the domain of language ‘performance’ rather than language ‘competence’; they are mostly norm-governed rather than rule-driven and are concerned with E-language, not I-language and so on. In their influential programmatic paper of 2002, Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch reiterate this basic distinction when they speak of FLN (the faculty of language narrowly defined) versus FLB (the faculty of language broadly defined). FLN, in Chomsky’s view, “only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language” (2002, 1569). In this respect, we should begin by noting that both pragmatics1 , focusing on language use, and cognitive linguistics, concentrating on meaning, belong squarely within FLB. However, Hauser et al. also make a vital announcement in the same paper when they state unequivocally that: an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably welded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology and neuroscience. (2002, 1569) 1

There is an important distinction to be made between pragmatics and pragmatism which I made the subject of a plenary address at my International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) plenary in 2005; for more on pragmatism, see Rescher 2014.

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The present essay is in fact an example of this encompassing trend toward “substantial interdisciplinary cooperation” in twenty-first century linguistics. Within the domain of pragmatics, Asa Kasher suggested by way of a colorful example as early as 1977: ... the ultimate goal of any pragmatic theory, is to specify and explain the constitutive rules of human competence to use linguistic means for effecting basic purposes ... Thus, a girl scout has not grasped the notion of a postage stamp, if she knows all about perforated edges and can even tell the side that sticks from the side that speaks but knows nothing whatsoever about letters and postage. And a scoutmaster does not have a thorough knowledge about his organization if he knows the ropes and can tell a jamboree from a merry rally but is unaware of the constitutive purposes of his movement. (1977, 226)

We observe here that Kasher includes within pragmatics a ‘competent’ knowledge of how to use a postage stamp as part of the meaning of this phrase, as well as an understanding of the purposes of a scout rally to really grasp the meaning of being a scout. He thus succeeds in blurring the sacrosanct competence/performance distinction so prevalent in linguistic studies. His examples may sound a bit dated but the argument remains robust. For, even in today’s global environment, it is not enough to be able to accurately describe, for instance, a commonplace object such as a cellphone in the minutest detail without any knowledge of what it is used for (see John Searle’s classic ‘Chinese Room’ experiment on this point which occurs at the exact intersection of pragmatics with cognitive studies that I explore in this paper; Searle, 1980, 1999). Within pragmatics, then, knowledge of language crucially includes knowledge of use/usage. So, what are some of the theories and methods ‘used’ within the FLB field of pragmatics today and why, if at all, are these research tools important in terms of the insights that they provide in the rapidly shifting, technologically influenced, field of linguistics today? I begin with setting out half a dozen basic assumptions that I believe pragmatics makes regarding the importance of the following factors: A. Contextual Interaction Dyadic, often polyphonic, social interactions form contexts for understanding the meaning of utterances (see Hymes, 1968). The shift here is from a grammatical framework where decontextualized sentences are the main object of study to one where any utterance is negotiated between two or more people. B. Cultural Norms and Performatives The notion of context, in turn, includes sociocultural, often public and institutional settings such as, for example, a marriage ceremony. Austin (1962) points out, for example, that even if a couple in a Western context were to correctly repeat all the words in a marriage contract (“With this ring I thee wed…”, etc.), it would still not be recognized as a wedding if they said this in a room without an ordained priest present, etc. Much the same would hold today of a wedding in an Indian context, whether civil or religious. In other words, we use words, in the general case, not only to think but to communicate others; speech is as much a social activity as an internalized cognitive act and has an aspect of culturally approved performance to it that can be formalized a set of ‘felicity conditions’ on ‘speech acts’ (see Sect. 2).

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C. Cognition and Affect Cultural settings, in their turn, imply different cognitive, including affective, categorizations of and responses to the ‘same’ linguistic item. For example, describing someone as an ‘owl’ in English implies scholarship and it would be a sort of compliment to call a person ‘a wise old owl’; however, as Hindi speakers in wide swathe of Indian states know, calling someone an ullu in these cultural spheres would be the equivalent of calling him or her a fool or idiot and would amount to an insult. These words owl and ullu are cognate in that they derive from the same IndoEuropean root but have diverged to have strikingly different cognitive responses and thus would predictably result in the contrastive speech acts of complimenting and insulting. Indeed, a huge range of speech acts, such as apologizing, commanding, cursing, declaring, flattering, greeting, mocking, threatening, representing, warning and so forth open up a promising area for formal comparative research in India using pragmatic tools of inquiry into cognition. D. Interdisciplinary Cooperation Studying cognitive behavior in a cultural setting would almost certainly require an interdisciplinary approach to language study since several prominent contemporary linguists believe (see Tomasello, 2009) that language works in close tandem with other modalities such as memory, attention and vision to arrive at inferences about the ‘meaning’ of linguistic categories and interactions (see Jackendoff, 1977; Nair, 1990, on the idea of language as a sort of ‘master-file’ that collates, combines and organizes information from all other modalities). Since linguists are not necessarily experts in decoding memory and other brain processes, it logically follows that they work with researchers in other fields, including psychologists, computational scientists and postcolonial theorists, to understand inference making especially in bilingual situations of ‘code-mixing’ involving the simultaneous processing of two or more languages (see Nair, 2008). In India, this would mean that researchers at institutes like AIIMS could collaborate usefully with scholars at the IITs and IISERS as well as a large university network. E. Logical Features of Conversation Almost all conversation, whether dyadic or polyphonic, requires that one deductively infers meanings in real time from a set of premises in any ordinary ‘talk exchange,’ as Paul Grice convincingly demonstrates in his pioneering William James Lectures on ‘Logic and Conversation’ (1975, 1990). Later, Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson’s work on Relevance Theory (1986; see below) took forward Grice’s work by presenting principles of ‘maximal cognitive relevance,’ which they suggested were also driven by inferences from conversational logic. Once again, these conversational principles can be applied today to conversations in hybrid man–machine environments and are an exciting area of research in the development of virtual communication systems, especially as India has a wealth of technological talent in computer applications (Nair, 2008, 2017, 2021). F. Conversational Analytic Methodologies These were methods were pioneered by the ethnomethodogists Harvey Sacks, Gail Jefferson and Emanuel Schegloff in the 1970s and were dedicated to a microanalysis of tape-recorded and then carefully transcribed conversations. These detailed procedures have yielded a whole vocabulary for monitoring conversational interaction including such notions as ‘turn-taking’ as

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well as the idea that any conversation is ‘sequential’ and involves ‘transition relevant points’ when rights to the conversational ‘floor’ pass from one participant to another; self and other ‘repair,’ part-pairs such as questions and answers. Such studies of the A-B-A-B mechanics of conversation in everyday settings demonstrate how amazingly fine-tuned any ordinary conversation is and offers another methodologically robust area of study in India based on empirical data. I will argue this point in more detail in Sect. 2 on cognition. What is important to remember is that conversational analysis or CA still offers one of the most reliable methods of studying conversation and thus is a staple method in pragmatic analysis and a guide to the coordinated activity of ‘minds’ reacting to each other in real time, which is critical to cognitive studies as well. Speech Act Theory It will be clear by now that pragmatics as an area of study questions a commonplace assumption we routinely make in many cultures. Such a tendency is exemplified in phrases such as ‘actions speak louder that words’ or ‘she talks big but does little.’ It is this binary division between speech and action that speech act theory, which is a central pillar of pragmatic theory, challenges. It maintains that words are a species of action. Words do things; they achieve ends or outcomes in the real world just as explicitly and effectively as physical actions. For example, if a teacher says to students who have stood up when she enters the room ‘Please sit down’ and they do so, she has just caused a set of actions to happen that has changed the state of affairs in the real world merely through her words. It is in this sense that words—just or unjust, harmonious or dissonant—inevitably have real-world consequences. As speaker/hearers, one of the commonest things we do all through the course of our everyday lives is thus to interpret others’ words as acts that have, in the general case, been intentionally uttered. Yet, if we deal in natural language, we also know that word and sentence meanings are always underdetermined (Huang, 2016) and even ambiguous—not in the standard syntactic sense that “The chicken is ready to eat” is ambiguous in English but in the sense that much sophisticated cognitive unpacking of context and intention is needed even in the simplest act of communication. To return to the three-wheeler example: suppose you stand on a street, wave your hands and shout ‘Auto!’ at a vehicle, you are not just describing it, you are trying, by word and gesture, to get it to stop for you. Most contexts, in short, convey intentionality, and the auto-rickshaw driver, like all interactional agents, is taken to be sensitive and attentive to this requirement of ordinary interaction. Yet, context is prima facie a confusing notion to invoke. Context, after all, refers to everything from the linguistic environment of an utterance, to the background cultural information shared by speakers and hearers in a communicative situation, to the intentions and beliefs held by these speakers and hearers. As Sperber and Wilson put it, directly relating pragmatics to cognition: A context is a psychological construct, a subset of the hearer’s assumptions about the world. … A context in this sense is not limited to information about the immediate physical environment or immediately preceding utterances: expectations about the future, scientific

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hypotheses or religious beliefs, anecdotal memories, general cultural assumptions, beliefs about the mental states of the speaker, may all play a role in interpretation. (1986, 15–16)

How is it possible to formalize such an extremely unruly but essential notion? It is the distinction of speech act theory that it bravely attempts to show that a grammar of context exists. Context can be formalized. The seemingly impossible question “what is ‘context?’” can be effectively answered by laying down a set of ‘felicity conditions’ for the performance of different kinds of speech act, across a spectrum of cultures. In his classic How To Do Things With Words (1965; see also Searle, 1969), J. L Austin argued that philosophers had become over the years obsessed with the problem of how one decided on the truth or falsity of a sentence. Yet most sentences were neither true nor false. They were not designed as philosophical propositions at all. Rather they were meant to achieve a particular set of goals. For example, consider the following five sentences: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v)

Have you ever ridden in an auto-rickshaw? I promise to take you for an auto-rickshaw ride tomorrow. What a wonderful vehicle an auto-rickshaw is! I think that auto-rickshaws are a dangerous means of transportation. It is illegal for auto-rickshaws in this city to ply without a meter.

Of these five sentences, only the last has an overt truth-value and can prove true or false. Sentences (i) to (iv) have, however, little to do with truth or falsity. It would be absurd, for example, to categorize (i) ‘Have you ever ridden in an auto-rickshaw?’ as either ‘true’ or ‘false’ for this is just not the relevant parameter of communication. Instead, a user of English or any other language would see right away that (i) actually performs a question. Similarly, (ii) performs a promise, (iii) performs an exclamation; (iv) performs a statement of opinion and so on. Austin’s very plausible claim is that most ordinary discourse consists of such speech acts and that ‘truth’ is hardly in focus. These debates over the status of ‘truth’ in understanding ‘meaning’ in language are another critical area where pragmatics and cognitive studies share a long boundary (see Sect. 2 below for more on this point). Pragmatics theorists argue that the five speech act categories presented above (directives, commissives, expressives, declaratives and representatives) constitute the basic building blocks of communication. With them, we can build bridges of any size or complexity between speakers and hearers. They thus offer a model for language interactions that we can critically evaluate and/or modify in various cultural contexts of use. This model has not been applied yet in India in any serious fashion and I therefore lay out some of the features of this model for Indian readers who may be unfamiliar with pragmatics and may, in general, regard ‘use-based’ theories (see Barlow and Kemmer, 2000) such as speech act theory as in fact ‘useless’—i.e. far too vague and underspecified to work with. On the contrary, I feel that this sort of theory is well-suited to primary descriptive and explanatory work in linguistics in the Indian context and is ‘ready for use’ in research in the sense that it is reasonably well-articulated in terms of generalizable and testable propositions. I list eight of these propositions below, as I see them:

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• All speech acts are modeled in terms of Speakers (S) and Hearers (H). • All speech acts have the form F(p), where F stands for the illocutionary ‘force’ of the act and (p) for its propositional content. • All speech acts fall into three classes: locutions, illocutions and perlocutions. Of these, illocutions are the most central since they have a definite sense and reference but perlocutions are perhaps the most interesting and difficult to formalize in that they are about cognitive effect. For example, if your auto-rickshaw driver announces in the middle of a deserted stretch of road: ‘Madam, gas khatam ho gaya hai’ (Madam, the gas has run out) and you are alarmed and distressed by this statement, how might these additional effects that a speech act engenders in particular contexts to be captured? This fascinating theoretical puzzle awaits a solution. • All speech acts consist of five basic types of illocutionary act: declaratives, directives, commissives, representatives and expressives. • All five types of basic illocutionary acts have detailed felicity conditions (preparatory, propositional, sincerity and essential) that attach to them. • All speech acts are ‘defeasible,’ as are implicatures and presuppositions in formal logic, in that their felicity conditions can be violated or ‘flouted’ and fail to have ‘uptake.’ For example, if you shout ‘Auto ruko!’ (Auto, stop!), when there is no such vehicle in sight, you have violated a basic preparatory condition which is that preconditions must exist for any speech act (in this case, a directive) to be successfully or felicitously performed; i.e. you cannot ask somebody to ‘shut the window’ when there is no window in the room or the window is already shut. Likewise, if you shout, ‘Auto ruko!’ and the rickshaw driver ignores you and just drives past (as so often happens, alas), there is no ‘uptake’ and the arc of the speech act remains incomplete. These presumptions form part of our knowledge of ‘context.’ • All five basic speech acts are performed ipso facto by virtue of their being uttered; so one is, if other felicity conditions obtain, taken to have promised something to one’s hearer as soon as one utters the words “I promise that…” • All speech acts have to do with an H interpreting the intention of an Utterance (U) ‘rationally’ according to contextual norms or Maxims (there are four such basic maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner; if these are violated there are immediate interpretive consequences) It is impossible to discuss all the above characteristics of speech acts, not to mention other facets of speech acts such as indirect speech acts, deixis (see Levinson, 1983) and pretending and lying (see Austin and Anscombe, 1958; Nair, 2018) within the scope of this brief paper but let me briefly spend a few paragraphs on just the last point that, strictly speaking, has less to do with the idea of the speech act than with Grice’s theory of conversational implicature which states that in addition to the literal meaning of an utterance, meanings or ‘non-natural meanings’ are regularly generated in context. For example, consider the conversation: Question by Speaker Have you heard from Rukmini lately? Answer by Hearer Well, New York is a long way from Delhi, you know.

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In this case, even though the answer does not at all seem to relate to the question directly, everyone will competently deduce that the Hearer has not heard from Rukmini. This is a case of ‘generalized Gricean implicature’ and a crucial part of our ‘knowledge of language’ as far as pragmatic theory goes. It illustrates how the logic of conversation works in derivations of ‘indirect meaning’ that can be competently retrieved from conversational utterances by all speakers no matter what their culture. To this powerful Gricean idea of implicature, I have in my own work added the idea of ‘impliculture’ (Nair, 2003, 2006) or the idea that speakers and hearers routinely rely on tacit cultural knowledge to infer ‘non-natural’ additional meanings that are only available to those ‘membershipped’ (see Sacks, 1992) within their own culture. For example, consider the following exchange taking place in India. Bureaucrat 1 The name of the next candidate is Shanti Banerjee. Bureaucrat 2 General Category, Female, State: West Bengal. In this case, inferences are made about the caste, gender and location of the candidate. These deductions derive from her proper name and pertain to how she is to be ‘categorized’ according to the government rulebook. These processes require considerable encyclopedic insider knowledge of naming and referring within the Indian cultural context. Many inferences in conversation, as I see it, rely on exactly such shared but unstated cultural premises that are essential to decoding the ‘meaning’ of an utterance. It is for this reason that I believe ‘impliculture’ offers a rich subfield of pragmatics on which significant work could be done in India’s multilingual context (Nair, 2009) especially if one is interested in cognitive studies.

2 Cognition: Tool Using, Truth and Narrative According to the etymology proposed by the leading theorist of vision, Richard L. Gregory, the word ‘cognition’ derives from gnomon, the Greek word for ‘sundial’ (Gregory, 1987, 149). One way to interpret this putative root would be to argue that it implies a material, experiential world on the basis of which we construct a ‘knowledge system.’ This system of very concrete perceptual particulars—i.e. the perceived movement of the sun, a pole and the shadow that it casts on the ground— enables us to combine evidence from different modalities (vision, language, etc.) to infer and measure the abstract concept of ‘time’ that we ‘know,’ and ‘feel,’ exists but is intangible in the sense that we cannot actually see, touch or hear it. The concept of mind, which cognitive linguistics seeks to explore is, in my view, just as intangible as that of time. Time has of course been studied in detail by linguists in terms of tense and aspect systems in language as well as by physicists and philosophers; it has been inferred and formalized via simple material instruments such as the gnomon as well as via complex quasilinguistic tools of abstract thought such as mathematics. In a similar fashion, we intuitively believe that all individuals possess ‘minds’; however, in order to probe the complex, intangible concept of mind we also need to use a set of tools. Three of the most important of these tools, as I see it,

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are: first, the elements of language as revealed in ‘performance’; second, embodied perceptions (vision and the rest of the senses); third, our growing knowledge of the physical structure of the brain (Broca’s and Wernicke’s area, the amygdala, the hippocampus, the forebrain, etc.). In effect, the brain and body are themselves extremely complex machines evolutionarily invented by nature that co-construct our internalized thoughts together with our norms of social communication. Where humans differ from chimps and other higher mammals is that their mechanical and tool-using abilities combine with their language abilities to ‘transform’ the world in a way that is believed to be unavailable to other species. These conceptual transformations make humans emotionally complex animals intuitively able to experience what have been called ‘moral emotions’ such as guilt, shame and empathy and to be moved by the power of ideas that travel across space–time given that human languages all share the property of displacement (Hockett, 1966). With regard to ‘big’ concepts such as space–time, Tomasello (2010) suggests that the semantics of space, time, causality, motion and objects are central to studies in cross-cultural cognitive linguistics. Further, as we shall see below, all these five features are present when children and adults process inferences from narrative. Like researchers in pragmatics (see Kasher, 1977, cited above who staunchly maintained, “Language is a tool”), cognitive linguists also emphasize sophisticated tool-use as a feature that makes us uniquely human. They point out that the use of simple tools probably preceded language use by millennia and that such tool use would have required some basic communication among members of the species. In this sense, communicative abilities laid the foundations for language. Today, language can be said to be our most advanced, versatile and, above all, creative tool for organizing the world around us (see also, Nair 2018, 2020a, b, 2021a, c, 2022a, b). Thus, the founders of cognitive linguistics such as Lakoff (1987); Langacker (1991); Talmy (2000); Croft and Cruse (2004), stress those semantic, symbolic, figurative, embodied and perspectival aspects of language use that provide the human species with a set of multimodal tools to flexibly engineer, rebuild and repair their cognitive environments. To return briefly to the ethnomethodological microanalyses of language mentioned in Sect. 1 as crucial to pragmatic studies of conversational interaction, we should note at this point that only did the microtechnique of conversational analysis rely on a machine (the tape-recorder), it presented conversation itself as machine with technical parts that could be separately dismantled and studied with precision. Tape-recordings in fact became a prime investigative tool of that (Watergate) era in the USA, greatly influencing both the sociopolitical sphere and academic research. Indeed, Harvey Sacks’ (1992) explicitly mentions that the technology of the taperecorder initiated a new observational methodology to study conversation: “I had started with tape-recorded conversations… simply because… I could study it again and again… So the work I am doing is about… the details of talk. In some sense, it is about how conversation works.” In this connection, I have argued elsewhere (Nair, 2020a, b, c, 2021) that we may be witnessing another such technologically driven revolution that has once

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again ‘democratized knowledge’ in the virtual sphere via the mass technology of the mobile phone. As a research tool, this tiny device that fits into palms and pockets can record scenarios, gestures and other accompaniments of language puts power directly into hands of ordinary people as well as a new generation of researchers. It ushers in a new age of ethnomethodological analysis that can significantly contribute to a renewed understanding of polyphonic narratives and forcing a reanalysis of the fundamental questions regarding truth, facts, deception etc. with which one of the undisputed fathers of modern pragmatics, J. L. Austin was deeply concerned, as the passage below demonstrates: under the heading ‘truth’ what we, in fact, have is not a simple quality nor a relation, not indeed any one thing, but rather a whole dimension of criticism… there is a whole lot of things to be considered and weighed in this dimension alone—the facts, yes, but also the situation of the speaker, his purpose in speaking, his hearer, questions of precision and etc. (1962, 21–22)

Geeraerts and Cuyckens (2007), introducing ‘cognitive linguistics,’ strongly echo this Austinian view more than half a century later: Meaning in cognitive linguistics goes well beyond matters of reference and truth conditions. It is taken as axiomatic that the meaning associated with linguistic forms is broadly encyclopedic in scope, encompassing (potentially) any aspects of knowledge that might be associated with a linguistic form. (2007, 6)

A linguistic form or genre that I have myself researched over the years is narrative (Nair 2003, 2011b, 2014, 2018). I now discuss it in the final part of this section on linguistics pragmatics because it is an attested discourse universal found across all human cultures, contributes significantly to knowledge production through a training in inference making from childhood onwards and lies at the intersection of the fields of cognition and pragmatics. The cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett (1991) argues that all human ‘selves’ are ‘centers of narrative gravity,’ since members of the human species are, according to him, programmed by nature to extrude narratives just as naturally as spiders spin webs or beavers build dams. Each day of their lives almost all individuals tell myriad stories—some just to themselves and to others around them. A human life is constructed out of such preprogrammed activity. It is this differentiated layering of multiple narratives that produce in human beings the feeling that they are intentional agents or ‘selves.’ Cognitively, therefore, narratives are and have, in evolutionary terms, long been cultural measures of our humanness (other characteristics that make us uniquely human’ are noted later in this essay). But before I go on consider formal speech act conditions on narrative, which we can then study as analytic units in linguistic pragmatics, I should again invoke J. L Austin who wrote presciently: At a more sophisticated level perhaps comes the use of the connecting particle; thus we may use the particle ‘still’ with the force of ‘I intend that’; we use ‘therefore’ with the force of ‘I conclude that’… A very similar purpose is served by the use of titles such as Manifesto, Act, Proclamation, or the sub-heading ‘A Novel’. … (1962, 75)

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Speech acts, as Austin suggests above, are by no means restricted to single sentence utterances. We can in fact cognitively process and produce long and complex structure such as novels that consist of hundreds and hundreds of pages of squiggly script in a totally absorbed manner. Consider what happens to us when we read a gripping novel or see a good film. In terms of embodiment, our palms sweat, our pulse rates go up, our eyes become fixated; our body rhythms change. These physical changes happen despite the fact that we know we are just following a story. This genre of language production is false by definition. So why do we get so involved? In my view, the explanation is evolutionary and deep and is thus of interest to researchers in both cognitive studies and interactional pragmatics. Narratives actually work somewhat like flight simulators in all cultures. Without us actually having to experience stepping on a snake or climbing Mount Everest or fall in love, narratives teach us how to survive dangerous situations in the ‘real’ world. They train us in affective and emotionally involved with our communities, and they mentor us in theories about ‘self’ and ‘other’ so that we can socially survive. That is why these apparently frivolous such as stories and poems have survived from prehistory onwards. As a language structure, narrative also fulfills a crucial cognitive function. It goes beyond the sentence to introduce the question ‘why?’ and the connective ‘because’ into the world (Nair, 2002), interactively teaching us to relate causes to effect, tutoring us in sense-making by pulling on a thread of linear sequencing and implied causality. Here is a well-known example: “the king died and then the queen died of grief” (Forster, 1927). Or consider the traditional Bengali very short, short story: aekta bagh, aekta shikari, aekta bagh (translation: a tiger, a hunter, a tiger). This story consists of only three brief phrases yet, astonishingly, even young children are able to draw the inference from it that the tiger had eaten the hunter at end of the story, drawing on their encyclopedic knowledge of the various features of space, time, causality, motion and relation between objects that Tomasello suggests could drive language cognition. But can the complex idea of narrative be made tractable through formal analyses that can productively be taken forward (see Labov, 1972)? My answer to this challenging question is a definite ‘yes.’ I give a glimpse below of the speech act conditions on narrative that I have developed2 based on the fact that every language structure efficiently pairs form and function. Thus if conversation has a back-and-forth, A-B-A-B structure that can be infinitely extended structurally because it’s primary function is everyday interaction, narrative has a recursive ABCDE… that can also be extended infinitely to train members of a community in empathy-building and Felicity Conditions On The Illocutionary Act On Narration

2

Similar felicity conditions for the speech act of translation, an important research area especially in the multilingual Indian context were set up in Nair (2002) incorporating Gricean norms of inference based on his maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner.

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Propositional Content Condition: A story is any sequence of clauses P1 … Pn such that P1 describes an event T1 which temporally precedes events in the following clauses. Preparatory Condition: The (S)peaker has reason to believe that the sequence of clauses P1 … Pn will interest the (H)earer, resulting in at least one or more perlocutionary effects upon the H, which the H is bound to evaluate and/or articulate. It is obvious to both S and H that P1…Pn form a composite unit such that it is incumbent on S to complete the sequence once he has uttered P1, and it is incumbent on H to let him complete it. It is not obvious to either H or S that H has heard this particular sequence of clauses. Sincerity Condition: S wants H to hear the sequence of clauses through, and S desires H to assess their ‘tellability’, i.e. evaluate them in terms of perlocutionary effect. Essential Condition: This counts as an undertaking by S to demonstrate to H that the succession of clauses is of interest to H and will satisfy H in terms of perlocutionary effect. • N(arrative) -> T(emporal) S(tructure) + I(nference) S(tructure) • TS -> X and then Y … n • IS -> (CI)-> (II)-> (EI)-> (CI) … n (recursively) C(ausal) I(nference) -> X cause Y, Y cause Z … n. I(nformational) I(nference) -> A, B, C … n connect X, Y , Z … n. E(valuative) I(nference) -> A, B, C, and/or X,Y,Z connote P, Q, R …n. X, Y -> any clause or phrase within the sequence of the candidate N. A, B, C, P, Q, R -> any clause or phrase outside the candidate N. cultural survival, as argued above. That said, here are the set of speech act rules that I propose for narrative: As I have discussed at length elsewhere (Nair, 2002, 30–31, 212–229; 2016), these rules work just as efficiently for narrative as do phrase structure rules for grammar; they give us failsafe rules for narrative production (see Nair, 2003).

3 Language Acquisition: Is There an EAD? Most current theories of cognition agree on the fact that human infants (in fans, Latin, means ‘without speech’) are born into a ‘natural’ world of sensation and perception. They have subsequently to learn throughout a lifetime to infer things about themselves and others largely by encoding and storing ‘image schema’ from these sensory systems via the symbolic system of language. Language—the raw material for the narratives discussed in the last section—seems, however, markedly different from our other senses of vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste as far as the process of acquisition goes. Most of our senses are ‘cooked’ within a year of

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birth but language simmers for long. It takes at least four full years for a human child to acquire the full structures of language. In the particular project that I am reporting on conducted at IIT Delhi3 , our questions had to do with the relationship between language, sense perceptions and emotions. Chomsky, we knew, has long ago postulated an LAD or Language Acquisition Device. So, on our project, we began by inquiring: Could there be an EAD or Emotion Acquisition Device similar to the LAD? For example, we asked: Do children experience emotions like, let’s say, shame right from the time they were born or within a year of birth? Probably not, we intuitively answered. But if this was so, perhaps it was not unreasonable to assume that the emotions, too, unfold quite slowly, stage-by-stage, like language. Could it then be that language and emotion perhaps grow hand in hand in humans, so that narrative as an ‘empathy machine’ as well as other universal discourse formats draw on both these cognitive resources as a child learnt about her social world (see also Tomasello, 2010, Nair, 1991, 1992, 2011a, 2021b, 2022c). In asking this difficult question, I was personally initially inspired by Charles Darwin’s little-known but fascinating work called The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals which I’d first come across in Cambridge many, many years ago as a graduate student. Darwin based this book on a questionnaire he circulated in 1867 to about 30 countries across all five continents asking how various emotions like shame, anger, sadness, happiness, surprise and so on were expressed in different cultures. His results were published in 1872 nearly a century and a half ago but, to my mind, his research is still very relevant for those who wish to pursue interdisciplinary studies. Darwin’s hypothesis was that there would be some degree of invariance across cultures in expressing emotional expressions. Here, now, are a couple of results from a large cross-sectional study that we did at IIT Delhi where we gathered data from about 1000 subjects (500 men and 500 women), collected 500 hlong qualitative narratives from mothers about their children’s emotional growth, as well as administered a very complicated schedule of questionnaires and picture identification tasks to our participants, encompassing over 20 emotions. We have hundreds of statistics and several results from this project, but I’ll share only one or two here in order to give readers of this essay a flavor of current Indian research in interactional pragmatics and cognition. In this project, we seem for example to have found what seems to be incontrovertible evidence that mothers’ memories and their narrative introspection constitute a fine and robust source of learning about the order of emotional acquisition in children. It is impossible to go into the details of our protocols here but they were quite rigorous. For instance, we gave all our mothers age- bands (1–3 months, 3–6 months and so forth all the way up to 10 years) to fill in, focusing on when, and the contexts in which, they noticed a particular emotion in their children. Here’s the relevant graph that emerged with the ages in months at the bottom, horizontally: 3

This large interdisciplinary project on ‘Language, Emotion, Culture,’ of which I was PI, was funded by the ‘Cognitive Science Initiative’ of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, from 2010–2014 at IIT Delhi.

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What the aggregate graph above reveals is that hardly any mother chose any of the age bands over 4 years even when they have children of 10 years of age and above. By and large, they agreed, too, on the order of acquisition of the emotions. Lastly, and most significantly, this free choice of ages of acquisition of emotions by mothers seems to provide strong evidence that language and emotion do indeed grow side by side and both arrive at their full-blown forms around 4 years. This is a major insight, and thus we now have a detailed stage-by-stage emotion acquisition chart alongside the classic one that Lenneberg (1967) presented for language and motor development. Finally, to focus on some of our results pertaining to narrative since I have dwelt on this particular ‘linguistic form as an illustrative instance in this paper, here is some preliminary evidence from mothers’ intimate observation of their children’s development, one of our ‘Darwinian’ subhypotheses being that mothers are the ‘best research observers’ of their children since they are deeply committed to ensuring the survival of their offspring and thus keep an alert watch on them 24 × 7. Below, a few graphs for 210 of our mothers’ narratives:

frequency

65-35

NARRATIVES anger

44

fear

35

happiness

65

sadness

42

shame

40

surprise Total

36 262

frequency

34-25

boredom

29

courage

30

disgust

33

excitement

27

guilt

33

helplessness

31

hope

26

jealousy

26

laughter

29

love

33

obstinacy

33

peace / calm

25

pride

34

shyness Total

32 421

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As is clear from these narrative counts, the last few emotions, the ones that have the fewest narratives associated with them in mothers’ memories, are contempt and reflection, along with hate and interest. Our mothers consistently reported that these ‘self-conscious’ emotions were acquired late. Among these late emotions, the most striking case is perhaps that of contempt, which yields the fewest narratives. Interestingly, this is also the emotion that is least efficiently recognized in our data across 1000 adults—a result that appears plausible, given that this is a highly socialized emotion where you need to have a complex and contextualized knowledge of class structure, of who is ‘above’ and who is ‘below’ you in status and so forth. Contrast this now with the ‘basic’ emotion of happiness in our data and you get a completely different story. Each one of the over 500 mothers in our study agreed that happiness was the first emotion that their child showed—which would certainly please Darwin because I believe this conviction of our mothers could so easily tie in with an evolutionary explanation that does not exclude contemporary sociocultural, pragmatic and cognitive factors. To conclude, I present the following three graphic models for a vision of how linguistics could unfold in the next decades, in India and elsewhere. The first consists in a mnemonic I’ve composed for an interdisciplinary and cognitively oriented vision of linguistic studies4 (on the matter of an ‘Indian vision,’ see also Khubchandani,

4

In 1964, Dell Hymes created the following mnemonic for the ‘ethnography of speaking’ as a putative answer to the big question: ‘What is Communication?’ S: Situation (Scene + Setting); P: Participants (Speakers + Hearers) E: Ends (Goal + Outcomes); A: Act (Message Form + Message Content) K: Key (Knowledge of Background/Tacit Information) I: Instrumentalities (Channels, Forms of Speech) N: Norms (Interaction, Usage, Interpretation) G: Genres (Story, Speech, Novel, etc.). Together, these letters make up the word SPEAKING. My own mnemonic for LANGUAGE, presented in this paper, was inspired by this courageous move by Hymes that still speaks to concerns in present-day sociolinguistics and pragmatics.

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2013)5 . The second set of two models a pedagogic shift in our teaching of linguistics: we have conventionally always begun our classes with grammatical and syntactic frameworks for language study but it could be productive to begin instead with attention to the pragmatic and cognitive conundrums that any serious study of language raises. It goes without saying, of course that a combination of the two approaches would be ideal. The third and final model concerns what I call a ‘STEM and LEAF’ structure that includes the current ‘virtual’ environments as part of the future of linguistics (see NAIR, 2020c) (INSERT IMAGES FROM PP. 25/26). And at this point our three-wheeler comes to a temporary halt! For all those wanting to explore the wide thoroughfares and winding gullies of Indian linguistics, however, you can always summon this versatile vehicle to your doorstep whenever you want that exciting ride… Mnemonic Model—I

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

RBN

L: Lexicon (Verbal Logic: spoken/written) A: Arbitrariness (Rules Word/World Relation) N: Novelty (Creativity, imagination, , deceit) G: Grammar (Syntax, semantics, phonetics) U: Usage (Speech Acts, Cultural Norms) A: Anomalies (Problems with language) G: Growth (Phylogeny/ontogeny) E: Emotions (Expressing feelings & attitudes) Pedagogical change Model II A and II B II A—Conventional Model

5

Lachman K. Khubchandani speaking at the Opening Plenary of the 13th International Pragmatics Association organized at IIT Delhi in 2013, attended by about 1000 international participants from about 50 countries made an interesting distinction between the mostly anonymous, non-risk-taking ‘language professionals’ who manned our universities and the ‘language planners’ who set up India’s ‘linguistic states’ and were publicly committed to revitalizing India’s multilingual heritage in the wake of the homogenization influence of the colonial state in which English was privileged over all other languages. Khubchandani suggestion was not that we abandon English but that as ‘language visionaries’ we build cognitive bridges between official, formal ‘English’ and unofficial ‘Indian’ forms of English that he characterized as ‘Angrezi’ (see also Nair, 2012).

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LANGUAGE STUDY GRAMMAR STRUCTURE

PHONOLOGY MORPHOLOGY, SEMANTICS, SYNTAX

USE

TEXT

PRAGMATICS

CORPORA

COMMUNICATION

CONTEXT

SOCIO-

DISCOURSE

LINGUISTICS

II B—Changed Model LANGUAGE STUDIES TODAY MIGHT REQUIRE A RADICAL REVERSAL OF THE PICTURE IN THE AGE OF VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY PRAGMATICS/COGNITION SPEECH ACTS CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS NARRATIVE STUDIES DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

GRAMMAR

STRUCTURE

CORPORA

TEXTS

ORAL ARCHIVES VIRTUAL TEXTS LITERARY TEXTS

CULTURAL COGNITION

COMMUNICATION

SOCIOLINGUISTICS STRUCTURE AND VARIATION HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS MULTILINGUALISM

III—Paradigm Shift?

USE

CONTEXT

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THE STEM & LEAF MODEL? ∎ THE NEW ‘VIRTUAL’ TECHNOLOGIES IN OUR PRESENT ERA OF GREAT TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE COULD ALSO LEAD TO MAJOR INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS THAT CONTRIBUTES TO THE BROAD FIELDS OF ‘COGNTIVE STUDIES’, ‘DIGITAL HUMANITIES’ AND SO ON. I CALL THIS THE ‘STEM AND LEAF’ PARADIGM – FOR WE KNOW FROM NATURE THAT NO STEM CAN FLOURISH WITHOUT LEAVES AND VICE VERSA RESEARCPARADIGM

RBN

stem

∎STEM: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, MATH

∎LEAF: LIBERAL EDUCATION IN THE ARTS FIELDS

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Nair, R. B. (2020d). The cross-linguistic acquisition of sentence structure: Computational modeling and grammaticality judgments from adult and child speakers of English, Japanese, Hindi, Hebrew and K’iche with Ben Ambridge, first author et al.) In Cognition (Vol. 202). Nair, R. B. (2021). New technology, language and gesture in contemporary Indian political discourse. In A. Weinberg (Ed.), Psychology of democracy. Cambridge University Press. Nair, R. B. (2021a). Language: Editor in chief?. In: Seminar: Special issue on editing history (Vol. 743, pp. 81–88). Nair, R. B. (2021b). Caged childhoods? Human capabilities, migrating cosmopolitanisms and educational experimentation. In: Coste, D., Kkona, C., & Pireddu, N. (Eds.), Migrating minds: Theories and practices of cultural cosmopolitanism (pp. 247–260). Routledge. Nair, R. B. (2021c). Do you believe in God, doctor? The atheism of fiction & the fiction of atheism In: Sophia (Ed.), International journal of philosophy and traditions special issue on ‘Living Without God: Multicultural Spectrums’. Springer Nature Nair, R. B. (2022a). New technology, language and gesture in contemporary Indian political discourse. In: Weinberg, A. (Ed.), The psychology of democracy: Of the people, for the people, by the people (pp. 195–228). Cambridge University Press. Nair, R. B. (2022b). Postcolonial pragmatics. In: Ostman, J. A., & Verschueren, J. (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (pp. 35-77). John Benjamins. Nair, R. B. (2022c). Body of knowledge and knowledge of the body: The early development of metaphor in bilingual children. In: Special Issue in Honor of Talbot J. Taylor, (Eds.), David bade and nigel love in language and communication (pp. 1–17). Elsevier. Rescher, N. (2014). The pragmatic vision. Rowman and Littlefield. Sacks, H. (1992). In E. Schegloff (Ed.), Lectures on conversation. Wiley-Blackwell. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. (1999). The Chinese room. In R. A. Wilson, & F. Keil (Eds.), The MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences. MIT Press. Searle, J. R. (1980). Minds, Brains and Programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 417–457. Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance: communication and cognition Harvard. Harvard University Press. Talmy, L. (2000). Towards a cognitive semantics. MIT Press. Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. MIT Press. Tomasello, M. (2010). Cognitive linguistics and first language acquisition. In: Geeraerts, D., & Cuyckens, H. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 1096–1097).

Linguistic Variation, Discourse, and Culture Probal Dasgupta

Abstract The transition from the linguistics of codes, associated with structuralism and its neogrammarian ancestry, to a linguistics of discourses capable of seriously contemporary concerns has been a protracted transition. The average linguist has tended to find this transition somewhat confusing.

1 Preliminary Remarks The transition from the linguistics of codes, associated with structuralism and its neogrammarian ancestry, to a linguistics of discourses capable of seriously contemporary concerns has been a protracted transition. The average linguist has tended to find this transition somewhat confusing. The moment we try to take a closer look at the domain, we notice one factor that may have played a role in this confusion—the fact that discourse as a technical term conveys two very different senses, both of them connected to the ordinary meaning of the word. I will devote considerable attention to this problem in this presentation and crave your indulgence for what may seem unnecessary pedantry. There are times when subtle distinctions have to be drawn with theoretical care. This is such a time. To make up for the impression of unnecessarily pedantry about just the term “discourse,” I begin these preliminary remarks by clarifying the broader bibliographic basis of what is being attempted here. My 1993 book The Otherness of English is where the fundamental move was first made. It was at that point that the substantivist enterprise of redirecting formal linguistics from the study of codes to that of discourses took off. Some commentary on the methodological coordinates of that move and some extensions are provided in my 2012 sequel Inhabiting Human Languages. Probal Dasgupta is an Indian linguist, who retired from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, in 2018. P. Dasgupta (B) Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_3

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The empirical claim made in The Otherness—to the effect that English in India is an auntie tongue, neither a mother tongue nor a foreign language—is a contested claim. Several readers, no doubt, disagree, and regard this disagreement as more important than issues concerning the term “discourse” or other details of the framework. At this juncture, one way to make the issues clear, thus enabling differences of opinion to be expressed articulately, is to compare India with Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. In those countries, English is a foreign language; while local varieties of English are indeed widely used there, these are far less entrenched in social life than is the case in India. Another point worth making in the same vein pertains to literary production. Creative writing in English authored by Indians does not exhibit an internal intertextual continuity of its own and is not anchored in the type of cognitively sophisticated critical commentary that is available in modern literatures in Indian languages. Instead, Indian writing in English regularly takes its cue from developments occurring in British and American creative writing. I am sure that those wishing to register their disagreement with the empirical claim made in The Otherness will take these points on board when they articulate their views. I turn now to the basic contrast between the notion of discourse and the notion of a code. The theme of variation lies at the heart of the way we construct codes. Discourse is different in principle. The way we understand discourses does not make it natural to ask “are X and Y just variants of discourse A?” In certain subdomains the theme of alternating “allo-discourses” does come into play. Consider the subtheory that deals with narratives (every folk tale has lots of variants). Or take the minutely distinct textual variants created by scribal errors in the manuscript copying tradition. But most of the time, when we deal with discourses, such variation is quite remote from our thoughts. This is hardly a coincidence. Variation has to do with order, with constraints involving a narrow range of possibilities. That is why the linguistics of codes is obsessed with variation. Discourse emerges as a counterpoint theme, playing up freedom rather than necessity or constraint. However, it pays to distinguish rigorously between the loose associations surrounding a theme and the operative factors that emerge when a theme is executed as a theoretical articulation. On the way to such articulations in the case of discourse, we need to consider an important countertheme, one that emphasizes ways in which discourse is a lot less free than one thinks. I have in mind the countertheme called Ascia, discussed in detail in Dasgupta (2012, 2017). Very briefly, Gene Wolfe, in a novel (1983), conducts a thought-experiment. He imagines a nation of ‘Ascia’ whose adults, whenever they speak, always utter quotations from a single normative book written by the leaders, the ‘Group of Seventeen.’ But they are able to convey their intended meanings by flexibly repurposing the sentences quoted in relation to new contexts. I do not have the time to showcase his thought-experiment in detail here, beyond making the point that a blatantly captive discourse like Ascian adult speech is only a stylized exaggeration of the fact that most utterances in actual societies are constrained by sociopolitical, cultural and personal factors. The Ascian countertheme, however, is not going to preoccupy us in this intervention. We are going to elaborate the main theme, that discourse is free, and situate variation in this context by focusing on the fact that specific details of this or that

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instance of variation in a particular language get recognized in meta-discourse. In other words, although discourse is not itself a domain that harbors variation on a significant scale, nonetheless it is in discourse that code-level linguistic variation is registered. If we take seriously the registration of variation in discourse, then the analytic grid we apply to the phenomena in this domain needs to respond to the categories in terms of which the registration happens. Thus, those of us who have been recognizing morphemes in our synchronic descriptions—and therefore as units capable of varying—are compelled to tweak the analytical grid by eliminating morpheme-based accounts in terms of word-based alternatives. For it turns out that discourse never registers variation in terms of morphemes, varying or otherwise. We develop this theme first, in Sect. 2, ‘significating and discourse.’ This section provides a point of departure for some empirically based exploratory work on discourse. In Sect. 3 we develop a sociocultural conception of language and propose that a lexicon-plus-grammar (often seen as representing knowledge of language in a single individual’s mind/brain) is best seen as a brief snapshot of a sociocultural reality. In Sect. 4 we turn to defaults in relation to the study of variation, asking to what extent certain ‘natural’ asymmetries can be deliberately reversed in a discursively staged thought-experiment, and what the possibility or otherwise of such reversals implies for linguistic theory.

2 Significating and Discourse Some linguists emphasize the hierarchy of ranks, starting with the segmental speech sound, moving up through the word, the phrase, the sentence, and then identifying discourse as a rank associated with units of the largest size. This is one sense of the term ‘discourse.’ Other linguists prefer to underscore the dynamic character of the discursive process. They note that a dialogue between two or more persons prototypically instantiates communicative exchange. But they regard a monologue as also being a perfectly valid example of discourse as a process. The key fact here is that openness to input from a potential listener characterizes all speaking, at every level of structure. These two senses of the term discourse look contradictory at first sight. Attempts to unify the ‘rank’ sense and the ‘process’ sense that try to converge on a single formal characterization of the term discourse are indeed likely to fail. The present paper, however, proposes a non-convergent unification built around four propositions, here called ‘principles of knowledge and discourse’: (1) A. B. C.

Principles of Knowledge and Discourse (PKDs) discourse is coextensive with significating significating is the point at which culture intersects with knowledge the cartography of defaults opens up the essentially contested map of knowledges in a cultural territory

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D. the elsewhere principle in formal linguistics counts as a traffic management device for a cultural subterritory. This formulation uses the neologism ‘significating’ (coined along the lines of ‘commentating’) for ‘making sense’; as a technical term, ‘making sense’ does not yield convenient derivatives. Why do we need a special term at all? Well, readers encountering a formulation that uses entrenched but nebulous words like ‘meaning’ often associate the familiar word with irrelevant older ideas. Such associations get in the way of serious communication. It is in order to preempt such misperception in this case that I have not formulated Principle A as ‘discourse is coextensive with meaning.’ Such a wording would have called for an elaborate exercise to clarify that we are not restricting meaning to semantics. I would have ended up trying, without much success, to revive the much broader distribution-focused interpretation of the word meaning once associated with the work of John Firth, the founder of the London School of linguistics. Even if one does not wish to directly revive his terminology, however, it is worth our while to revisit what Firth was doing when he sought to broaden ‘meaning.‘ Firth (1957: 25) went so far as to speak of phonological meaning. By this he meant that— given the existence of words like /did, hid, kid, lid, rid/—the structure of English places the /b/ of /bid/ in contrast with /d, h, k, l, r/ and that these phonological contrasts are meaningful exactly the way the words apple and orange differ in meaning and are thus able to denote distinct fruits. Not even linguists of the London School, Firth’s direct intellectual progeny, have found it appropriate to sustain this pickwickian broadening of the notion ‘meaning.’ It is therefore clear that we cannot possibly blame the broader community of linguists for having completely forgotten that Firth ever made this proposal in the first place. I do agree that Firth was right to generalize the theory of context in such a way that sounds, words and sentences can all be validly said to make sense only in the context in which they appear. However, when I propose the neologism significating for ‘making sense,’ I do not simply touch base with Firth’s insight. I also associate the notion with the work of Bhartrihari, a classical Indian philosopher of grammar who flourished some time between the fifth and the seventh century CE. Where Firth and Bhartrihari differ, I choose Bhartrihari’s stand over Firth’s. One important contrast between the two approaches pertains to the morpheme level. Even though Bhartrihari adheres to the Paninian tradition, which did recognize word-internal units such as roots and affixes, he acknowledges ‘signification points’ only for three ranks: the sound, the word and the sentence. In other words, Bhartrihari speaks of varna-sphota, pada-sphota and vaakya-sphota—sphota being his term for what we are calling signification. He recognizes no sphota for a dhaatu ‘root’ or a pratyaya ‘affix.’ In contrast, Firth, who was committed to structuralism, formulated his generalized notion of ‘meaning’ so sweepingly that it extended to roots and affixes as well. Now, what is it that prompts my decision to choose Bhartrihari’s approach here, rather than Firth’s approach?

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It is at this point in the argument that culture makes its first entrance, with knowledge in tow. Everybody in South Asia is partly aware that there are noticeable differences among the honorificity systems at work in our various cultures. When we take a look at the meta-discourse in which South Asians articulate differences of this type, however, we find that sounds and words attract explicit attention, but that nobody ever couches such observations at the level of roots or affixes or inflectional systems, despite the fact that prescriptive grammar in South Asia teaches these concepts. Thus, as far as sounds are concerned, we find people commenting narrowly on the retroflex sh, noting that Maharashtrian brahmins, for instance, carefully distinguish it from the palato-alveolar S, while their counterparts in Northern India tend to be sloppy and to pronounce both these sibilants as palato-alveolars. People also comment broadly on the alveolar s, noting that speakers of certain categories implement the palato-alveolar S also as an alveolar s. This shows that the meta-discourse is sensitive to words as well as to sounds. In other words, sounds not only significate, but are publicly seen as doing so. Lexical observations are frequent and endless; to return to the topic of honorificity, we find South Asians commenting on the distinctiveness of Marathi, where the intimate second person pronoun tuu contrasts only with the honorific tumhii. While the super-honorific aapaN exists, it has apparently fallen into disuse unless one is staging a play where you have to address a king or a queen. Everybody also agrees that we find a far more typical system in Hindi-Urdu, with a three-term arrangement, intimate tuu, neutral tum and honorific aap. At the level of grammatically relevant differences, some observers do note that politeness norms are different in certain variants of Hindi-Urdu, that some speakers use neutral verb agreement with the honorific pronoun aap while most speakers make a distinction between tum jaao with neutral agreement and aap jaaiye with honorific agreement on the verb. However, no ordinary speaker of the language, except a linguist speaking to fellow linguists, would dream of saying “Speakers of Lucknow Hindi (say) use the neutral imperative affix /o/ in contrast to the honorific imperative inflection /iye/, whereas speakers in Delhi (say) merge the two into a syncretistic honorific-neutral /o/ affix.” Can we conclude that meta-discourse does not acknowledge the separate existence of morphemes? In the knowledge system of a particular culture, the meta-discourse is one crucial site of access to the discourse. If the meta-discourse in South Asian cultures never refers to morphemes even though it does refer to sounds and words, then I find myself agreeing with Bhartrihari that morphemes, as distinct from words, cannot be validly said to carry ‘meaning’ shaped by their ‘context,’ for I see no empirical basis for Firth’s belief that they can. To put it differently, given Principle (1A) above, we can say (2): (2) Phonemes, words and sentences are discourse-visible. However, nobody would dream of claiming that these units all have exactly the same status. As Mark Aronoff once observed, “You often find someone saying, I’ve never heard that word before. But nobody ever says, I’ve never heard that sentence before” (class lectures, NYU, 1977). The infinity of syntax draws a sharp distinction between sentences, which mandatorily carry novelty, and words, which are expected

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to be familiar to adult speakers of the language. In the house of discourse, there are obviously many mansions. That is why linguistics has all these modules, why some linguists are phonologists and others syntacticians. But the point we are making concerns linguistics as a whole. Meta-discourse serves as a useful site of monitoring the sincerity of our claims that we plan to make linguistics accountable to the public— breaking the esoteric hold of regimentation that comes from the legacy of grammars of the elite, by the elite and for the elite. A linguistics that eschews non-accountable notions like root, affix or morpheme has at least made a reasonable beginning.

3 Substance-Driven Study of Form More generally, I am advocating a tweaking of the linguistics of ‘language as form’ so that it can take ‘language as substance’ on board, which is why my approach wears the label ‘substantivist linguistics.’ Since linguistics is attentive to issues of economy and seeks parsimonious descriptions, it becomes important to note that maximizing substantive economy is a seriously different task from maximizing formal economy. The quest for formally economical formulations drives what passes for a ‘scientific’ method and an unmindful process of extracting generalizations from data. Left unchecked and translated into market processes, a formal economy corresponds to centralization of knowledge/power, communities getting marginalized and experts siding with the powerful against the disenfranchised. To pursue the goal of substantive economy is to try to change this within the practice of linguistics and at the interface where linguistics meets neighboring domains of inquiry. The baseline of formal linguistic inquiry as most linguists perceive it is the Individual Knowledge Representation Question, IKRQ: How is a person’s knowledge of language L represented in her brain? The “sound-meaning mapping” answer to this question rests on the standard generativist idealization. Scholars who focus on IKRQ conventionally imagine a member of a homogeneous speech community who speak just one language L, speak it perfectly and are fettered by no limits of memory and attention. To keep the issues of linguistic cognition distinct from those of bilingualism, it is customary, for argument’s sake, not to contest the convention of considering only monoglot communities. However, the prevalence of social diglossia and individual bilingualism means that we need to keep in mind the importance of fashioning, in the not-too-distant future, a more inclusive idealization reflecting the goal of the open community—an implementation, in the realm of culture and education, of the open society. Note that IKRQ so formulated and the usual mapping answer to it, even after refinement within some brand of phonology or of syntax, do not suggest any default answer to a natural second question, here called SCRQ, the Social Convention Representation Question. SCRQ may be phrased as follows. How is a person’s awareness of convention L represented in her brain, the social convention that keeps her community focused on L and not on some other mapping? Another, possibly equivalent,

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formulation might be: How does an L-speaker’s brain represent her second-order awareness of the fact that certain others have L-focused IKRs identical to hers? One answer to this question, available since the eighties, postulates individualized archives. The following formulation of this answer makes a Lexicon Abbreviation move at (3d) that forms the basis for the specific type of reconfiguration proposed in the present intervention, and a distinct Cross-Language Amplification move at (3e) on which further reconfigurations can be based. Readers who wish to respond to formulation (3)’s other innovations will need to compare it with the 1988 and 1993 versions of this proposal (cf. Dasgupta, 1988, 1993). In particular, the move at (3c) opens up a connection between formal syntax and a deconstructionist approach to the social construction of space, a matter not explored here. (3) The SCA (Social Convention Archive) proposal The Micro-Archive: A particular speaker S of language L mentally represents her awareness of convention L in the format of an individualized microarchive SCA(S) anchored in the social macro-archive SCA(L). The Macro-Archive: SCA(L), the canonical literary and cultural archive of the L-community, is imaged as the union or the intersection (cultures vary along this dimension) of all SCA(S)’s, and contains exemplary fiction, poetry and encyclopedic material. The Anchoring: The way SCA(S) is anchored in SCA(L) reflects the fact that society names individuals and constructs an inscribed space where persons situate relevant entities. The proposal that a proper N moves to D, or a posthead-movement reconstruction of this notion, potentially connects linguistic indexing to the study of SCA(L) space coordinates. The Lexicon Abbreviation: SCA(L) is so organized that an individual’s SCA(S) interfaces with IKR at her Mental Lexicon, a formally specifiable abbreviation of the entire archive. Whether the union of all speakers’ mental lexicons exists as a Social Lexicon, a distinct formal object within SCA(L) is a question different societies answer differently. The Cross-Language Amplification: An individual S makes sense of her world not only by abbreviating the archive as a Mental Lexicon, but also, in the other direction, by crossing the social codification boundaries to amplify her archival access and include, in her SCA(S), selected items from SCA(OL), where OL stands for the Other Languages that matter to her. I will have to let proposal (3e) stand in for the future reconfiguration that current resources do not yet render feasible. Proposal (3d) says that an individual speaker S of language L cross-classifies her lexicon. In other words, S’s brain encodes it as part of her Individual Knowledge Representation IKR that constitutes her knowledge of the grammar of L. At the same time, S’s lexicon also counts as part of her SCA(S). In keeping with this dual affiliation of ML(S, L), S’s mental lexicon for language L, I envisage a dual representation. IKR no doubt imposes on ML(S, L) a format specifying phonological and syntactic coordinates, and meeting these needs in ways that the grammatical side of the interface must do detailed business with. But

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ML(S, L) is also an archive and must stay engaged with SCA(S) updates and with an ever-growing network of cognitive and affective associations in encyclopedic memory space. Whenever ML(S, L) reaffirms its archival identity, it compresses phono-syntactic data and unfurls its seaworthy sails. By way of moving to the discussion of methodology, consider a small example of what this entails, at the edge of the facts one normally regards as exemplary. Take a native speaker S of standard Bangla and look at the fact that she knows the word trikkhe. This word occurs in exactly one line of the multiplication table learnt by children, tin trikkhe nOY ‘three threes are nine,’ where the ordinary numerals tin ‘three’ and nOY ‘nine’ work with trikkhe ‘by three,’ a special multiplicative form. The table is so structured that every other form dedicated to this multiplicative role, such as nOng ‘by nine’ in the case of ‘nine,’ occurs in more than one line, such as tin nOng SataS ‘three nines are twenty-seven’ and nOY nOng EkaSi ‘nine nines are eighty-one.’ But the word trikkhe occurs exactly once, in the line tin trikkhe nOY ‘three threes are nine.’ The point we must focus on is how to relate S’s lexical knowledge of the word trikkhe ‘by three’ to her encyclopedic knowledge of that line of the multiplication table. Can we tell one from the other? We can certainly do it in principle. We can state that trikkhe ‘by three’ is one of the words in tin trikkhe nOY ‘three by three is nine.’ Two other words tin ‘three’ and nOY ‘nine’ occur in this sentence. Its syntactic format parallels all the other lines in the multiplication table. We can even imagine modifications of the table. Under the counterfactual assumptions of those imagined changes, trikkhe would occur in other lines that do not now exist in the culture. These conceivable modifications make sense only because the lexical item trikkhe is identifiably distinct. If this reasoning is accepted, then the concept of S’s lexical knowledge of trikkhe counts as intelligible and is distinguishable from S’s encyclopedic mastery of that line in the table. Thus, even in this unusual case of a particular word tied hand and foot to one sentence, the lexical item pays rent for a phono-syntactic room of its own in ML(S, L). These considerations set the stage for our proposal in the domain of methodological reconfiguration. We suggest that the universalistic abstract enterprise of grammatical linguistics or microlinguistics focused on grammar and sidelining lexicalarchival issues should associate speaker S’s IKR with the formal version of S’s mental lexicon ML(S, L). The other side of our proposal is that the particularistic concrete labor of situated linguistics or macrolinguistics that puts archival material first and grammatical categorizations second should characterize S’s participation in SCA(L) on the basis of a substantive version of S’s mental lexicon ML(S, L). Methodologically, what does it mean to claim further that grammatical microlinguistics belongs to natural science and concrete macrolinguistics to social science? That additional claim takes the form of continuing to associate abstract grammatical linguistics with the instantaneous acquisition and homogeneous speech community idealizations familiar from the generative literature. In contrast, the new part of our proposal says, a concrete or situated macrolinguistics can usefully follow the development of an iconic teenager. As we rationally reconstruct her trajectory (Dasgupta, 2000), the ideal–typical teenager is educated into sensitive, creative citizenship in a discursive community spatio-temporally differentiated into subcommunities, learns

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how to listen across dialect boundaries and thus ends up anchoring her SCA(L) in an inclusive macro-archive SCA(S) accommodating community diversity. Further inclusiveness can be achieved across customary language boundaries along the lines suggested at (3e), a matter we leave for others to explore more fully. Notice that this picture is compatible with the choice of a formally convenient “standard” norm as a vantage point from which the ideal–typical teenager fashions optimal productions (to maximize participation in the political process, where this norm is taken for granted) and at the same time is able to reach out and listen to other forms of the language. This aspect of the characterization addresses other relevant issues adumbrated earlier in the present study. As we sort out the theoretical implications of acting on proposal (3) so construed, we may wish to allocate explanatory energies to the natural science micro wing of such a linguistic endeavor and focus descriptive energies on the social science macro sector. An inarticulate form of this move is already available in certain grammatical descriptions. Linguists often claim that their formal account explains the bulk of the data and that a tiny enclave of special forms, artificially cultivated in the culture and taught to speakers in the educational system against the grain of natural language, resists formal explanation because it reflects cultural artifice. If we follow this reasoning and make a whole sector of the enterprise responsible for culturally taught items in the language, we arrive at the following division of labor. Grammatical microlinguists get to do all the formal explaining. Concrete macrolinguists describe not just the natural language patterns grammarians explain but also the cultural patterns transmitted in the ideological system. This reallocation of explanatory and descriptive tasks is useful and necessary. But it will hardly suffice. One reason it will not suffice is that the relevant notion of dual (natural and cultural) description cannot be retrieved from the uncritical practices of most language describers. From the very outset of the linguistic description enterprise, when the enlightenment oversaw the transition from Greco-Latin-inspired prescription to democratically minded description of popular practices in this domain, the notion of a description valid at the social rather than the individual level implied normativity. In other words, at the level of the community of speakers of L, the description of L involved the L-community’s prescribing unto itself the best normative coordinate system around which the variability of individual speakers S1, S2 and S3 would play out. It was to the linguist, the new grammarian, that the L-community delegated the nitty–gritty task of working out just how this self-prescribing enterprise would proceed. If you revisit that moment of formal and apparently neutral description as a delegated self-prescription enterprise belonging to the larger labor of setting up the democratic public space, you see at once that modern linguistic description was part of the agenda of nationalism. The presence of this default nationalism at the heart of the foundational formulation of descriptivism is a matter that has awaited theoretical clarification for centuries and still awaits it. The practices of linguists have been reasonably healthy. American structural linguistics worked closely with empowering practices in anthropology. When generativism broke the disciplinary bond with anthropology, generativists in their actual work continued to regard it a matter of tacit obligation that native speakers

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of disenfranchised languages would be shown how to place their data in the core corpus of generativism. As far as possible, departments and scholars have invested extra effort to ensure that dying or weakened languages would be so documented as to maximally benefit the speech communities. This is not a case of teasing out tacit intentions. Noam Chomsky and Richard Kayne have both specifically stated this, in personal communication. Chomsky has pointed out further that formal linguistics enterprises he has been associated with go beyond such documenting and work to revitalize speech communities. What we need to respond to is the absence of such specifications in the theoretical articulations of contemporary linguistics. Lack of goodwill or even action by formal linguists is not the problem. The community development task then has been allowed to remain at the ‘understood’ or tacit level. Its lack of codification has meant an elision of the social science component of linguistics. This elision translates into a truncated diet on which linguistics coaches raise their young. We are now at a point at which the formal linguistics training systems have been aggressively disengaged from the social component of nationalism and from the various development doctrines that have taken over after decolonization. This has been happening precisely when the community is in crisis and urgently needs perceptive linguists, among others, to provide helpful commentary and something like a rescue. One aspect of the crisis comes from the fact that the community of speakers of any language is typically a stretched entity today. Centripetal members of the L-community live under circumstances that most of the relevant observers identify as home. They live in the core territory of the homeland and maintain what count as the typical cultural practices of the L-community. Centrifugal members do business with the external world and for part of their biographies live in places far from home, in ambiences for which language L has no adequate vocabulary. The equation between centripetal and centrifugal experiences of the community is a contested matter. Typical definitions of what constitutes the community privilege the centripetal members as real examples. Often, however, the nostalgia that foregrounds such images as the “heart” of the community is most visible in centrifugal members wishing to compensate for their weakened memories of the home. The French that Albert Camus learnt and cultivated in Algeria defined the core anxiously and rigorously, while actual inhabitants of Paris were straining at the leash and trying to break the norms. Another dimension has to do with the Dalits of India’s many societies and corresponding ex-marginals in other countries where a serious enterprise of undoing disenfranchisement is under way. And there must be other aspects of the crisis of the community that observers elsewhere will be able to articulate in ways that complement this account. Fortunately, linguistics does have resources, as we are about to see, to provide helpful commentary and meet the crisis half-way. Linguists need not rely exclusively on external social coordinates in order to engage with the polarizations that this contestation throws up. The terms of reference that drive formal linguistics itself give us an adequate basis for the necessary intervention. In order to accommodate the diversity of points of interest in formal linguistics, a fuller account would

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have provided several examples of what this basis might look like. One example might come from the syntactic and semantic range of anaphoric phenomena, where formal syntactic descriptions of the binding-theoretic genre compete with descriptive resources provided by pragmatics. Another example might pertain to the omissibility of non-subject arguments in clause structure, a matter that may or may not correlate with McLuhanesque cultural phenomena of the hot versus cool type, but has also been claimed for syntax. The need to find a common focus that most readers are likely to converge on leads us to concentrate here on issues of lexical economy. Consider therefore the fact that the English verb weep has the irregular past form wept while the verb beep forms a regular past, beeped. When we describe the fact that speakers of English don’t say weeped, we often appeal to the concept of blocking. We say that the more specific, more particular form wept blocks the application of the more general schema that would have led to weeped. Chomsky (1995) proposed a generalization of blocking to syntax, specifically suggesting that more economical derivations block less economical ones. This proposal would unify such syntactic blocking with standard morphological blocking under the assumption that using an irregular past form like wept, given the independent lexical storage of the word wept, is more economical than having to apply the regular past tense schema to the base weep and assemble a regular form like weeped. To be sure, the specifics of Chomsky’s, 1995 proposal cease to be directly operative in syntactic minimalism’s formal derivations once the phaseless numeration-based full-sentence derivational system is abandoned and the work of economy takes what is now called the third factor on board, instead of staying focused on explanatory adequacy considerations alone. However, the project of formulating a notion of economy that covers lexical blocking and syntactic derivational economy clearly and uncontroversially continues to drive the influential minimalist take on formal linguistics. Now, notice that this familiar feature of the present-day theoretical landscape of formal linguistics lends itself to interpretation at the level that we are focusing on in the present intervention. Suppose we formulate this interpretation as a Lexical Particularization Principle: (4) The Lexical Particularization Principle The lexicon’s particularizations upstage the grammar’s generalizations. The content of (4), as becomes obvious in the present context, is that the economy of speaker S’s mental lexicon for language L constitutively gives archival particularizations priority over principled generalizations. But the other side of this coin is that formal principles, including principles of economy, provide the means for speaker S’s mind to keep SCA(S) in focus (please revisit (1a) for the details of SCA(S)). Linguists have known for a while that this economy is not a formal given mathematically deducible from first principles; it is an empirical issue. Rapid advances in linguistics have been providing clearer pictures of just what economy actually operates in the way knowledge of language is stored and used. If this onward march is to continue with clearer goals and methods, it is useful to look at both the technical underpinnings of this progress and its material base.

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Consider the technical underpinnings first. The adoption of standardized conceptual and notational apparatus in phonology, in syntax and in semantics has accelerated advances in our understanding, to the extent that the apparatus, especially the notation, expresses what we take to be the operative economy in each domain. Now, recent work has found it necessary to look at lexical items across languages and to raise questions of lexical economy. The questions are of some theoretical importance; we do wish to know if (4) reduces to pragmatic principles of conversational cooperation applied to the word level, for instance. This research is handicapped, though, by the non-availability of a reasonable notation that would make it easier for lexical researchers to compare notes across languages. The problem is not that the conceptual apparatus is missing. On the contrary, Hale and Keyser (2002) formulate what has been evolving into a consensual approach to the study of the syntax-lexicon interface, reinvigorating ideas first systematized by Tesnière (1959). The difficulty is that Jay Keyser and the late Ken Hale have devised no notation that matches the specific needs of the enterprise they have initiated. Their mixture of syntactic tree drawing, English glosses and technical labels and object language words, though a useful toolkit in the absence of anything better that their colleagues can use, does not add up to a representation of lexical patterns, posing important operational questions to which we return presently. Let us now consider the material base for continued progress in our understanding of the principles of linguistic economy. It is important to see that methodological issues are at stake here. As long as structural and early generative linguistics was focused on rules, it made sense to treat one’s data in terms of regular facts fitting the rules and exceptions falling outside them. It also made sense to be satisfied with an account of rule types and to profess lack of interest in having too much data at one’s disposal, for we had no reason to be interested in the exceptions. But the last three decades of research have oriented us to principles rather than rules as the goal of the generalization enterprise. Now, principles, unlike rules, do not create exceptions as their systemic Other. Principles throw the concept of exception into crisis. The fundamental methodological point we wish to make at the level of the material base of our field is that a principled linguistics is not entitled to say, “We have looked at so many languages that we must have explored all the rule types. We can close our books now. Let us claim we have found reliable answers to major questions. Future discoveries will confirm our generalizations, apart from a couple of glitches here or there.” Moving from rules to principles means that, for reasons of principle, linguistics stays interested in data from all languages until the end of history. The kinds of interest and neglect that may have seemed rational before the digital era become scientifically irrational and socially unjust in a world where textual databases exist and have real effects. It follows that our idiographic disposition of language material will grow step by step with our nomothetic proposals as to what the right generalizations are. The question of the types of economy that operate in the shaping of language gets rearticulated as these enterprises grow, if this exploration of economy continues to link the idiographic sector of our work to its nomothetic sector in the ways just indicated.

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Logistic issues arise. Saying what we have just said is all very well. How does all this translate into practice? What will it mean for an enterprise of exploring the notion of economy to link the idiographic and nomothetic sectors, especially if the nomoi, the generalizations of the nomothetic wing, keep changing? This is a question the relatively simplified picture of the notion of economy invoked so far does not underwrite an answer to. We must in fact envisage a considerably richer exploration of notions cognate to parsimony. Issues of optimality, naturalness, iconicity, basic level perception, the semiotics-pragmatics interface, metaphor and the cognitive-affective interface will come into play as inquiry forces the practitioners of each of these subenterprises to face results obtained by colleagues they are waiting to find common ground with. The point is not to try to second-guess at once what the picture of economy (or whatever it is called at that stage) will look like when everybody has done all the reading, the fantasy of the perfect university. If the conjectures offered here have any reality, we will be looking at an unmanaged set of enterprises in sectors as various as commerce, industry, academia, government and so forth, not a single, manageable ship with clear rudders and captains. The project must involve establishing benchmarks, practices, criteria, that look reasonable to a variety of actors and will support the accumulation of results and devices from multiple sources. With these considerations in mind, we return to the technical underpinning issue left pending earlier in the discussion. Recall that we found that the Hale & Keyser toolkit, while it might be acceptable for the present disorganized state of interlexical studies, looked like an obvious stopgap to be used as we awaited a major breakthrough. Our concrete suggestion in the technical underpinning domain, which also provides a partial answer to the question of how to translate our theoretical initiative into a describable practice, is based on the following example of what Hale & Keyser’s tools can do. Consider the Hale and Keyser (2002: 49, ex. (7)) analysis of the English verb phrase to bag the apples: V[ V[ bag1] P[ DP[the apples] P[ P[t1] N[t1]]]]. The mechanism of Conflation connects the sites marked by the numeral 1 in such a way that the element bag in V, where it appears, conflates a prepositional meaning, roughly ‘in,’ with a nominal meaning, roughly ‘bag,’ under the aegis of an overriding verbal meaning that yields the outcome ‘place in a bag.’ Scholars who master the mechanics of the system operate it in the languages they deal with, and in English as a glossing medium. But the fact that human beings do not speak in syntactic tree representations means that even a scholar who has really mastered the system does not develop intuitions about which examples sound right and which ones do not at the level at which speakers of a language develop intuitive judgments. Now, notice that the normal word for the verb phrase to bag the apples in the artificial language Esperanto is en-sak-ig-i la pomojn, where the constituents of the verb are a preposition en ‘in,’ a nominal root sak ‘bag,’ a transitive verb formative ig ‘to cause, to make,’ and an infinitival marker i. It requires little effort to imagine a world in which linguists who engage in lexical studies make it a professional point to learn basic Esperanto the way syntacticians learn how to draw trees and phonologists learn the IPA. In such a world, it becomes relevant that even the artificial resources

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of Esperanto do not permit its speakers to insert the numeral tri ‘three’ or kvar ‘four’ and say en-tri-sak-ig-i or en-kvar-sak-ig-i to convey the meaning ‘load into three/four bags.’ These words that one could conceivably create on the basis of the resources of Esperanto, while one would be able to process them with some analytical effort, sound unnatural and are never used. An interlexical researcher for whom Esperanto is the default tool of lexical structure representation is led to the prediction (confirmed cross-linguistically, but I could be wrong) that no language allows you to speak of three-bagging the apples or four-bagging the apples. In contrast, a user of the Hale & Keyser machinery as it stands would have no intuitive basis for making such a prediction. To be sure, it would be unreasonable to suggest that Esperanto vocabulary could simply replace the Hale & Keyser machinery. Tesnière’s original proposals, which may (at several removes) have partly inspired the Hale & Keyser generation of the interlexical studies enterprise, represented a formal unpacking of what the form of Esperanto words had suggested to him. We do not doubt that some technical apparatus is required. Our suggestion is that Esperanto lexical material be used as an anchor and as the default neutral medium of lexical content representation. The patterns of admissible and inadmissible Esperanto words would then give concreteness to the linguist’s intuitive hunches and suggest lines of inquiry.

4 Defaults and Variation In the first section of this study, I indicated some moves that need to be made in the theory of discourse in order to make room for cultural realities in the linguistic domain. The second section has fleshed out what these moves require in a substancefocused linguistics that must work with such a theory of discourse. However, we have not yet reached the point at which the theories of language and discourse can see eye to eye. For that to happen, we need to differentiate our sets of defaults—the points at which the Elsewhere Principle acquires lexical teeth. We need a theory that allows a language like Hindi-Urdu to keep its honorificity default system built around the three-way break-up into tuu, tum, aap, that lets Marathi keep its simple bifurcation pitting tuu against tumhi and reserves aapaN for very special use off the grid, and that handles frontier issues and hybrid repertories optimally. These desiderata are perfectly clear. The format of what a Firth or a Pike would have called a polysystemic linguistic description, one that would be capable of attaining these goals, is not yet clear to anybody working on the ground, despite major advances in recent decades. My own sense is that pragmatics and semiotics in the sense of Kelkar (1997) will turn out to play a key role in the management of diversity at the level of interpersonal perception of the discursive topography. Such perception and responses to momentary percepts are managed on line, while one is interacting with others. Just how such serendipitous management squares its

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accounts with long-term archives is an issue that neither formal linguistics nor nonformal semiotics or pragmatics currently knows how to formulate as an answerable question. But we cannot afford to passively wait for the problem to solve itself. Let us look at a few empirical phenomena that are difficult to handle and may prompt theoretical tweaking once we have cleared the immediate debris surrounding the data and begun to make sense of the phenomena themselves rather than just sifting the data reflecting them.

4.1 Verbs Converted from Dyadic Nouns We begin with a lexical universal. You can convert a dyadic relational noun like parent or mentor into a verb in English provided that the dyad is asymmetric and the noun in question represents the higher of the two poles in the dyad. Thus, parenting, mentoring and tutoring are possible words, but childing, discipling and studenting are not. The generalization is actually a bit less narrow than the formulation we have provided. Thus, the formal relation between the verb drive and the agent noun driver is not one of zero conversion; and yet English only lets a driver drive her passengers; English does not allow a passenger to ‘passenge’ her driver. You will easily find that the same generalization, mutatis mutandis, holds across languages. Two questions suggest themselves. The first one falls within conventional, codefocused linguistics: How do we handle cases where the generalization is stretched and seems not to work? The second question directly involve discourse: What happens to the default handling of such asymmetries under an imaginary deviant discursive setting that reverses all the hierarchies? We begin with question one, the conventional question, because it deploys our ordinary skills as trained formal linguists. The first borderline example we consider is apprenticing John. Here one is indeed zero-converting a lower pole noun (in a polar relation dyad) into a verb, thus violating the literal import of the generalization. However, the object of the verb is not associated with the higher pole noun: One cannot say John apprentices Bill with the reading ‘Bill is master, John is his apprentice.’ So our generalization remains intact in spirit. The zero conversion observed in Sue bratted her babysitter into a corner is a bit more of a problem for the generalization. Here the young child, conventionally less powerful, wields her power to do something to the older caregiver. However, note that there is no lexical dyad pairing brat as a ‘lower pole’ noun with any ‘upper pole’ noun denoting an adult whose particular job it is to deal with the unruly child in the script associated with the lexical field. Thus, the fact that bratting can signal a reversal of standard power relations does not bear on any generalization about the lower pole members of lexical dyads. Besides, the connotations of the noun brat already signal the fact that such a child, though a child, emphatically does not fit

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in the asymmetric boxes that the usual defaults invoke. Thus, the behavior of the zero-converted verb hardly comes as a surprise. We are pleased to report, then, that our tentative empirical generalization survives this type of conventional scrutiny. Question two has to do with the stretching of defaults that a discourse enclave renders possible. Consider a fantasy world—depicted in a novel or a media serial— in which students run institutions and teachers count as their servants, for instance. Imagine that in that world conditions of labor and remuneration are so tweaked that people from age eighteen to forty are the earning members of society. The moment you cross forty, you turn functionally senile and are disenfranchised. Designated juniors begin to control every detail of your life; you are lucky if you have children of your own who agree to take charge of you, for they tend to be a bit less harsh than other minders. Suppose one is fantasizing such a world in English rather than some other language. Now consider the reimagined semantics of certain key zero-conversion verbs. When we wrap our head around sentences like Sally finds daughtering to be quite a challenge/Jim finds sonning to be quite a challenge—do we easily slip into the practice of visualizing sonning/daughtering as that upside-down world’s equivalent to the images of parental caregiving in the normal world we inhabit? Is it a problem for the recasting of the semantics of our words that an eight-year-old daughter is not yet capable of the role that we visualize, in that discourse enclave, as proper adult daughtering? Or does the period of childhood, on the way to inheriting one’s mantle as an able-bodied adult, get shrugged off in such a discourse? The ‘new’ discourse is less unfamiliar than one might think. Recall the way a king who was eight years old—in the era when kingdoms were the norm and democratic republics were a bizarre innovation—would normally take it for granted that an adult regent was supposed to look after the boring affairs of the kingdom while he as a universally loved boy-king had fun sitting on the throne and accepting adulation from his subjects. Fantasy draws on real strands available to our lexical and discursive imagination without special stipulation. Serious inquiry about the defaults that govern the lexical semantics of asymmetric dyads like mother/daughter, teacher/student and mentor/disciple will need to take such fantasy in its stride and thus offer a deeper take on the functioning and malleability of defaults than we are used to. I am invoking this upside-down fantasy world only to provide a sense of the challenge one is up against as one considers such inquiry.

4.2 Vapid Lexemes My next point has to do with vapid lexemes, or manifestations of lexical vapidity— new locutions that I am coining in order to underscore the type of empty word that the well-known enterprise of studying ‘empty categories’ might have been expected to take seriously but never did. South Asian languages extensively, and apparently

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other languages to varying degrees, make use of what have come to be called ‘echowords.’ My use of the term ‘vapid lexeme’ is intended to stress, not the vapid lexeme’s formal relation of ‘echoing’ with the content-endowed lexeme that hosts it, not the phono-morphology of partial reduplication, but the particular complex of content dependency and vague hand-waving that constitutes lexical vapidity. Simply as a point of entry into these phenomena, I would like to flag some questions pertaining to vapid lexemes in Bangla, focusing on cases where the vapid word is not a partially reduplicated derivative of the host, but an originally distinct lexeme whose independent content has been whittled down, diachronically, forcing it into vapid status. For convenience of reference, we shall call these particular ex-distinct lexemes that have been tamed into vapidity Quasi-Distinct Vapid Lexemes, QDVLs; and we shall use the term ‘vapid compounds’ for a compound that combines an ordinary content-bearing word with a vapid ‘echo.’ Examples: the vapid compound noun /kannakaTi/ ‘crying.QDVL, = crying etc.’ and the corresponding vapid compound verb /keMde keTe/ ‘cry.Cj cut.Cj, = crying and so on.‘ With these background facts in place, my question is: why is it that this noun–verb couple, where the nominal and verbal vapid compounds are both fine, contrasts with the vapid compound noun /kenakaTi/ ‘buying.QDVL, = shopping etc.,’ whose verb equivalent doesn’t work? The verbal sequence */kine keTe/ ‘buy.Cj cut.Cj, = shopping and so on’ is ill-formed. Might it be relevant that the minimal pair status of /kannakaTi/ ‘crying etc.’ versus /kenakaTi/ ‘shopping etc.’ is undermined by the existence of a more transparent alternative /kenakaTa/ ‘buying.QDVL,’ where the QDVL takes the form of a regular verbal noun and displays the gerund inflection /a/ rather than the idiosyncratic marker /i/? The unavailability of the transparent variant */kannakaTa/ in the ‘crying’ case does indeed technically undermine the minimal pair status of /kannakaTi/ versus /kenakaTi/. But it does so in an irrelevant direction. We cannot propose with a straight face that the vapid compound noun prohibiting a transparent format variant */kannakaTa/ has something to do with the vapid compound verb allowing the transparent formation /keMde keTe/, can we? Consider some data from older speakers—compounds that have pretty much gone out of general use: transparent vapid compound verb /reMdhe beRe/ ‘cook.Cj serve.Cj, = cooking and so on’; opaque vapid compound noun /rannabaRi/ ‘cooking.QDVL, = cooking etc.’; transparent vapid compound noun /raMdhabaRa/ ‘cooking.QDVL, = cooking etc.’ We find a useful clue at last. When the QDVL is transparent, /baRa/, the host noun also carries the gerundial inflection and counts as a transparent verbal noun, /raMdha/. The transparent QDVL /baRa/ does not cooccur with the opaque deverbal noun /ranna/; */rannabaRa/ is ill-formed. We begin to suspect that the viability of the transparent vapid compound verb /reMdhe beRe/ might have something to do with the full transparency of the corresponding vapid compound noun /raMdhabaRa/. This realization prompts us to go back to the ‘crying’ case and ask if a fully transparent compound noun is available there. It turns out that we do find /kaMdakaTa/, a fully transparent nominal format for ‘crying etc.’ Thus, we are able to propose a oneway implicational generalization. Where a transparent vapid verbal compound

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exists, there is also, corresponding to it, a fully transparent vapid nominal compound. But the starred status of */kine keTe/, the verbal compound in the ‘shopping’ case, shows that the generalization does not work from right to left. In this discussion, I have been using the term transparent as an abbreviation for ‘a noun that bears gerundial inflection, here serving as the default derivational affix for a deverbal noun’ and the term opaque as an abbreviation for ‘a deverbal noun bearing some idiosyncratic derivational affix.’ This is not to say that the vapid words stop playing the vapid game. In other words, at the semantic level the material seriously departs from transparency in the sense of compositionality. We must therefore expect to find some arbitrariness in the availability or otherwise of syntactically spread-out constructions deploying the pieces of vapid compounds. Consider a case in point from the nominal domain. The vapid nominal compounds /kOthabarta/ ‘word.QDVL, = conversation etc.’ and /kajkOmmo ~ kajkOrmo/ ‘work.QDVL, = work etc.’ are associated with expanded syntactic formats observed in /kOtha ney barta ney/ ‘word isn’t message isn’t, = nobody bothers to give any notice, and suddenly –’ and /kaj ney kOmmo ~ kOrmo ney/ ‘work isn’t activity isn’t, = X has nothing better to do with their time, X has gone and done the following.’ However, these particular expansions operate on something like a special license; the affirmative counterparts to these negative constructions are starred: */kOtha ache barta ache/ ‘word is message is, = due notice is being given,’ */kaj ache kOmmo ache/ ‘work is activity is, = X is engaging in the following worthwhile activities.’ Once we have collected observations in this insufficiently studied domain for a while, we may hope to notice some subregularities. At this stage, even drawing attention to phenomena of this type possibly counts as a (minor) contribution. Analogous to the repeated negation expansion for these nominal vapid compounds is the expansion associated with the verbal vapid compound /jene Sune/ ‘know.Cj hear.Cj, = knowing full well.’ The expansion features a repeated negation and is finite: /je biSOY niye kichu jane na Sone na ta niye kOtha bolte gElo kEno/ ‘which topic about anything knows Neg hears Neg that about talk Aux Aux why, = Why did they go and talk about a topic they don’t know a thing about?’ Again, affirmatives are starred; so are tenses other than the simple present—although repeated negation with other tenses produces less of a crashingly bad effect than the affirmative format. Note that the expansion format is not totally fixed: One can deploy the focus particle couple /…o …o/ which normally works with negation to yield a ‘neither/nor’ interpretation, as in /kichu janeo na Soneo na/ ‘anything knows.also Neg hears.also Neg, = they neither know nor understand anything.’ What seems to be fixed is the tendency for repeated negation to appear in such syntactic expansions corresponding to vapid compounds. However, this is a tendency, not an absolute regularity. To my ear, the imperative is also possible in some cases, e.g. /gujraTider niye jOtoi januk Sunuk amader niye kichu jane na/ ‘Gujarati about however.much know.Imp hear.Imp us about anything knows Neg, = whatever they may know and understand about Gujaratis, they know nothing about us.’ I also accept the imperative—alongside the repeated negation pattern, whose examples I am skipping to save space—for syntactic expansions associated with the vapid verbal compound /nece kuMde/ ‘dance.Cj VAPID.Cj, =

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dancing and so on,’ incidentally a compound featuring the verb /koMda/ which has become obsolete apart from its occurrence in this compound (it used to mean ‘jump’). Thus, I find acceptable /ora jOtoi nacuk kuMduk, ami ra kaRbo na/ ‘they however.much dance.Imp jump.Imp, I even.a.word will.say Neg, = However much they may go to town about it, I won’t say a word.’

4.3 Variation Across Genres While we are on the subject of discourse, it pays to note some examples of crossgeneric variability. In Dasgupta (2005) I studied a root sentence phenomenon involving a discourse particle /ba/ that normally occurs only right after the focus particle /i/ ‘indeed, only.’ I noted that the /i-ba/ sequence must either hug a Past Subjunctive verb tightly or choose to be loosely associated with an interrogative constituent. It turns out that an even greater looseness of association becomes available in poetry: Consider the sentence /amare-i tumi ki ba dile/ ‘me.Dat-Foc you what DiP gave, = and what, indeed, did you give me?’ The option exercised here, of non-contiguity between the Focus Particle /i/ and the Discourse Particle /ba/, is unavailable in normal speech. Obviously more needs to be said about poetic diction if we are to know how to place such factoids in perspective. Formalistic prejudices have been diverting attention from the specificity of poetic diction to the point that we hardly know enough to draw a proper map of the region. Along the same lines, only the specific register of traditional votive recitation and narration called brotokOtha is known to have ever licensed the deviant syntactic expansion /haMSiS na lo khuSiS na lo/ ‘laugh.Imp Neg DiP rejoice.Imp Neg DiP, = don’t laugh or make merry, my dear BFF.’ This expansion corresponding to the adjective /haMSikhuSi/ ‘laughter.joy, = jovial,’ which is an idiosyncratic compound of the nouns /haMSi/ ‘laughter’ and /khuSi/ ‘joy.’ The verb /haMSiS/ ‘laugh.Imp’ is indeed standard; but the verb /khuSiS/ ‘rejoice.Imp’ is a nonce formation; the sequence, with the signature negative iteration familiar from the rest of our data, is clearly based on the vapid compound /haMSikhuSi/. Nothing like this line is possible in ordinary speech. Again, specific inquiry focused on the genre is called for and will force us to cross boundaries that formalistic doctrine usually asks us never to cross.

References Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. MIT Press. Dasgupta, P. (1988). The external reality of linguistic descriptions. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 33(4), 345–365. Dasgupta, P. (2000). Tesnière indicators and Indian languages. In R. Singh et al. (Ed.) Yearbook of South Asian languages and linguistics 2000 (pp. 109–119). Sage.

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Dasgupta, P. (2005). Q-baa and Bangla clause structure. In R. Singh, P. Dasgupta, R. K. Agnihotri, J. Bayer, P. E. Hook, & T. Bhattacharya (Eds.) Yearbook of South Asian languages and linguistics 2005 (pp. 45–81). Mouton de Gruyter. Dasgupta, P. (2012). Inhabiting Human Languages: The Substantivist Visualization. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and Samskriti. Dasgupta, P. (2017). Captive consciousness and the new Jabberwocky. Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, 23(2), 137–145. Dasgupta, P. (1993). The otherness of English: India’s auntie tongue syndrome. Sage. Firth, J. R. (1957). Papers in linguistics 1934–1951. Oxford University Press. Hale, K., & Keyser, S. J. (2002). Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. MIT Press. Kelkar, A. R. (1997). Language in semiotic perspective: The architecture of a Marathi sentence. Shubhada Saraswat. Tesnière, L. (1959). Eléments de syntaxe structurale. Klincksieck. Wolfe, G. (1983). The citadel of the autarch. Pocket Books.

Variation, Conformity, and Possibility: What WE Are Rakesh M. Bhatt

1 Introduction This paper discusses the role of “experts” in the global spread of English, bringing into focus the various semiotic processes invested in the ideological distribution of English-language variation. The starting point for probing expert discourses is a recognition of the intellectual movement known as “Liberation Linguistics,” which closely examines the various forms of linguistic beliefs and practices that accent the sociopolitical dimensions of language variation—rooted in contexts of social injustice—and attempts to transform these contexts radically in the interest of the speakers of the “other tongue” (cf. Bhatt, 2001a). In the (post-modern) era of globalization in which the dominance of English is seen as displacing local linguistic practices (Phillipson, 1992; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000), the world Englishes (hereafter, WE) paradigm focuses on the forms of globalization that fertilize new forms of locality: spanning literary works of creative writers such as Raja Rao (Kachru, 1998) to artistic performances of hip-hop (cf. Lee & Kachru, 2006) and to globalized identities of English accents of outsourcing (Cowie, 2007). Yet, in spite of the advances in the field of WE, controversies abound; both in terms of the empirical status of WE (the profusion and the confusion arguments of Quirk, 1990) and in terms of the theoretical conceptualization of them (WE, ELF, EIL, etc.). These controversies, I argue, follow from a political logic of conformity—outside and within the field of WE—that at once enables discourses of strategic essentialism (via branding, policing labels, imposing boundaries, sanctioning legitimacy, etc.) and disables discourses of transformation (of hybridity, heterogeneity, diversity). In this following section, I first examine how, in the context of globalization, the politics of conformity, with its attendant enabling and disabling expert discourses, explains the contentious issues and the controversies in the theory and practice of WE. R. M. Bhatt (B) University of Illinois, Urbana, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_4

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I then discuss how the study of WE can be integrated into a sociolinguistic theory of globalization. Finally, I conclude by offering some reflections on a politics of possibility: the idea that the interdependent global linguistic markets offer a competitive space for various local Englishes to invest their creative and communicative potential freely in anticipation of symbolic and, eventually, economic profit.

2 The Politics of Conformity and WE The politics of conformity draw attention to the role of language experts in the dichotomizing discourse of orientalism—the inherent superiority of the metropolitan bourgeoisie over primitive others. In the context of WE, the dichotomy takes the form of the now familiar distinction: center (English as a native language)-periphery (English as a second language). The study of the politics of conformity focuses on the scholarly ideologies about linguistic differentiation, in fact, on the social production of linguistic and disciplinary boundaries. The starting point of such an inquiry must include a social history of the production of difference that sheds light on contemporary practices of scholarship (cf. also Gal & Irvine, 1995)—a discursive reproduction of the past differences. As a guiding methodological principle in such a language-ideological inquiry, I follow the observations of Barthes (1972 [1957]), who in a series of insightful essays argues that the function of ideologies is to present the contingent as self-evident. He notes (ibid.: 11): The starting point for these reflections was usually a feeling of impatience at the sight of the “naturalness” with which newspapers, art, and common sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined by history. In short, in the account given of our contemporary circumstances, I resented seeing Nature and History confused at every turn, and I wanted to track down, in the decorative displays of what-goes-without-saying, the ideological abuse which, in my view, is hidden there.

Following Barthes’ heuristic, I analyze expert discourses as a critical part of the politics of conformity: to demonstrate how History is portrayed as Nature, or how contingent affairs are portrayed, or dressed up, as predetermined, natural, essential and necessary. In the context of WE, the expert discourses contribute to “régimes of truth” (Foucault, 1980): the various forms of ideological control in which English linguistic beliefs and dispositions, values and practices are produced and distributed as fundamentally superior to the other (local-native languages and cultures), which is tacitly rendered as backward and inferior. These “régimes” also establish as fundamentally unquestionable the proposition that there has to be a single “correct” standard of usage for the English language. In the remainder of this section, I explore these two aspects of the expert discourse in the ideological formation of linguistic differentiation. Let me begin by presenting two excerpts as a quick illustration of the dichotomizing discourse of orientalism that will situate the discussion in the context of the politics of conformity. The first excerpt, (1) below (underlining added), is from

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the famous Thomas B. Macaulay’s “Minute on Indian Education” (2 February 1835)1 and the second excerpt, (3) below, is from a recent scholarly piece by King (2006). In the first excerpt, we see the sociolinguistic process of iconization at play (Irvine & Gal, 2000) that produces the ideological aspects of linguistic differentiation—the formation of the necessary contrast: the superiority of the English language and the primitive nature of the (local/indigenous) dialects. (1) [8] All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. … [9] … The whole question seems to me to be, which language is best worth knowing? … [10] … I have never found one among them [i.e., Oriental scholars] who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the Oriental plan of education. … [11] … It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all historical information which has been collected from all the books written in Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most partly abridgments used at preparatory schools in England…. [12] We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother tongue. We must teach them some foreign language. The claims of our own language [English] it is hardly necessary to recapitulate. [34] I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, --a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.

The process of iconization works in a subtle and complicated manner in excerpt (1). Iconization, as one of the three semiotic processes (the other two being fractal recursivity and erasure) used to construct ideologically constructed representations of linguistic difference (Irvine & Gal, 2000), involves the TRANSFORMATION of the sign relationship between linguistic features (or systems) and the social images with which they are linked (Irvine & Gal, 2000: 39). As Gal (1998: 328) notes, in the process of iconization, “the ideological representation fuses some quality of the linguistic feature and a supposedly parallel quality of the social group and understands one as the cause or the inherent, essential, explanation of the other.” In excerpt (1) above, the local dialects—the native languages of India—are presented in various polysemic forms of primitive: poor, worthless, uneducated and rude (cf. the underlined expressions in [8], [10], [11] and [12], respectively, of excerpt (1) above). The primitiveness of these “dialects” is then easily mapped on to the native people, “Indian in blood and color,” who must be educated in English to be able to acquire superior “tastes, opinions, morals and intellect” [cf. underlined expressions in [34] of excerpt (1) above]. Notions such as “morally good” and “aesthetically

1

Information taken from the following URL: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00gene rallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html.

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pleasing,” i.e. evaluations about language, are used by the elites—the language-ineducation policy makers in colonial India—to obtain the required complicity (Bourdieu, 1991: 113) of the dominated classes. In excerpt (1) then, we notice the process of iconization involving, on the one hand, colonial importation of European models of language and, on the other hand, a strategic representation of the non-European subject as the inferior other. Such productions of the inherent primitiveness of the other—the dichotomizing discourse of orientalism—were quite pervasive in the practice of early-mid nineteenth century scholarship, especially in the colonies. Grant (1812–1813: 61–62), for instance, in his report ordered by the House of Commons on the state of society among the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to morals, and on the means of improving them, observes the following: (2) The true curse of darkness is the introduction of light. The Hindoos err, because they are ignorant and their errors have never been laid down before them. The communication of our light and knowledge to them would prove the best remedy for their disorders.

These nineteenth century linguistic ideologies of European nation-states, discussed above, continue to inform and influence current intellectual practice in the field of WE. Excerpt (3) below, from King (2006: 27–28), is a case in point. King, in excerpt (3), is discussing the function of “Post-Empire English” in contemporary Indian linguistic ecology. What is noteworthy is that he uses the familiar rhetorical methods and ideological tools, used earlier by Macaulay in his Minute on Indian Education (see excerpt 1 above) to represent an iconic linkage between categories of people (native-European) and their languages (primitive-advanced). (3) What remains however is infinitely more enduring, chaster, and nobler, more of a great thing, than lands or plants or possessions. What remains is the English language, a gift to the globe, a “way of speaking, a mouth” to millions of people on this globe, often to people who would not be able to express themselves if not for English. One of the greatest and most underacknowledged gifts of the British Raj to India was English prose style. Not simply narrative prose … but the prose style of the polished English essay, of a Macaulay, of Samuel Johnson’s Idler, of Edmund Burke or John Stuart Mill. This kind of graceful, spare, ironic prose was something altogether different from the forms of prose in indigenous literature. It was initially foreign to the “cut” of any Indian language, from Sanskrit down to the meanest vernacular. But something about it kindled fire in the Indian mind. (emphasis [underlining/boldface] added)

In excerpt (3), thus, we notice evidence of the reproduction of historical narratives of linguistic ideologies of differentiation in contemporary discourses, especially in the field of WE. The presuppositions in this excerpt point to a particular alchemy of representations of social actors and their respective linguistic practices: the native people and their languages subordinated to—and symbolically dominated by—the noble, chaste, polished and graceful Western cultural product: English. The main argument of this narrative of language contact recalls the observation made by Charles Grant (see (2) above), almost two hundred years ago, and welds it to the contemporary logic of the linguistic politics of conformity. These contemporary practices of scholarship, following the ideological narratives of the past, carry on with the orientalist discourse constructing the local-native as unthinking and unimaginative,

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especially in the context of WE (cf. the last sentence in excerpt (3)). Kachru (2001: 9) thus appropriately writes: “The native mind is constructed as unthinking, without initiative and devoid of linguistic and literary vision…” The process of iconization entails the attribution of necessity to a connection between linguistic systems (native vernaculars-English language) and social groups (primitive-civilized)—the implication of necessity being reinforced by the iconicity of the ideological representation (Irvine & Gal, 2000). The second aspect of the politics of conformity relates to the practices of scholarship—“Expert Discourses” (see Bhatt, 2002, 2005)—in the global spread of English; its acquisition and use in what has often been called the new Englishes contexts (Kachru, 1977; Kandiah, 1998; Mufwene, 1994; Platt et al., 1984; Pride, 1982). The expert discourses establish a single “correct” standard of usage for the English language from which other usages are seen as DEVIATIONS. Here I begin by presenting an analysis of “expert” texts that will yield an understanding of the bedrock axioms that characterize the formation of disciplinary boundaries: in our point of discussion, the boundaries (differences) between the study of English as a native language (ENL) and the study of English as a second language (ESL). It is worth noting here that some of the same processes operating in the creation of linguistic boundaries, discussed above, also appear in the construction of disciplinary boundaries (Gal & Irvine, 1995: 970). The first set of texts is taken from Prator (1968) who was arguing against the “doctrine” of establishing local models for TESL (Teaching of English as a Second Language). The local models of English that Prator was concerned with are the ones spoken “in formerly British possessions such as India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Ghana, and Nigeria” (ibid.: 460). Although the merits of his paper have been thoroughly critiqued by Kachru (1976), Romaine (1997) and Bhatt (2002), the discussion below attempts to spell out the language ideologies that are intricately involved in creating linguistic and disciplinary boundaries between, as Prator puts it, ‘mother-tongue types of English’ (e.g. British/American) and ‘second language varieties of English’ (e.g. post-colonial Englishes). In excerpt (4) below, Prator (1968: 463) draws on the general naturalism argument, following, not surprisingly, the nineteenth century linguistic ideology of European nation-states, which correlates one language with one culture: (4) The British, American, and other mother-tongue types of English are each the unique linguistic component of the culture that produced them and are inseparable from the rest of that culture.

This position is then contrasted with ESL varieties (ibid. 465), which, he argues following Bloomfield, if allowed to continue to develop on their own will result in a pidgin or jargon, which is (5) … “nobody’s language but only a compromise between a foreign speaker’s version, and so on, in which each party imperfectly reproduces the other’s reproduction”. (Bloomfield, 1933: 473)

Thus, linguistic varieties are interpreted within an ideological dimension of linguistic boundaries: ENL (English as a native language) and ESL (English as a

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second language). The language-pidgin/jargon dichotomization with reference to ENL-ESL varieties of English attempted by Prator is established by means of the sociolinguistic process of fractal recursivity (Irvine & Gal, 2000), which involves the projection of an opposition made at one level onto some other level so that the distinction is seen to recur across categories of varying generality. Prator’s distinction between ENL and ESL varieties of English is thus understood as a recursive projection of a wider distinction, at the interlanguage level between English and native Indian languages, discussed above. Other experts have used the same logic of ideological distinction to activate the linguistic politics of conformity. Quirk (1990), for instance, positions himself with Prator by portraying English-language variation in post-colonial contexts as confusion, and the fields of intellectual inquiry that use variation as an object of linguistic, social, cultural and cognitive description as mischievous and suspicious. An analysis of his arguments against English-language variation shows the ways in which symbolic value (à la Bourdieu, 1991) is created and socially authorized by means of various sorts of rhetorical methods that assure the stable reproduction of linguistic and disciplinary asymmetries (cf. Bhatt, 2002). The dominant discourse produces an audience, context and text in which the reigning framework appears as normal and obvious. The process of normalization, of conformity, is put into place via fractal recursivity in the following manner. First, Quirk discusses Coppieters’ work that shows that the difference in linguistic competence between French native speakers (FNS) and advanced non-native speakers (FNNS) is statistically significant (excerpt (6) below): the native speakers of French outperforming the non-native speakers in some, but not all, grammatical aspects. (6) In a range of interesting and sophisticated elicitation tests, the success rate of the nonnatives fell not merely below but outside the range of native success…” [his emphasis]

The difference between FNS-FNNS, excerpt (6) above, is then claimed to recur more generally in other areas of foreign/second language teaching. It is thus through the process of fractal recursion that the differences between French native and nonnative speakers are used to present differences between English native and non-native speakers. Quirk (1990: 8) uses the familiar rhetorical methods to claim the difference as deviance: (7) No one should underestimate the problem of teaching English in such countries as India and Nigeria, where the English of the teachers themselves inevitably bears the stamp of locally acquired deviations from the standard language. [emphasis added]

Clearly, the problem is not really a linguistic one but rather a real problem of vested interests being poached upon. The real problem is disguised, predictably, by denigrating the other, which as an ideological strategy of erasure glosses over the explicit empirical sociolinguistic realities of the new Englishes contexts of acquisition and use (cf. Bhatt, 2002; Sridhar, 1992). It is through the process of erasure—where language is imagined as homogenous, its internal variation disregarded—that a particular semiotic structure is established where a sacred Standard English-speaking “core” appears to be surrounded by a profane “periphery,” exemplified in the following excerpt (8) from Quirk (1990: 4).

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(8) … the interest in varieties of English has got out of hand and has started blinding both teachers and taught to the central linguistic structure from which the varieties might be seen as varying.” [emphasis original]

The use of expressions such as ‘central linguistic structure’ is ideologically strategic: it is used to refer to a monolithic model of British English to invoke erasure through selective disattention to (unruly) forms of linguistic variation and multilingualism within Britain and outside where English is used. The process of erasure thus permits a view of linguistic diversity, especially in the multilingual contexts of India and Nigeria, as pathological sociolinguistic chaos. Thus, writes Quirk (1990: 4): (9) …there is a more serious issue that I would like to address, and that is the profusion and (I believe) confusion of types of linguistic variety that are freely referred to in educational, linguistic, sociolinguistic, and literary critical discussion. [emphasis original]

Erasure is thus recursively applied first (8) to the British situation—constructing an opposition between Standard British English and local British English dialects— and then used to frame the discussion of the other, the “confusion” (9) and “deviant” (7) varieties of English spoken natively in India and Nigeria. This deficit discourse (excerpts (7–9) above), serviced through an appeal to the politics of nostalgia, denies the newly emerging varieties their legitimacy. In fact, as Romaine (1997) notes, these discourses have been regularly recruited ever since the eighteenth century when the unity of English was broken by the establishment of new national standards (United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa). The emergence of new standard Englishes (Indian, Nigerian, Singaporean, etc.) threatens the stability of the previously established ideological opposition—standard/non-standard, native/nonnative—and, therefore, these other standard varieties are actively erased in expert discourses about WE. Not all is well and ideology-free—it never is!—within the WE paradigm either. Part of the success of the process of the ideological representation of linguistic and disciplinary differentiation, discussed above, relies on the (unintended) complicity of WE experts in the linguistic politics of conformity. Rather than confronting internal variation within each variety (Bhatt, 2000; Canagarajah, 1999; Ramanathan, 1999), WE experts reify linguistic homogeneity in local contexts—via erasure—using iconic badges like Indian English, Nigerian English, Malaysian English, etc., in their descriptions of local varieties of English. The erasure of variation ‘within’ is necessitated by the focus on nation-based models of English, as in the Concentric Circles Model (Kachru, 1985), which, as Bruthiaux (2003): 161 argues, “conceals more than it reveals and runs the risk of being interpreted as license to dispense with analytic rigor.” A theoretical shift toward a demographic reduction, with a focus instead on the interactional patterns of different communities of practice and local networks, holds the possibility of describing the complexities of the sociolinguistics of Englishlanguage use in an increasingly globalized world (cf. Parakrama, 1995; Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 2003). This shift in perspective on WE has important implications: (i) it renders the dichotomizing discourse—native/non-native, standard/nonstandard—as theoretically uninteresting and invalid in the discussion of WE (Bhatt,

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2007; Mufwene, 1998; Singh, 2007); (ii) it displaces methodologies that use “inner circle” English varieties as a theoretical reference point for grammatical descriptions of new Englishes (Bhatt, 2000); (iii) it opens up a space for a description of English as a lingua franca (Jenkins, 2007; Seidlhofer, 2001); and finally, (iv) it affords a description of local linguistic acts of resistance, agency and appropriation that arise in response to the global hegemony of English in late modernity (Bhatt, 2008; Coupland, 2003; Pennycook, 2003). What seems to me to be critically needed in the studies of WE is engagement with the emerging field of the sociolinguistics of globalization (Blommaert, 2003; Coupland, 2003) in order for us to accomplish a comprehensive understanding of (a) the features of English that remain local and those that travel transnationally and (b) the interdependence of English and local languages in creating new semiotic opportunities for the speakers in new English contexts. In the next section, I discuss the issues of WE that arise in their engagement with globalization, focusing broadly on the local responses to the global linguistic hegemony of the English language—creating different and often new spaces of linguistic action.

3 WE and Globalization Globalization is, by and large, understood as the intensification of worldwide social relations that link distant localities to proximate ones (Giddens, 1990). In fact, as I have argued elsewhere (Bhatt, 2008, cf. also Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008), one of the defining features of globalization is the complex and multifaceted interaction of localism and globalism. In the context of WE, this, of course, necessitates a methodological shift away from practices of discovering Englishes for the sole purpose of “joining the communion with WE,” as, for instance, Proshina (2005: 437) offers in her introduction to Russian Englishes. Rather, the focus needs to be on the analysis of how certain features (identities, genres, systems) of local Englishes are re-shaped and re-negotiated under pressures of globalization, and to uncover social meanings of those features as they are activated in different global contexts. It is precisely in the interdependence of the global and the local that Coupland (2003: 466) correctly notes: The qualities of linguistically mediated social experience that define ‘local’ — inhabitation of social networks, social identities, senses of intimacy and community, differentials of power and control —all potentially carry an imprint from shifting global structures and relationships.

The interanimation of global and local presents new theoretical challenges to the study of WE, especially with regard to notions of space (geographic and social) and scales (global and local) (cf. Blommaert, 2005). A few examples should illustrate this point. The first example is an email—a specific speech form (Baron, 2003)— reproduced in its original form below in excerpt (10). The sender, UP (a pseudonym), is an Assistant English teacher in a high school in a rural town of West Bengal, India.

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(10) dear,sir i am UP,a rural school teacher in India.I did my masters in Eng.lit.and B.ed.I am interested in reading about cultural globalisation.Residing in a rural area I dont have privelege to undergo such. Your course-syllabus2005 (language in globalisation) is very interesting for me as i found the content while searching on net. Please suggest me some that i can study (undergose any course) from my place that will also help me in future and matches my interest. My university teacher are not intersting in my outlook and i have very little knowledge. recntly i got a pc and looking for my area of interest.I would be thankful if you guide me on the way. UP,assit teacher(eng.) bhotepatty high school,jalpaiguri,westbengal,India

What we are dealing with here is the sociolinguistics of global ‘mobility’ of a specific genre, email, which involves the notion of scale, theorized in Blommaert (2003, 2007) as hierarchically ranked, power-invested, stratified spaces. The function of this local production, and its translocal (e)valuation raise new, important questions for WE study; for example, does the value, meaning and function travel along with the form (as in (10) above) transnationally?, how does the linguistic form (of literacy practices) of this email fit into local economies of resources?, how does such form translate into sociolinguistic inequalities between local writers and transnational readership—the issue of relative value-scale (or transnational-hierarchical space), and indexical frames of perception? The putative answers to the questions raised above may be found in the ‘language display’ (Blommaert (2003: 618) in excerpt (10). English in the local, rural Indian context of (10) above is an ‘expensive’ resource that is used in the email to mobilize a request transnationally. The punitive reading of the text notwithstanding, the mobilization of the most valued resource, English, with the associated indexicalities of prestige, status and success in the local, rural economy of signs, becomes dysfunctional and loses its meaning when inserted in transnational networks of communication—a matter of differences, or movement, between indexically connected (micro and macro) scales. Consequently, as Blommaert (2003: 619) cautions us, “a sociolinguistics of globalization should look into such processes of reallocation, the remapping of forms over function, for it may be central to the various forms of inequality that also characterizes globalization processes.” Sociolinguistic scales as an analytic tool can thus be recruited productively in the study of the distribution, spread and flow of different genres of WE in a global context. One of the most widely globalized genres of WE that has drawn some attention recently is hip hop, especially with respect to language choices—English and local languages. The linguistic choices relate to the issues of identity politics and power struggles within the local contexts of the use of this global cultural product (cf. Berger & Carroll, 2003; Lee & Kachru, 2006). Pennycook’s (2003) discussion of Japanese rappers Rip Slyme’s rap ‘Bring Your Style,’ for instance, probes the larger questions of agency, identity and the politics of representation. Blending African American speech styles with the Japanese language, the rap artists accomplish two functional goals: (i) they manage to organize a genre that is simultaneously global— connecting with transnational social networks identified as hip-hop culture—and local, expressive of Japanese language and culture; and, more importantly, (ii) they

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employ the language-blend locally as a form of ‘resistance vernacular’ (cf. Potter, 1995). Other, similar, creative articulations of WE genre of hip hop appear in East African (Perullo & Fenn, 2003) and West African (and diaspora) hip hop (Omoniyi, 2006), and in East Asian hip hop (Condry, 2000; Lee, 2006). In these local genres of hip hop, one notices a semiotic process of social production of difference: the local (and translocal) African hip hop departs from the ‘core’ in its rejection of features that characterize the mainstream gangsta rap norms such as heavy sexualization, misogyny, politics and monolingualism (Omoniyi, 2006, cf. also Perullo & Fenn, 2003). The linguistic production of difference in this genre, on the other hand, relies heavily on the specific sociolinguistic choices that the artists make. The most dominant paradigm of difference is serviced by code-switching: the use of local languages in the global medium, English, extends the meaning potential of this genre to produce local indexicalities (cf. Omoniyi, 2006). The interanimation of local and global in the genre of hip-hop is most clearly exemplified by the American-South Asian rap group Soul Tap whose latest production, ‘Be Easy (Koi Naa),’ a fusion of Punjabi (and some Malayalam) and English hip hop, was one of the three finalists with a shot at being featured in the Super Bowl XLII in Arizona, U.S.A., on Sunday, February 3, 2008. The group is composed of rapper Alvin “Nivla” Augustine, Punjabi folk singer Parag “P. Oberoi” Oberoi, Sharad “DJ Sharad” Bhavani and sound engineer Raj “RVM Sounds” Makhija. In (11) below, I present a short excerpt of the beginning of the rap lyrics (see http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=64JGSpSSqnE). The italicized lyrics in (11) are in Punjabi, sung by the Punjabi folk singer Parag Oberoi and the English lyrics are sung by Alvin Augustine, both residents of New Jersey, U.S.A. (11) Be Easy (Koi Naa)

Lines

Lyrics

(1)

Ladies and gentlemen

(2)

Get you’re a** on the dance floor

(3)

Soultap records proudly presents

(4)

o ki mEN chuuTh boleyaa

“Did I ever lie (to you)”

(5)

Koi naa (chorus)

“Not at all”

(6)

o ki mEn kufar toleyaa

“Did I raise a storm”

(7)

Koi naa (chorus)

“Not at all”

(8)

o ki mEn dil todeyaa

“Did I break a heart”

(9)

Koi naa (chorus)

“Not at all”

(10)

Bhai koi naa (chorus)

“Not at all”

Repeat chorus (11)

Yeah, uh, yo

(12)

Baby you workin’ with some movers and shakers

(13)

And music entrepreneurs

Translation

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(14)

So baby move it and shake it

(15)

We got the track pumpin’

(16)

Got your back bumpin’ just a little bit

(17)

Road, take a little hit

(18)

Beef, better settle it

(19)

‘Cause my persona

(20)

I ain’t here for no drama

(21)

Just want some Sex on the Beach

(22)

While you sippin’ Bahama Mamas

(23)

Maybe Piña Coladas

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The rap music in (11) juxtaposes two linguistic communities, American and diaspora Indian, to demonstrate an articulation of interdependence in the new political economy of globalized signs. This Indian-fused bilingual East Coast rap accomplishes a number of sociolinguistic functions: (a) it represents and consolidates the previous efforts of Jay-Z and Panjabi MC’s collaboration on the “Beware of the Boys” track a few years ago, thus establishing and consolidating a particular niche—diaspora rap—in the genre of hip hop; (b) it allows the semiotization of unique indexicalities that points to the sociolinguistic consequences of demographic mobility and of modern social formations in the globalized context; (c) it shows accommodation of cultural specificities; (d) it demonstrates how members of diaspora population navigate and perform their dual identities; and, most importantly, (e) it illustrates, par excellence, effects of disembedding in the use of Punjabi language (lines 4–10), the “lifting out” (Giddens, 1991, cf. also Coupland, 2003) of a song-dance sequence from an old Hindi (Bollywood) movie, Do Bund Pani ‘two drops of water’—a performance indexically linked to a powerful social critique of that time—and its re-articulation across time and space, assigning new sociolinguistic meanings to those items in recontextualization, viz., laidback, leisure and good time. The notion of ‘scales’ thus becomes a useful analytical tool to unpack the various indexicalities and ideological representations bundled up in such genred performances. Another globalized genre worth investigating is the online news, which demonstrates how WE recreate, maintain or represent more faithfully local-cultural practices and culturally embedded meanings via the process of code-switching. In excerpt (12) below, taken from Times of India news-brief, www.timesofindia.com, Oct 12, 2001, we notice a strategic use of Hindi in English to create new semiotic opportunities for Indian English users (Bhatt, 2008). (12) There have been several analyses of this phenomenon. First, there is the ‘religious angle’ which is to do with Indian society. In India a man feels guilty when fantasizing about another man’s wife, unlike in the west. The saat pheras around the agni serves as a lakshman rekha.

The italicized Hindi phrases in (12) appear without any gloss. The switch to Hindi in the bilingual mode of this news-feature presentation realizes a significant pragmatic function, recalling the local-cultural practices of the past within the global medium of

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news reporting in English. The Hindi words in (12)—saat pheras (‘seven circumnavigations during a wedding ceremony’), agni (‘fire’) and lakshman rekha (‘a line that one never crosses’)—are rooted in the most important historical narratives (Vedas) and the great Hindu epic (the Ramayana) of India. A full appreciation of the text therefore demands knowledge of the Sanskrit Vedic traditions and cultural-historical literacy of the indigenous people. The switch to Hindi thus produces an immediate, authentic and particularized interpretation of meaning among the bilingual readership of the Indian English newspaper. Such strategic uses of local languages in English reflect a new socio-ideological consciousness, a new way to negotiate and navigate between a global identity and local sociohistorical practices (Bhatt, 2008). As with hip hop, code-switching in the globalized genre of online WE newspapers serves to communicate a kind of multiplicity that is highly contextual, a new habitus representing for its speakers a new, slightly altered representation of social order (Bhatt, 2008). The discursive mechanisms of globalization discussed above therefore demand a theoretical reorientation in the sociolinguistics of WE; especially, a focus on the different ways in which English permeates local linguistic practices, reorganizes genres and creates new semiotic opportunities for its users—both locally and translocally.

4 Conclusion: Toward a Politics of Possibility The sociolinguistic phenomenon of WE in the era of globalization is becoming less predictable and more complicated. In order for us to understand the various complexes of sociolinguistic nuances of the acquisition and use of Englishes, we need to liberate the field of WE from the orthodoxies of the past and instead connect it to a more general theory of the sociolinguistics of globalization, along the lines discussed above. The expert discourses on WE in the past, and present, need to be constantly investigated, using the theoretical framework developed above, to move the field forward from a politics of conformity—uncritical acceptance of received wisdom—to a politics of possibility, of growth and of dialogue across intellectual (and even ideological) fault-lines. The theoretical position defended in this paper echoes Quirk’s earlier position on WE (1985: 3), more urgent now in the context of globalization: “different standards for different occasions for different people—and each as ‘correct’ as any other.” In the (late-)modern global system of capitalist economy based on market trade and commodification, the more linguistic capital the speakers of new Englishes possess, by virtue of creating their own intellectual and cultural property, the more they are able to exploit the system of differences to their advantage (Bhatt, 2001b). Globalization thus offers the critical space for local Englishes to secure the profit of ‘distinction’ as their speakers invest their creative and communicative potential freely in global linguistic markets in anticipation of cultural, economic and eventually symbolic, profit. This fact, of course, is not lost on some ‘inner circle’ intellectuals who recognize the importance of changes in global English. Jones and Bradwell (2007: 12),

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in the much-discussed ‘Demos’ report, note: “Where we once directed the spread of English around the world, we are now just one of many shareholders in the asset that it represents.” In their model, English does not belong to a single nationality, but is in the hands of lots of different groups, all with their own stake in English, using the language to serve their own ends. This position on the globalization of WE replaces the politics of conformity with a politics of possibility, as I have argued above. In conclusion, I have argued that the study of WE, if properly theorized, holds the key to the various understandings of the processes of linguistic globalization: the complexity and simultaneity of linguistic choices, the commodification of linguistic forms and functions, the worldwide patterns and stratifications of English-language acquisition and use, and the creative potential of bilingual English users.

Notes This is a slightly revised version of a book chapter that appeared in Saxena, M. & T. Omoniyi (eds.) 2010. Contending with Globalization in World Englishes. Bristol, U.K.: Multilingual Matters. Also, parts of this chapter appear in Bhatt, R. M. (2019). The poetics and politics of Englishes in late modernity, World Englishes Vol 38, Issue 1–2, pp-41–52.

References Baron, N. (2003). Why email looks like speech: Proofreading, pedagogy and public face. In J. Aitchison & D. Lewis (Eds.), New media language (pp. 85–94). Routledge. Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies (A. Lavers, Trans.). The Noonday Press. Berger, H., & Carroll, M. T. (Eds.). (2003). Global pop, local languages. University Press of Mississippi. Bhatt, R. M. (2000). Optimal expressions in Indian English. English Language and Linguistics, 4, 69–95. Bhatt, R. M. (2001a). World Englishes. Annual Review of Anthropology, 30, 527–550. Bhatt, R. M. (2001b). Language economy, standardization, and world Englishes. In E. Thumboo (Ed.), The three circles of English (pp. 401–422). UniPress. Bhatt, R. M. (2002). Experts, dialects, and discourse. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12(1), 74–109. Bhatt, R. M. (2005). Expert discourses, local practices, and hybridity: The case of Indian Englishes. In S. Canagarajah (Ed.), Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice (pp. 25–54). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bhatt, R. M. (2007). On the native/non-native distinction. In R. Singh (Ed.), The annual review of South Asian languages and linguistics (pp. 55–71). Mouton de Gruyter. Bhatt, R. M. (2008). In other words: Language mixing, identity representations, and third space. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(2), 1–24. Bhatt, R. M. (2019). The poetics and politics of Englishes in late modernity. World Englishes, 38, 41–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12392 Blommaert, J. (2003). Commentary: A sociolinguistics of globalization. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 607–623. Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical reader. Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2007). Sociolinguistic scales. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(1), 1–19.

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Mesthrie, R., & Bhatt, R. M. (2008). World Englishes: A study of new varieties of language. Cambridge University Press. Mufwene, S. (1994). New Englishes and the criteria for naming them. World Englishes, 13, 21–31. Mufwene, S. (1998). Native speaker, proficient speaker, and norm. In R. Singh (Ed.), Native speaker: Multilingual perspectives. Sage. Omoniyi, T. (2006). Hip-hop through the world Englishes lens: A response to globalization. World Englishes, 25(2), 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0083-2919.2006.00459.x Parakrama, A. (1995). De-hegemonizing language standards. Macmillan. Pennycook, A. (2003). Global Englishes, Rip Slyme, and performativity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 513–533. Perullo, A., & Fenn, J. (2003). Language ideologies, choices, and practices in Eastern African hip hop. In H. Bernger & M. Carroll (Eds.), Global pop, local language (pp. 19–33). University Press of Mississippi. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford University Press. Pierre, B. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Harvard University Press. Platt, J., Weber, H., & Ho, M. L. (1984). The new Englishes. Routledge. Potter, R. (1995). Spectacular vernaculars. SUNY Press. Prator, C. (1968). The British heresy in TESOL. In J. Fishman, C. Ferguson, & Gupta, J. D. (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations (pp. 459–476). Wiley. Pride, J. (1982). New Englishes. Newbury House Publishers. Proshina, Z. (2005). Russian Englishes. World Englishes, 24(4), 437–438. Quirk, R. (1985). The English language in a global context. In R. Quirk & H. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures (pp. 1–6). Cambridge University Press. Quirk, R. (1990). Language varieties and standard language. English Today, 21, 3–10. Ramanathan, V. (1999). “English is here to stay”: A critical look at institutional and educational practices in India. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 211–231. Romaine, S. (1997). The British heresy in ESL revisited. In S. Eliasson, E. Jahr (Eds.), Language and its ecology (pp. 417–432). Mouton de Gruyter Rushdie, 1982. Seidlhofer, B. (2001). Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11, 133–158. Singh, R. (2007). On nature structure and status of Indian English. In R. Singh (Ed.), Annual Review of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (pp. 33–46). Mouton de Gruyter. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education, or worldwide diversity and human rights. Lawrence Erlbaum. Sridhar, S. N. (1992). The ecology of bilingual competence: Language interaction in indigenized varieties of English. World Englishes, 11, 141–150.

Representation, Narration, and Appropriateness in Hindi–Urdu Fiction Anjani Kumar Sinha

What constitutes narration is the representation of at least one or more real or fictive events and situations in a time sequence where “neither of which presupposes or entails the other” (Prince, 1982, 4). There is an unanimity among the narratologists not only regarding the constitution of narration as the representation of events, but also concerning the importance and role of representation in the definition of narratology’s subject matter. They, however, differ on account of the amount of variation within this representational view (Richardson, 2000). For instance, according to Gerard Gennette, a leading figure of the structuralist narratology, “a narrative needs only one event,” while there are others who “insist on a series of events linked by causality” (Rudrum, 2005, p. 196). Following the representation is the notion of appropriateness, which renders suitability or proper ordering in the context for turning the virtual world into real. Further, it is the context that provides a setting for an idea to be fully understood as appropriate, thus enabling or facilitating a good narration make a world of make-believe real. This paper takes the concepts of “representation,” “narration” and “appropriateness” to analyze extracts from select Hindi–Urdu fictions, namely Rahi Masoom Raza’s Aadha Gaaon (‘A Divided Village’), Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Dariya (‘River of Fire’) and Daalanwaalaa, Shrilal Shukl’s Raag Darbaari and Phanishwar Nath Renu’s Teesri Kasam and Panchlight. While taking about representation, Fodor (1981: 26) makes the following points: 1. (a) Propositional attitudes are relational. (b) Among the relata are mental representations (often called ‘ideas’ in the older literature). (c) Mental representations are symbols: They have both formal and semantic properties. (d) Mental representations have their causal roles by virtue of their formal properties. A. K. Sinha (B) University of Delhi, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_5

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(e)

Proportional attitudes inherit their semantic properties from those of mental representations that function as their objects.

Fodor’s view that propositional attitudes are representational implies the existence of mental representations which function (approximately) as objects of those states. One may simplify the idea by suggesting that the relation between a thought and what it is a thought about can be accounted for by assuming that idioms are like pictures and resemble their referents. Psycholinguistics talks about a phenomenon called “frequency effect,” which states that the speech of one’s response to a flashed word is proportional to the relative frequency with which the token of the word occurs in corpora of one’s language. For instance, the word find elicits faster responses than the word, discern. The speaker of a language has a mental lexicon (a list of words) in that language. The theory suggests that recognizing a word involves being related in a certain way to a mental representation of that word. Just as there are mental representations of words, there are mental representations of propositions, more accurately, of propositional attitudes, which are expressed as sentences. Different utterances (i.e. sentences) may have the same propositional contents, the same way as different words (i.e. synonyms) may be tokens of the same mental representation; that is, words or sentences may be formally different but semantically equivalent. “Representationalism” stands for the doctrine that thought is the manipulation of mental representation which corresponds to external states or objects. If that is true, thought cannot be separated from the vehicle of thought. The notion that thought can be quite apart from the vehicle of thought is, to quote Q.D. Leaves, “a superstition” based on classical poetics. In other words, what is said and how it is said are not distinguishable. Nevertheless, we do come across a genuine expression such as “I did not mean to say so” with reference to an utterance, which clearly suggests that the speaker thinks that the vehicle of representation used by him has not been appropriately chosen. If every utterance conveys what is exactly intended to be conveyed, the expression: “What oft was Thought, but was ne’er so well exprest, Something, whose Truth convinced at Sight we find, That gives us back the image of our Mind” would be considered superfluous.1 The idea discussed above leads us to the concept of appropriateness which means “suitable or proper in the context.” If an expression is chosen carefully and expressed in a proper order, we admire its appropriateness (aptness/suitability). The term context2 refers to circumstances that form a setting for an idea to be fully understood in its own terms. If an expression is apt, it forms a unified whole and is logical 1

These lines are quoted from Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” whose work established the wit of the eighteenth century poetry and made him recognised as a sharp-penned satirist of public figures. His other immensely quotable phrases are “To err is human; to forgive, divine,” “A little learning is a dang’rous thing” and “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” 2 Firth (1935/1957) holds the view that ‘context’ involves both ‘grammatical context’ and ‘context of situation.’ The former is suggested by the morphological and syntactic manipulation of grammatical units and the latter comprises ‘contexts of culture.’ However, he does not separate the two because the linguistic function of the former is always realized in the context of the latter.

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and consistent. Such an expression is considered to be coherent.3 In other words, what is considered to be coherent must be appropriate in a given context which can be a real world that is physically verifiable or a world of make-believe, that is a world which appears to be referential. In the real world, we comment on an utterance by referring to our empirical knowledge of the context; the world of make-believe is created by a writer or a narrator. Such a narrator is a man who does not just tell us something; rather, he tells something by making something. He describes imaginary events and characters in a way that makes them appear to be real. The word fiction refers to a piece of literature (or a form of prose writing) that describes something imaginary.4 The adjective fictional refers to fiction (i.e. invented for the purpose of fiction) but the adjective fictitious has two meanings. It refers to something that is not real or true; i.e., it is imaginary or fabricated. It also refers to characters and events found in a fiction. It is this ambiguity of the word that tells us something remarkable about the relationship between representation, narration and appropriateness in fiction. A novelist moves cautiously from the real world to the fictional world and takes pains to conceal the movement. He creates characters and provides them with a context of particularity. He orders them in such a way that they do not violate our sense of probability in the empirical world. Though Kafka’s Metamorphosis begins with a counterfactual premise that a man can turn into an insect, its consequences are shown in a world where everything else is the same. The hero retains his human consciousness but people react to him as real people would react to a giant insect. As Pinker (1977: 541) observes, “characters in a fictitious world do exactly what our intelligence allows us to do in the real world.” In short, he creates a fictional likeness of the real world. This paper is intended to examine how he does so while keeping in mind that fictional world is a verbal world in which it is represented. The fiction writer attains his goal by adhering to concrete particularity, which includes particularity of circumstances, not only temporal but also spatial and psychological. The author sees to it that they are consistent with each other. Characters perform in a world which can be described spatially and temporally in the same way as the world we live in. The circumstantial particularity of a novel suggests that the fictional life is a bit of real life which is going on somewhere, though we may not have heard about it before. Circumstantial matching of fiction with facts provides the necessary context in which the author achieves complicated and profound effects. As a narrative5 is a spoken or written account of connected events, it is desirable to find out what kind of devices makes connectivity gripping, i.e. what firmly holds our attention or interest while going through a fiction. A good narrative is not just 3

For a detailed discussion on coherence and cohesion, see Halliday and Hasan (1976). Another meaning of fiction is something that is invented or untrue, as in “The prince and his wife were supposed to keep the fiction that they were happily married”; it also means “a belief or statement which is false but is often held to be true because it is expedient to do so” as in “The notion of this country being a democracy is a polite fiction” The three meanings of fiction do not seem to be completely unrelated. 5 For a detailed structuralist approach to the notion of narration, see Scholes (1974), Scholes and Kellog (1966), Todorov (1971) and Fowler (1977). 4

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a sequence of events; it enables the reader to live through such a sequence. As a consequence, he retains it without much effort. As Lodge (1966) observes, “we do tend to recall a novel not as a system of words, images, symbols (and) sounds, but in terms of actions, situation (and) settings and we find the terms ‘plot’ and ‘character’ indispensable.” However, all these are communicated by linguistic means, i.e. by the use of words, images and symbols. Long back in 1937, Christopher Caudwell observed, “The poem and the story both use sounds which make images of our reality and affective reverberations, but in a poetry the affective reverberations are organized by the structure of the language, while in the novel they are organized by the structure of the outer reality portrayed.” The point can be well-appreciated if we refer to the fact that after reading a poem, we can easily recall its words, images and symbols but after reading a fiction, we easily recall its theme, the element that recurs in it or pervades it. Anyone who has read Aadha Gaaon authored by Rahi Masoom Raza will recall that it deals with the agony of a divided house where ‘half the village’ is a symbol of a divided village, a clashing clan or a divided country. This can be seen from the following passage from Aadha Gaaon: Yeh upanayaas vaastav mein meraa ek safar hai. mæ ghaazipuur kii talaash mein niklaa huun, lekin pehle mæ apnii gangoli mein Thahruungaa. agar gangoli kii haqiiqat pakaR mein aa gayii toh mæ ghaazipuur ka ‘epic’ likhne kaa saahas karuunga. yeh upanayaas vaastav mein us epic (mahaakaavya) kii bhumikaa kaa hai. (“This upanayas in reality is my travelogue. I am in search of Ghazipur, but before that will stay in gangoli. If I could be able to find the reality of gangoli, then will venture to write an epic on Ghazipur. This upanayas is in reality a background plot of mahakavya.”) Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Darya6 symbolizes the consequence of partition, especially for ‘muhajirs,’ those who crossed the border, i.e. the river of fire. One who has read Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbaari will easily recall that the novel is not woven around the raga of this name nor does it deal with any musical concert. Whether one enjoys reading it for its pervading social satire or feels appalled at the levels of sycophancy presented throughout the novel, one can easily point out what it is about. A fiction has a theme which is developed with the help of motifs.7 They represent designs and form a pattern. A specific motif may be manifested by one event or a series of events. For instance, Phanishwarnath Renu’s long story Tiisari Kasam (‘The third vow’) has a theme which binds three motifs, each asserting what Hiraman, the 6

Qurratulain Hyder, the most prominent Urdu novelist and short story writer and a recipient of Jnanpith Award, is regarded as the ‘Grande Dame’ of Urdu literature. This novel is said to be one of the best written Urdu novels of the Indian subcontinent, which is even comparable to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 7 In a fiction the major theme can be seen as composed of ‘similar thematic units called motifs. Scholes (1974:78) observes, “The story can be defined as a sum of motifs in the causal chronological order, the plot as the sum of the same motifs ordered so as to engage the emotions and develop the theme.” Motifs can be bound or free, static or dynamic.

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protagonist, is not ready to do. He vowed that he would not carry smuggled goods; he had lost his cart when he ran away with his oxen from the scene during a police raid. He also vowed that he would not carry unchopped bamboo canes because its protrusion may cause inconvenience to others on road and that may lead to a scuffle. At the end of the story, he vows not to carry any female professional dancer on his cart because he may develop tender feelings for her and parting with her may be very painful. The main body of the story tells us how innocent young man is deeply affected by the behavior of a tenderhearted and humane dancing girl, the detailed narration of which has a deep impact on the reader. Nothing is overtly romantic; yet, the sense of imagined romance is there, not a bit exaggerated not a bit understated. The landscape is rural, the characters have the attitudes of those living in the backwaters of Purnia in Bihar; they are ignorant and superstitious but have a robust commonsense. Their rusticity is indicated by the words used to provide the landscape and in the expressions used by the characters in conversation. The ‘gramophone’ is phonogilas, ‘marvelous’ is adbhut, ‘to see with open eyes’ is jugur jugur ankhon se heranaa and ‘to listen attentively’ is kaan cuniyaakar sunaanaa. Hiraman, the cart driver, is aware of his linguistics limitation but he does not consider it a handicap. He is fully convinced that one can have an intimate conversation only in a natural language, which in his case is a local dialect. The standard language is formal; it is at best the language of the court. 2. Hiraman ke saamne sawaal upasthit huaa, vah kyaa kehkar gap kare hiirabai se? ‘tohe’ kahe yaa ‘ahaan’? Uskii bhaashaa mein baRon ko ‘ahaan’ arthaart ‘aap’ kahkar sambodhit kiya jaata hai. Kacharaahi bolii mein do chaar sawaal jawaab chal saktaa hai, dil-kholkar gap to gaaon kii bolii mein hii kii jaa saktii hai kisii se. (p. 121) (“Question occurred in the mind of Hiraman; how should he initiate an informal talk with Hirabai? Should he use tohe or ahaan? In his language ahaan i.e. aap is used to address elders. Although one can ask a few questions in the language of the court, for an intimate conversation one has to use only a rural dialect.”) Since Hirabai, the dancing girl, is from Kanpur, she cannot use the regional dialect. Hiraman uses a sort of standard Hindi which has profusion of regional words. When Hirabai uses a regional expression, Hiraman is overwhelmed; for him, it is a signal of intimacy. Her interest in his folk songs deepens it further. Thus, Renu takes us to a world of languages where the rural dialect is not contrasted with the standard dialect, but the former merges into the latter, which is in tune with the theme of the story: a rural youngman established a close rapport with an urban girl. The narrative is full of simple sentences which have a natural flow, as in (3) 3. Ghar mein baRaa bhaai hai. Khetii kartaa hai. Baal bachche waalaa aadmi hai. Hiraman bhaai se baRhkar bhaabhii kii izzat kartaa hai. Bhaabhi se Dartaa bhii hai. Hiraman ki bhii shaadii huii thii, bachpan mein hii gaaone ke pehle hii dulhan mar gayi. Hiraman ko apni dulhan ka chehraa yaad nahin. (p.122)

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“((He has) an elder brother at home (who) is a farmer (and) has children. Hiraman respects his sister-in-law more than his brother. (He) is also afraid of her. Hiraman also got married, but his wife expired before ‘gauna’ in childhood. He don’t even remember the face of her.”) As is obvious, the language of (3) is colloquial and natural which leaves behind the information that the listener can fill in from the context (e.g. the deleted subject of some clauses). The use of a simple language does not mean that Hiraman cannot communicate effectively. He knows how to manipulate the word order in Hindi to foreground8 what he wants to emphasize, as in (4): 4. a. Naam meraa hai Hiraman. (p. 121) a’ Mera naam Hiraman hai. “My name is Hiraman.” b. Wahii hai Namlagar9 DeoRhii. (p. 123) b’ Wahii Ramnagar DeoRhii hai. “That is Ramnagar Mansion.” c. Kitne dinoN kaa hauslaa puura huaa hai Hiraman kaa. (p. 128). c’. Hiraman kaa kitne dinoN kaa hauslaa puura huaa hai. “A long awaited ambition of Hireaman has been fulfilled.” d. Aise kitne sapne dekhe hain usne. (p. 128). d’. Usne aise kitne sapne dekhe hain. “He has dreamt like this so many times.” e. Har aangan se jhaankkar dekh rahii hain aurtein. (p. 128). e’. Har aangan se aurtein jhaankkar dekh rahii hain. “Women are peeping out of every courtyard.” f. Uskii dulhan Dolii kaa pardaa thoDaa sarkaakar dekhtii hai aur bhii kitne sapne. (p. 128). f’. Dolii kaa pardaa thoDaa sarkaakar uskii dulhan aur bhii kitne sapne dekhtii hai. “His bride peeps out of the curtain and sees many more dreams like this.” g. Lekin wo bhog chukaa hai eikbaar. (p. 128). g’. Lekin wo eikbaar bhog chukaa hai. “But he has experienced it once.” h. Janaanaa jaat akelii rahegii gaaRi par? (‘Kuchh bhi ho, janaanaa hii hai. Koii jaruu.

8

The term foregrounding (in Czech, aktualisance) was first emphasized by Jan Mukarovsky, a Prague School formalist. He asserted that foregrounding emphasized not only the message but also the expression used to convey it, Foregrounding occurs at the levels of phonology, morphology and syntax. 9 The substitution of “Ramnagar” by “Namlagar” is metathesis which may be taken as an example of phonological foregrounding. Hiraman cannot speak the name properly but the name of the place is so important for him that he easily recalls it, though in a distorted from.

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rat hii paD jaae.’10 ) (p-134). h’. (Kyaa) janaanaa jaat akelii gaaRi par rahegii? (‘Kuchh bhi ho, janaanaa hii hai. Koii. jaruurat hii paD jaae.’). “Will the woman remain on the cart alone?” i. (‘Hiraman chalte-chalte ruk gayaa – ‘kyaa karein Lalmohar bhai, jar kaho toh! Badii. jid karti hai, nautanki dekhnaa hii hogaa. fokat mein hii?’11 ) Aur gaaon tak nahiin. pahucegii yeh baat? (p-134). i’. (‘Hiraman chalte-chalte ruk gayaa – ‘kyaa karein Lalmohar bhai, jar kaho toh! Badii. jid kartii hai, nautanki dekhnaa hii hogaa. fokat mein hai?’) Aur (kyaa) gaaon tak. yeh baat nahiin pahucegii? “(Do you think) the news will not reach the village?” In (4a–i) we have the sentences used in the narration; (4 a’-i’) are their equivalent sentences in the normal word order. The deviation from the norm helps the writer to bring into focus the constituents he wants to emphasize. In short, the analysis of Tiisari Kasam given above shows not only how its theme is developed but also how much this development is inalienably conveyed through appropriate choice of words (with their regional variants) and manipulation of syntactic structures. While discussing the organization of experience, Erving Goffman (1974) used the analogy of frames. According to him, every creative work has a “primary frame” which renders “what would be otherwise a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful.” It allows us to locate, perceive, identify and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its term. A primary framework has astounding complexity which can be resolved by using ‘keys’ and ‘keyings’; the key refers to the central concept and the keying refers to the orientation, which leads us to the scheme of its interpretation. In other words, while analyzing a fiction, we should point out what its framework is and how it has been fabricated. The world of make-believe needs keys to enter its structure, and it is the job of the reader to locate them and unlock the door. The fabricated framework may have only one door for entry and exit, but it had many windows. As each window provides a different view from the outside, there may be different viewpoints about what the house of fiction contains, though essentially it contains the same thing, what we have earlier called the theme. Structuralists of different hues take delight in unraveling (or

10

The narration within the parenthesis is left untranslated. It represents the entire conversation between the protagonist, Hiraman, and another character called Palatdas. 11 The untranslated narration within the parenthesis is between Hiraman and Lalmohar. It is essential to provide a background for establishing the manipulation in the word order in Hindi by the protagonist to foreground what he wants to emphasise.

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deconstructing) the framework but mere deconstruction gives us pieces of unconnected frames or unconnected episodal narrations. Breaking the frame is relatively easy but reassembling them without errors is difficult since it is a complex activity. While rebuilding the house of fiction, one has to focus at how mental representations of perceived experiences are communicated through narrative, i.e. what devices have been used to make the structure durable, appealing and reliable. The complexity of the point discussed above may be illustrated by analyzing the complexity of a seemingly simple short story of Phanishwar Nath Renu, Panchlight. In a remote corner of Purina there is a village where people of different castes live in separate neighborhoods. There are eight panchayats (a village council vested with local authority to control over the large distribution system). Almost each of them has their own carpets (durries), spreadsheets (Jazim) and petromax, which is aptly called Panchlight. Only one community does not have it. Its panches decide to buy one because it is a matter of honor for them not to borrow it from others when they need it. They buy it and bring it to their village. The event calls for a celebration and pooja and kirtan are organized in the evening. However, none of them knows how to light the petromax, neither the panches nor the diwan. It is already dark, and everyone feels dejected. There is a young man, Godhna, there among them who knows how to do it but he is an outcaste because he sings film songs and is reported to have made advances to Munri, a girl of that community. When the punches come to know about it, they call for him. He lights the petromax. The outcaste becomes a hero because he has enhanced the honor of the community. The story is rather straightforward, but it assumes extraordinary complexity if we look at the dynamics of inter-caste rivalry in the village. And Renu represents it in a subtle manner. When the punches are coming back from the village fair with the petromax, one of the Brahmins of the village asks them, “How much did you pay for this lantern”? The expression lantern used by the village Brahmin is construed negatively by the members of this community. They resented to its use for it belittled the honor and prestige associated with the patromax. Their resentment is natural; these Brahmins call their own dhibri an ‘electric bulb’ but their petromax, a lantern. The news spread in the village that this community does not know how to light the petromax. The upper caste found reasons to laugh at it and make fun of their ignorance. Renu captures this moment of derision through the following narration: 5. Eik naujavaan ne aakar suuchnaa dii- Rajput tolii ke log haNsate haNste paagal ho rahe hain. Kehte hain “Kaan pakaRkar panchlight ke saamne paanch baar uTho baitho, turant jalne lagegaa.” (p.40). “One young man informed (the community) - the people from Rajput group are madly laugh. ing and saying sarcastically that ‘Hold your ears and push up in front of the petromax five. times, it will light up on its own immediately’.” Not only upper caste people but even Rudal Bania makes fun of them. The primary frame of Panchlight cannot be appreciated unless the secondary frames involving the

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attitudes of other castes are brought in. These secondary frames seem to break the primary frame, but they do not; rather, they enhance the significance of the purpose of buying the petromax. Even the episode of suppressed love between Godhana and Munri increases the intensity of the sense of honor: to protect the modesty of their own girl is a matter of honor and any outsider transgressing it is declared to be an outcaste. However, the honor of the community gets more priority than the honor of an individual. Since Godhana helps in enhancing that honor of the community, he is forgiven, What is panchlight about then: about the purchase of a petromax or increasing the honor of the community? Renu does not have to give a direct answer; he does so by turning the petromax into a symbol of honor. If so, to conclude that we remember a poem for its words, images and symbols and a fiction for only its events is missing a vital point. Even while we highlight the significance of themes and motifs in fiction, we cannot ignore their symbolic value and to that extent we cannot differentiate between the language of poetry and that of fiction. Not only similes and metaphors, even other rhetorical devices, such as deletion, repetition, parallelism and chiasmus are used in Hindi–Urdu fiction effectively. They are devices to highlight what the author wants to emphasize. Inversion and other transformational devices are also used to enhance the effect of what is in focus. When an author wants to take the reader to the past, he does not have to say so explicitly; it may be suggested by implication. In a story called “Daalanwala” Qurratulain Hyder talks about a poor Anglo-Indian. His daughter Diana sells tickets for film-shows at a counter in a local cinema hall. She has only four frocks but she washes and presses them regularly herself and is always seen properly dressed. In this colony of retired officials, their wives pass their time gossiping. Mrs Farooqi and Mrs. Jaswant Singh would often wonder: 6. Cinemahall kii naukarii se use kewal pacchiis rupaye milte hain aur wo kaise ThaT se kapRe pahantii hai. Use gore paise dete hain. “She gets only Rs. 25 (as salary) from cinema hall but she dresses so well. The white people give her money.” Their assumption that she got money from the white people, i.e. the British, suggests that temporally the story is located in colonial British India.12 These ladies consider their conjecture to be a fact, that is why they do not use a modal verb as in (7a); rather, they use the present indicative as in (7b): 7a. Use gore paise dete honge. “The white people might be giving her money.” 7b. Use gore paise dete hain. “The white people give her money.”

12

The fact that Diana is paid only Rupees twenty five per month also suggests that the story is temporally located in a distant past when salary was low because of economic depression.

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The launching of the theme usually suggests what kind of narration is going to unfold. For instance, let us look at the opening paragraph of Raag Darbari by Shrilal Shukls, as in example (8): 8. Shahar kaa kinaaraa. Use chhoRate hii Bharatiya-dehaat kaa mahaasaagar shuruu ho jaataa thaa. Wahaan eik truck khaRaa thaa. Use dekhte hii yakiin ho jaataa thaa, iskaa janm kewal saRakon ke saath balaatkaar karne ke liye huaa hai. Jaise ki satya ke kaki ruup hote hain, us truck ke bhii kaii pahluu the. Pulis waale use eik orse dekhkar kah sakte the ki wo saRak ke biic mein khaRaa hai. Dusari orse dekh kar driver kah saktaa thaa ki wo saRak ke kinaare par hai. Chaluu fashion ke hisaab se driver ne truck kaa darwaaza kholkar, Daine ki tarah phailaa diyaa thaa. Is se truck kii khuubsuuratii baRh gayii thii; saath hii yeh khataraa mit gayaa thaa ki uske wahaan hote hue duusari sawaRii bhii saRak ke uupar se nikal sakatii hai. “The edge of the city beyond which began the great ocean of Indian village, there was a truck there. A mere sight of it made one believe that it was born only to outrage the modesty of the road. Just as truth has many aspects, so had this truck. Looking at it from one angle, the police would say that it was standing in the middle of the road, from another angle, the driver could claim that it was parked by the side of the road. As was the current fashion, the driver had opened the door of the truck and spread it like the wings of a bird which had enhanced its beauty. At the same time the danger of another vehicle passing by it was eliminated.” The matter is very simple. There is a truck standing in the middle of the road at the outskirt of a town and its right-hand door is open in such a way that no other vehicle could pass by. However, Shukla makes this simple scene complex by making the situation problematic: was the truck on the middle of the road? “Yes,” in the eyes of the policeman, ‘no’ from the point of view of the driver. Did the location of the truck make it dangerous for other passing vehicles? No, because no vehicle could pass by because of the open door. Every statement in the paragraph has a logic of its own but it is perverse: It is contrary to what is expected in a civil society: That is why the use of the word balaatkaar ‘rape’ is apt with reference to the road. The scene of rape brings before us the picture of a helpless and unwilling woman. The picture of the road suggests its helpless and pitiable condition. It is unfit to tolerate any heavy vehicle on it. But are we talking about a civil society in Raag Darbari? The answer is a firm ‘no’ when we proceed further: 9. Aaj railway ne use dhokhaa diyaa thaa. Sthaaniya passenger train ko roz kii tarah do ghanTe late samajh kar wo ghar se challa thaa, par wo sirf DeRh ghanTe late hokar cal dii thii. “The railway cheated him today, when he started from home, he presumed that, as usual, the local passenger train would be two hours late but it came only one and a half hours late.”

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Consequently, Ranganath, the protagonist of the novel, missed it. He felt outraged and wrote his remarks in the complaint book, as in narration (10): 10. Shikaayatii kitaab ke kathaa saahitya men apnaa yogadaan dekar aur railway adhikaariyon kii nigaah mein haasyaaspad bankar wo station se baahar nikal aayaa thaa. “He came out of the station after making his contribution to the stories (contained) in the Book of Complaints and making himself ridiculous in the eyes of the railway authorities.” The author does not clarify why Ranganath make himself ridiculous: was it because he wrote a meaningless complaint (as no authority was likely to pay attention to it) or because he complaint even when the train was late only by one and half-hours instead of two? As in the previous extract (9), it is the question of one’s point of view. The satire in Raag Darbari is based on a sharp contrast between the so-called well-established norms of a civil society and the actual practices prevalent in Shivapalganj. Though we are exposed to the actual experience of Ranganath in all their crudity, the narration is presented in such a way that we do not lose sight of what could have been otherwise in a normal situation. It is this contrast that makes the novel convincingly satirical. It is because of our awareness of this contrast that we are not shocked by the inevitable decay of the social setup not only in Shivapalganj but in the country as a whole. Caudwell (1937) thought that the novel “blots out” external reality by substituting it by a more-or-less mock reality which has sufficient stuff to stand between the reader and the reality. The beauty of Raag Darbari is that the so-called mock reality is not different from reality; it presents a stark picture of reality though there may not really be a small town called Shivapalganj anywhere in Uttar Pradesh or anywhere in India. To sum up, fiction is a narrative that presents mental representation of propositional attitudes of the author through its characters in the form of sentences which are organized in paragraphs according to motifs. The paragraphs are organized in chapters which are coherently arranged to develop an all-pervading theme. Since the fictional world is a world of make-believe, the writer uses all linguistics devices to keep it as such and manipulates them by using various transformational or rhetorical tools to bring constituents into focus. The language of a fiction cannot be separated from its motifs and theme because the latter can be realized only when it is used appropriately. It is as true of Hindi–Urdu fiction as of fiction in any other language: regional, national or international. *It is a slightly revised version of the paper given at the National Seminar on Language, Narration and Appropriacy, organized by the Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University in October 2009. It was published in Aligarh Journal of Linguistics (UGC Care listed, Refereed Journal) ISSN: 2249:1511.

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References Caudwell, C. (1937). Illusion and reality: A study of the sources of poetry. Macmillan and Co. Ferrell, W. A., & Salerno, N. A. (Eds.). (1970). Strategies in prose. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Firth, J. R. (1935/1957). The technique of semantics. In Papers in linguistics (1934–1951). Oxford University Press. Fodor, J. A. (1981). Representations. MIT Press. Fowler, R. (1977). Linguistics and the novel. Methuen. Garvin, P. A. (Ed.). (1980). A Prague school reader on aesthetics literary structure and style. Georgetown University Press. Goffman, I. (1974). Frame analysis. Harper and Row. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Longman. Hasnain, S. I. (2012). Aligarh Journal of Linguistics, 2(1–2) (UGC Care listed, Refereed Journal) ISSN: 2249:1511 Hyder, Q. (Originally published in 1959). Aag Kaa Darya. Trans. into Hindi by Nand Kishore Vikram. Indraprastha Prakashan. Hyder, Q. (1991). PatjhaR kii Aawaaz (M. Asad Trans.). Sahitya Akademy. Leavis, Q. D. (1952). Fiction and the reading public. Chatto and Windus. Lodge, D. (1966). Language in fiction. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Martin, H. C. (Ed.). (1959). Style in prose fiction. Columbia University Press. Mukarovsky, J. (1932/1966). Standard language and poetic language. In Garvin (Ed.), 1980: 315– 326. Pinker, S. (1977). How the mind works. W.W. Norton. Prince, G. (1982). Narratology: The form and functioning of narrative. Mouton. Raza, R. M. (1993). Aadhaa Gaon. Rajkamal Prakashan. Renu, P. (1994). Pratinidhi Kahaniyan: “Teesarii Kasam” and “Panchlight”, Rajkamal Prakashan. Richardson, B. (2000, Summer). Recent concepts of narrative and the narratives of narrative theory. Style, 34, 168–175. Rudrum, D. (2005, May). From narrative representation to narrative use: Towards the limits of definition. Narrative, 13(2), 195–204. Published by: Ohio State University Press Stable. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/20107373 Scholes, R. (1974). Structuralism in literature. Yale University Press. Scholes, R., & Kellog, R. (1966). The nature of narrative. Oxford University Press. Shukla, S. (1980). Raag Darbaarii. Rajkamal Prakashan. Todorov, T. (1971, Autumn). The two principals of narrative. Diacritics, 1(1) 37–44.

English in India’s Multilingual Ecology: Present-Day Use, Users and Usage S. N. Sridhar and Kamal K. Sridhar

1 Introduction In discussing “English in India,” it is useful to separate two related and often confused aspects—one is English in India and the other is Indian English. We shall use “English in India” to refer to the sociolinguistic aspects—the history, policies, functions, status, attitudes and so forth and “Indian English” to refer to the linguistic phenomenon of how it is used by Indians. This paper focuses on recent developments on English in India in both aspects.1 Our reference period is the last 30 years, since the economic liberalization introduced in 1991. Liberalization and globalization have brought India greater interaction with the outside world through English. Liberalization has brought in a less ideologically pure, more pragmatic attitude toward acquiring and enjoying wealth, including a view of English as a transactional, commodifiable resource. Accordingly, the goals of learning and teaching English are being reoriented from a humanistic or liberal arts orientation to a pragmatic one. Indian English users now display a new confidence in identifying themselves as users of Indian English (John, 2007: 50), a post-colonial reclamation of English, an acknowledgment that Indians do not, cannot and need not speak British English (Dhillon, 2007, p. 51). There is an acknowledgment of English as an Indian language (Mohun, 2010), a point of view advocated many decades ago by writers such as Raja Rao (1938), linguists such as Kachru (1965) and others. The disenchantment of the deprived or disadvantaged sections of society with the slow pace of change through reliance on the regional languages has made them look S. N. Sridhar (B) · K. K. Sridhar Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. K. Sridhar e-mail: [email protected] 1

We are grateful to Frances Kelley for valuable editorial help.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_6

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to English as a ladder for upward mobility, as it has been for the upper castes. This is questioning the old equation of English as the language of the elites and Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as dependent on the regional languages. Contrary to expectations, English has grown in importance since Indian Independence in 1947. English is being used more, and in more important and unexpected domains. The last 50 years have also seen a remarkable change in how English is used in India: It is no longer used mainly in segregated, monolingual contexts. A whole new mode of discourse has developed, interlacing English with other languages and other languages with English, especially among urban, educated users. The rapid expansion in the use of mixed varieties of English and of Indian languages, and their acceptance is perhaps the most important language change in India in recent times. This has fascinating implications for every aspect of bilingual acquisition and use. In this paper, we affirm the value of a reorientation in the study of English in India that has been taking place in recent years. We argue that the most insightful way to study English in India is to view it in relation to the multilingual communication matrix of India rather than in comparison with native varieties of English. Our second crucial argument is that English in India operates in two modes—a unilingual mode and a multilingual mode. In the unilingual mode, English is used in discrete discourse contexts without much overt reference to or input from other languages, whereas in the multilingual mode, it not only complements but overlaps and interlaces with them in the same discourse contexts. So far, studies of Indian English have primarily focused on the unilingual mode and treated the mixed mode as if it was an aberration. We argue that the mixed mode is as important a use as the unilingual mode, and that this new, synthetic mode carries distinctive social meanings and serves different communicative goals. We will try to show that this perspective provides a more intuitive or insightful account of how communication works in India and why Indian English displays the structural characteristics that it does. This perspective also explains better the philosophical underpinning of language mixing that we see pervasive in India—it in fact reflects the complex hybridity of the contemporary educated Indian. This paper is organized as follows: Following this introduction, Part 2 outlines the linguistic diversity of India and its multilingual ecology as the context and frame of reference for how English operates in India. In Part 3 we discuss the uses or sociolinguistic functions of English in India. In Part 4, we outline the salient characteristics of the community of users of English in India. Part 5 is a detailed analysis of the use of English in India in both its monolingual and multilingual modes. Finally, Part 6 is a summary and outline of implications of this analysis to current issues in theoretical and applied linguistics.

2 The Multilingual Ecology of India Languages in a multilingual community co-exist in a fine and complex ecological balance, feeding one another, intertwined with one another, competing with and

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sometimes killing one another. They change in response to the socioeconomic and cultural needs of the community and flourish or wilt, as in selective breeding, with the right or wrong language policies. A language in a multilingual community should be studied like an organism in an ecological system. A purely structural approach that views a language in isolation from its functional environment fails to explain the vibrancy and resilience of the language as a communication system. The central fact about English in India to keep in mind is that it is a second language. It co-exists with the user’s mother and other tongues. Its role is to complement the other languages, although it may also overlap with the other languages. Neglect of this central fact has led, not surprisingly, to major misconceptions and mischaracterizations of what Indian English is, and what it is expected to do, and how it should be used.

2.1 Linguistic Diversity of India India is the world’s second-most populous country, with nearly 1.4 billion people, in 29 states (mostly organized to reflect language concentrations) and seven union territories. The estimated number of languages in India varies from 121, according to the 2011 Census which reports only languages with more than 10,000 speakers (Asher, 2008; Census of India, 2011), to 780 (People’s Linguistic Survey of India). Hindi, the official language, is spoken by about 528 million persons or 43.63% of the population. It is also the language of 10 states in North India. Hindi is used widely, though not universally, as a second language in India. English is not widely spoken as a first language but it is the most widely used second language, after Hindi. India is a nation of linguistic minorities. English, the language of colonial administration, was supposed to be a transitional co-official language with Hindi until 1965, but due to the chauvinism of Hindi advocates and opposition from non-Hindi states (Sridhar, 1988), it has been continued as Associate Official language for an indefinite period. 22 other languages are recognized in the Constitution’s Eighth Schedule, including all the major regional languages plus a few minority and tribal languages. The Sahitya Akademi, India’s academy of letters, awards prizes to literary works in 29 languages. The most important category is the major regional languages. Compared to the Hindi behemoth, the regional languages are puny—the percentages of the population of India who speak the larger of the regional languages range from less than 1 to 8%, many in the 3–6% range, although the numbers of speakers are often in the tens of millions. They are (a) the official languages of their respective states; (b) each spoken by a sizeable section of India’s population, running into tens of millions (although none of them is spoken by more than 9% of the population); (c) have respected literatures with long histories; and (d) most have distinct scripts. As much as 97% of India’s population speaks one of the major regional languages as their mother tongue. They constitute India’s life blood and India lives through them. One

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can think of India as Western Europe and the states like its many nations. The major regional languages are like English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and so forth.

2.2 Changing Patterns of Bilingualism Bilingualism has been increasing in India, but its prevalence is understated in the decennial census statistics. Most Indians use more than one language, on average, about three. Therefore, it is more accurate to speak of multilingualism rather than bilingualism to describe India. The diversity of languages and the plurality of social divisions and cultures in India necessitate multilingualism. As they extend their networks of communication, speakers keep adding dialects and languages to their verbal repertoire. The patterns of Indian multilingualism have changed in recent years (Annamalai, 2008). Traditionally, multilingualism has been of the “grassroots” type, acquired naturally and informally, at home and in the neighborhood, on the playground, on the streets, in the marketplace, through marriage and so forth, rather than formally in school (except for a small minority). With Western style schooling starting around the 1830s, and the spread of universal primary education starting in the 1960s, more and more people have been learning additional languages in school. Speakers of minority and tribal languages learn the regional language, Hindi and English, and the speakers of regional languages learn Hindi and English, and the speakers of Hindi learn standard Hindi and English in school. Another major change is the shift in the languages in which Indians are multilingual. Currently, English is the language of choice that Indians add to their repertoire. Hindi is also being acquired, but much less and for different reasons. Regional languages are being added by speakers of minority languages, as subject languages, as mediums of instruction and as languages of state-level administration and commerce. Thus there is an overall increase in multilingualism (Annamalai, 1971, 2008). Customarily, Indian multilingualism has been described as the maintenance variety: Languages tend to be maintained across generations, if not centuries and millennia (Pandit, 1972; Sridhar, 1997). However, the rush to English is making people abandon the tribal languages, and some say, and even the regional languages. This has made some intellectuals and cultural leaders dub English a “killer language” (Kachru, 1986), and demand protectionist measures. Some state governments have responded by withholding permission to open English-medium private schools.

3 Uses of English in India Language vitality is measured in terms of the number of important roles (or functions) it plays in a community. By this measure, English is vital and vibrant in India, used in a

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wide range of domains and functions, including Regulative, Interpersonal, Heuristic, Instrumental and Imaginative functions.

3.1 Education Of all the roles that English plays in India, perhaps the most fundamental is in education. English pervades the Indian educational system, especially at higher levels, and increasingly in the early stages as well. It is a major presence in government schools and even more in private schools. English has been the subject of language policy debates since the controversy between the Anglicists and the Orientalists in the 1820s. It was vigorously debated in the 1960s and continues to be discussed today. With the passing of the colonial rule and democracy taking root, the terms of the debate have changed: English is no longer viewed as an instrument of colonial control but as a necessary tool for acquiring advanced knowledge in science, technology, medicine and liberal humanities, as well as global commerce. New questions have come to the fore, however: the wisdom of teaching basic thinking skills through a language other than the mother tongue; the fairness of making proficiency in a second language a test of merit; the appropriateness of native speaker models in changed sociolinguistic context; and the effect of hegemonic English on the maintenance of indigenous languages and cultures. Ever since English replaced the classical languages, Sanskrit and Persian, in the 1830s (Macaulay, 1835), it has steadily expanded its role. Indians came to appreciate its role as a unifying or link language between linguistically disparate regions, forging a community of nationalists based on a shared system of education and medium of instruction. This role as an intranational contact language, as well as its role as the primary international contact language, and as the dominant knowledge tool have overridden its colonial associations, and English was retained even after Independence and, in fact, has grown by leap and bounds in the post-Independence era. The “Three Language Formula” is the language-in-education policy put forward in the 1960s and more or less accepted (if not sincerely implemented) throughout the nation. (The exceptions are: Tamil Nadu uses only two languages, Tamil and English, and many Hindi states do not teach a South Indian language.) The three languages are the mother tongue (which in most cases, is also the dominant regional language and the state official language); the nation’s official language Hindi; and world language, English. Thus, it is state policy to make every student at least trilingual. At least 47 different languages are used in Indian schools. English is taught as a subject and is a medium of instruction. As a subject, it is usually introduced in the 5th grade but there are many different patterns some states and most private schools teaching English from the first grade, if not from Kindergarten. Students study English through high school and even into college—8 to 12 years for students who complete the baccalaureate degree.

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Students who learn English only as a subject and study other subjects through the medium of the mother tongue or regional language get less exposure to and opportunity to use and practice English and hence are relatively less proficient in English, especially spoken English. Lack of English proficiency is often a stumbling block for otherwise talented students and leads to academic failure and school dropout. According to the (2017) All India School Education Survey by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Hindi is the medium of instruction (MOI) at 51% of schools at the elementary and upper-secondary stages, whereas English is the language of instruction at about 15% and 33% of schools at the elementary and upper-secondary stages, respectively. English is the preferred MOI usually from secondary school onwards, especially in STEM subjects. At the college and university levels, the overwhelming medium of instruction in STEM subjects, commerce, and law, is English. English is also the language of the country’s research institutes. Most national-level conferences take place in English, and researchers publish in national and international English journals. Indians have an edge in participating in international conferences and publishing in journals because of their proficiency in English. In private schools and even in many government schools, there is increasing pressure from parents to introduce English-medium instruction from the earliest grades, even in rural areas. This is because education through English is associated with increased social prestige, economic advancement and job mobility. The number of children enrolled in English-medium schools increased by 274% between 2003 and 2011. This increased demand for English medium has left many regional languagemedium schools without demand in several states. But many intellectuals and cultural leaders warn that English-medium education has many deleterious effects: They believe the mother tongue is the optimal medium for acquiring foundational cognitive skills and creativity. Learning through the English medium will alienate these students from their fellow citizens, creating a false sense of superiority and class distinction. It will also lead to the neglect and death of minority languages. Although the National Education Policy (2020) envisages a greater role for regional languages in higher education, the government’s policy to give massive encouragement to the establishment of high-quality private universities is likely to strengthen the role of English.

3.2 Administration English is often referred to as an “associate official language” of India. The business of the Central (or federal) government is conducted in Hindi and in English. All publications and notifications are in both languages. Bureaucratic and technocratic work is carried out in English. This is true of many state governments as well. Administrative use of English continued after Independence, because regional languages and Hindi

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were said to lack technical vocabulary and the state bureaucrats weren’t trained in using them as state languages. But now, more and more administrative work is being carried out in the state official languages, bolstered by greater democratization and the availability of e-governance.

3.3 Judiciary According to the Indian Constitution, English is the sole official language of the state High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. In some state High Courts, Hindi is used with presidential approval. However, not all High Courts have been able to obtain this permission for the use of their languages. The official version of the Constitution is the English version. The laws are in English although translations are available. Arguments and judgments are in English, an important fact in a legal system where precedents are crucial. Regional languages are used in the lower courts and witnesses have the right to use their own language, with official translations.

3.4 Legislature Hindi and English are the primary languages used in the national Parliament, although members from non-Hindi states can use their languages. Hindi is dominant in the legislatures of the Hindi-speaking states. In the state legislatures of the non-Hindispeaking regions, mainly the regional languages are used, although English is used frequently (Gangesh & Sharma, 2019).

3.5 Interstate Link Language One of the most important uses of English in India is as a lingua franca between speakers of different languages. While Hindi is used at lower and middle levels between Hindi-speaking states, even there, English is used for higher level administration, bureaucracy, and legal, commercial and technical communication. Recently, regional languages have been permitted as the medium of choice for all competitive exams for Class I and II government jobs in addition to English. English is the preferred language for conferences. Despite decades of aggressive promotion and patronage from the central government, Hindi has not made much headway in dislodging English from this privileged position. If anything, English seems to have lost its “foreignness” and association with colonial rule and gained greater acceptance as the lingua franca of educated Indians.

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3.6 Media Newspapers and Periodicals: According to the Registrar of Publications, Government of India, in 2018, India published 3593 newspapers in 35 languages, of which Hindi had the largest share. The second largest number, 14,626, was in English, as was the total circulation, 53,453,564. The second largest circulated multi-edition daily, The Times of India, is in English, with 34 editions and a circulation of 4,334,769. The circulation figures understate the outsize impact and influence of Englishlanguage publications over the nation’s politics, socioeconomic discussion and intellectual and cultural discourse. These publications have a national readership and are read by the more highly educated, affluent and influential people. The appeal of the regional language publications, and even Hindi ones, is geographically restricted. India also publishes numerous journals in many scientific, technical and other areas. Most technical ones are in English. Films: India is the world’s largest producer of films, most of them made in Hindi in Mumbai (Bollywood) and wildly popular. These films and their songs are credited with the spread of Hindi more than government patronage. Many films are also made in regional languages. India makes a small number of films in English, including the highly acclaimed Monsoon Wedding (2001) and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002). English films are popular in big cities and on cable. Television: As of 2018, India had more than 850 TV channels covering all the major languages, and over 200 million households owned TV sets. Most of the general entertainment is in regional languages. National news broadcasts, political discussions and cultural programs are primarily in Hindi and English. Cable provides programs in dozens of Indian languages. Educated Indians receive national and international news through Hindi and English, while their preferred language for entertainment is a regional language or Hindi. Following the economic reforms, numerous Englishlanguage channels and cable-based programming are popular. This has brought in greater exposure to American English, while spoken Indian English has an enormous audience through sports, talk and political shows. Radio: The government-run All Indian Radio (AIR) broadcasts programs in 24 languages and 146 dialects. Radio continues to be an extremely important source of news, information and entertainment, especially film songs. A newcomer, FM radio, is having an impact on language use and attitudes, with its informal tone and propensity to employ mixed languages, colloquial, casual English mixed with regional languages. Many radio programs encourage listener call-ins, which involve considerable language mixing. Book Publishing: India is the world’s second largest publisher of English-language print books, according to Nielsen India Book Market Report 2015: Understanding the India Book Market. Social Media and the Internet: India has over 500 million active Internet users, second only to China. The primary language of the Internet is English for emails and social media, but India’s regional languages are fast expanding, especially for entertainment. The number of rural subscribers to the Internet (227 million) surpassed

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the urban (205 million) in 2019, according to the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Nielsen (Times of India). This means that the regional languages will be figuring more prominently on the Internet.

3.7 Commerce Economic activity in India employs the whole spectrum of languages—local, regional, national and international. Most buying and selling in the weekly village fairs and local markets is transacted in local dialects or regional languages. In the cities, the language is primarily regional but Hindi and English are also used in non-Hindi areas, depending on the neighborhood and the type of commodity. Local grocery stores and vegetable vendors use the local language. Customers and vendors accommodate each other’s language to establish rapport and drive a bargain. In highend stores selling luxury goods or in cosmopolitan malls, English and Hindi are often the preferred languages. E-commerce and cross-regional commerce are conducted mainly in English, except where intra-Hindi area commerce is involved. Export and import between multinational corporations and IT offices are invariably English. In India’s booming Business Process Outsourcing setups, workers are trained to adopt an American persona and accent, and erase strong Indian accents to promote intelligibility, and this has led to employee stress and turnover. English is the medium of premiere schools such as the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), where future highly paid and highly mobile executives are trained.

3.8 Advertising Hindi and English are the most widely used languages in advertising in India because the regional languages are limited in coverage, although, in their own markets, they are powerful and emotionally effective. Hindi and the regional languages convey a feeling of intimacy, while English ads connoting sophistication, luxury and global reach appeal to the elite (Bhatia 2007). The recent, pervasive trend is to use mixed Indian languages-English slogans in ads. They are effective, combining the familiarity of a local language colloquial expression with the glamor of English.

3.9 Literature The extensive use of English for creative writing sets India apart from other nonnative English using nations. The larger market for Indian English literature in India

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and abroad is the envy of regional language authors. It has a history of over two hundred years and features all genres, especially fiction, but also poetry and more recently, drama. Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, Arundhati Roy, Aravinda Adiga, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandeya, Amitav Ghosh and Salman Rushdie are counted in the front ranks of creative writers in English worldwide. English is also the chief conduit for translations from world languages, and from Indian languages as well.

3.10 International Communication English is India’s dominant language of the Internet for email and web-based communication with the outside world as well for receiving information and entertainment on cable TV, YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, WhatsApp and other social media.

3.11 Religion and Spirituality The lingua franca function works in public religious discourse as well, though not personal prayers and rituals. We see this in the publications of traditional monasteries, such as the mathas, and the highly popular discourses on YouTube and in material forwarded on social media.

3.12 Transportation Indian Railways, the Metros and the Indian Postal Service use three languages— Hindi, English and the regional language, although Bangalore Metro was forced to remove Hindi from its signage recently. The airports post signage and announcements in Hindi and English, and increasingly in the regional languages. Buses typically use the regional language.

3.13 Home Domain Traditionally, mother tongues and regional languages have been the primary languages in the home domain and instruments for maintaining regional cultures. With the spread of English-medium education, starting from kindergarten in cities, encouraged by aspirational parents, the children are increasingly more at home in English and are said to be becoming illiterate or semi-literate in their mother tongues or the regional languages. They bring English into the home and use it alongside, or in place of, the mother tongues. This situation has alarmed advocates

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of regional languages who worry that, at this rate, the hard-won recognition and expanded domains for the regional languages may be in danger and even lead to their death. There is serious but unsuccessful opposition to the market-backed demand to introduce English language and English medium from the start.

4 Users of English in India Estimates of the number of users of English in India vary widely, because of lack of documentation as well as vague assumptions about what it means to know or use a language. The widely used figure of 3–4% is a gross underestimate. According to the 2011 Census, English is the mother tongue of 256,000 people, the second language of 83 million people, and the third language of another 46 million people, making it the second-most widely spoken language after Hindi. Even if we use only these figures, which are also considered an underestimate, there were some 127 million English users in 2011. This makes India the second largest English-speaking country in the world, next only to the United States. However, other estimates (for example, by the respected weekly India Today), put the proportion of Indians who know or use English as about 20%.

4.1 Variation in the Use of English Many studies of Indian English conflate different levels of proficiency, styles and genres, and make generalizations that distort reality. This is especially true of journalistic pieces that generalize based on low proficiency IE. Indian English is a popular topic for journalistic pieces treating the phenomenon with bemusement and as an upstart development and its recent innovations as a passing fad. This has also given scope for a number of book-length treatments in recent years, e.g. John, 2007. However, Indian English is not a homogeneous entity—there are many varieties. These varieties may be distinguished along several parameters: Proficiency Indian English ranges all the way from eloquent, expressive, creative, fulsome expression of speakers and authors that compares with the best of native speakers of English, to that of users with very limited expressive range and intelligibility. The English of most users in India is somewhere in between, depending on whether they attended missionary or convent schools, or high-quality English-medium schools or studied English only as a subject and all other subjects through the regional language medium. Kachru’s (1965) concept of “the cline of bilingualism” gives structure to what might appear random and infinite variation in Indian English (see also Kachru, 1991, 1997, 2006).

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The cline of bilingualism encapsulates a crucial insight about bilingualism that Francois Grosjean (1985) put best, namely that bilingualism is rarely “balanced;” few bilinguals are equally competent in both their languages; most bilinguals are dominant in one language or the other. Moreover, bilingualism is not two full competences rolled into one. It rarely involves “native-like” competence in both languages. It is typically asymmetric and partial. A bilingual learns the “other tongue” as much as he or she needs it—some learn all the registers and styles and academic discourse or native-like accent, while others master speaking but not writing; business but not cultural vocabulary; and so forth. While the bilingual’s mastery of any given language may be partial or imperfect, their composite competence in the two languages taken together serves the entire gamut of their communicative needs. This is true of the competence of Indian English speakers as well: It is wrong to expect that every speaker of English be fully equipped for all possible communicative needs using English alone as if they were functioning native speakers in a monolingual English-speaking community. An Indian speaker learns English as much as needed to complement his or her proficiency in other Indian languages. Thus, many Indian English speakers have only a “passive” competence in English—they use it mostly as a library language to read books or watch TV discussions or enjoy films, but not to speak it, and rarely, if at all, with a native speaker. Others, for example, radio and television journalists working for English periodicals, and academics, may need spoken skills as well. Similarly, those whose professional responsibilities involve interaction with international speakers of English may need to adapt their spoken English to make it internationally intelligible. The vast majority of Indians, however, whose everyday interactions are only with other Indians, may function perfectly well with a type of English marked by typically Indian English grammatical features and accents. There is a large category of users who may be characterized as limited proficiency users of Indian English. They may work as tourist guides, taxi drivers, hotel attendants, restaurant waiters and the like. Their spoken English is characterized by limited fluency in oral expression, heavy regional accent, extremely limited vocabulary and a limited range of speech acts and discourse types. Their English has sometimes been described as Pidgin English or Butler English (Schuchardt, 1891/1980; Hosali, 2000). This variety has not been well studied. Bhatt (2000) presents an account of the grammatical differences between two varieties of Indian English—Indian Vernacular English (IVE) and Indian Standard English (ISE). He shows that IVE is just as systematic and logical as ISE; the grammars of the two varieties are governed by the same set of grammatical (universal) constraints; and that the differences between the two varieties are a function of how each grammar prioritizes these constraints (See also Sridhar, 1989a, b). Mother tongue Another major determinant of variation in Indian English is the user’s mother tongue. Most Indian English speakers can easily be recognized as speakers of this or another regional language based on their accent and other features of their English. An experienced listener can identify up to a dozen subvarieties, such as Bengali (or

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Bangla) English, Gujarati English, Hindi/Urdu English, Kannada English, Kashmiri English, Malayali English, Marathi English, Odiya English, Punjabi English, Tamil English, Telugu English, and so on, within a few minutes. There are many telltale phonological features from the mother tongues that mark Indian English speakers, for example, the stronger retroflexion of Dravidian language speakers (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada); the use of [s’] in place of [s] by Bengalis, the location of primary stress on the penultimate syllable in words like psychology and the substitution of [j] for [z] (as in ‘cheese pizza’) by Hindi speakers; use of the on-glide [y] and off-glide [w] before vowel-initial words, such as entry and one among Kannada speakers, and so on. Socioeconomic characteristics Those who are fluent in the English language live in households with three times higher income than those without any knowledge of English. English is associated with high education, high status, influence, urban background, upper caste background, prestige, authority, modernity, sophistication, style, mobility and globalization. There is a subclass of proficient English speakers whose fluency in spoken English is marked by what is called a “Convent accent,” that is, accent acquired in private, English medium only schools. Consequently, English-knowing has come to be regarded as a new, privileged, upper “caste,” something the members of the underprivileged classes, such as the Dalits (formerly referred to as “untouchables”) and OBCs (“other oppressed classes”) are aspiring to.

5 Usage: How English is Used in India As noted above, it is important to distinguish the use of English in India under two modes: the unilingual mode and the multilingual mode. In the unilingual mode, English is the only language of the discourse and is used without (or with minimal) mixing.

5.1 Indian English in the Unilingual Mode The unilingual mode is found in the written or formal spoken work in the administration, judiciary, academic lectures, high court judgments, conference presentations, television programs, newspaper articles and news reports, and in speaking with interlocutors who may not share other languages. Most studies of Indian English (with important exceptions) are of the unilingual mode. In these contexts, we find highly educated users who use English with an extremely high level of competence and expressive range, even while exhibiting features typical of Indian English. This category includes high-level bureaucrats, college professors, journalists, authors, business executives, technocrats, judges and lawyers, film

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actors and directors, medical doctors, scientists, media critics and researchers, among others. They use English with fluency, style range, richness of vocabulary and articulateness that would do credit to the best of native speakers, while still exhibiting typical characteristics of Indian English. These users may be deemed users of Standard Indian English (SIE). Academic studies of IE represent diverse points of view: descriptive (structural), lexicographic, pedagogic, educational, sociological, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, acquisitional, stylistic, corpus-based, theoretical and applied linguistics orientations. Due to space constraints, only a sample of features is given below. Since most of the proficient users of IE fall in the upper middle level range on the bilingualism or proficiency continuum, we will treat this group as representative of IE in the unilingual mode. For comprehensive surveys, see Kachru (1969, 1983, 1986), the Handbook of World Englishes (Nelson and …), the journal World Englishes, and most recently, Sridhar and Sridhar (2020). Structural Features of IE Phonetically, IE is marked by the following features: substitution of simple long vowels [e] and [a]in place of diphthongs [ei][O], use of the low back vowel in place of the rounded back vowel, neutralization of distinction between [v] and [w]; the use of retroflex consonants in place of apical stops; use of unaspirated voiceless stops in place of aspirates; use of dental stops in place of interdental fricatives; absence of vowel reduction in unstressed positions; epenthesis or syncope for cluster reduction; absence of voicing assimilation in plural and past tense markers; different placement of word stress; syllable timed rhythm; spelling pronunciation; and pronunciation of orthographic double letters as geminates, among others. In morphology, IE is marked by reduplication; hybrid compounding; preference for compounding over phrasal constructions; use of Indian language nominal and verbal derivational affixes in compounding and verb formation; use of participial compounding; and others. Lexically, IE shows high density of expressions from Indian languages, e.g. chai, langar, aam aadmi (see Yule and Burnell, 1896/1995); back formations, such as prepone; semantic extensions, as in kindly adjust (used without an object) ‘a portmanteau plea for any kind of accommodation’ use of expressions such as too good in the sense of ‘very good,’ few in the sense of ‘a few’; innovative expressions, such as would be ‘future spouse,’ time pass ‘any activity to while away time’; carrying ‘pregnant’; overly polite expressions, such as Sir or Madam after a name to indicate respect, as in Meena Madam; or archaic or stilted diction, as in request for ‘ask’; demise for ‘death’; and collocational innovations, as in dining leaf, take tension and others. Syntactically, IE is marked by use of stative verbs in progressive aspect (having), arbitrary use of articles; use of one as an indefinite article; use of verb-final constituent order; lack of inversion of subject and auxiliary in wh-questions; use of invariant tag or Indian language tag (e.g. na?) in tag questions; non-use of do-support; heavy use of participial phrases in place of coordination; redundant prepositions, as in discuss about; different use of verb-particle combinations, as in passed out for pass; use of

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one of with a singular noun; phrase or sentence final placement of only as emphatic particle; and so on (see Kashyap, 2014). Pragmatically, IE shows features such as elaborate addressing and reference systems reflecting religion, age, gender, status (e.g. uncle and aunty for older people even when not related) and other cultural factors (see Valentine, 1994); markers expressing honorifics; distinct conventions in agreeing and disagreeing; offering and refusing; inviting and requesting; thanking and blessing, and others (see, for speech acts, Sridhar, 1991). Common features of Indian English: Following Kachru (1969), scholars have sought to explain IE’s shared features, such as retroflection, inversionless question formation, use of invariant elements in tag questions, absence of sequence of tense, participial coordination, serial verbs, echo reduplication, quotative construction, SV constituent order and so forth, shared by the provincial subvarieties and account for them, as products of linguistic convergence—languages from different families coming to share common features due to millennia of intensive bilingualism, providing yet more support for South Asia as a linguistic area (see Ferguson, 1996). This provides the theoretical and empirical justification for postulating an entity such as Indian or South Asian English. Braj Kachru’s research starting in the 1960s brought about a paradigm shift in the study of IE and world Englishes. He rejected the prescriptivist paradigm of looking at Indian English as errors (see Whitworth, 1907) and argued for what we will call the Functional Autonomy model (Kachru, 1965, 1969). He insisted that IE be viewed as a variety of English in its own right, and its characteristics—he called them “deviations” and not “errors”—explained by the natural influence of mother tongues, and the need to express a distinctively Indian experience. Though initially resisted by teachers of English, even in India, who could not get out of the native-speaker’s-standard-is-gospel mindset, Kachru’s views have won worldwide acceptance, so much so that even the British Council no longer insists on the native speaker model (see, for example, Graddol, 2010) and the concept of World Englishes is widely accepted in English studies. Similarly, the dominant models of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in the 1970s and 980s (e.g., Selinker, 1972) characterized Indian English as an “Interlanguage,” where characteristic traits of Indian English syntax were analyzed as “errors,” and a product of “fossilized” competences, or cases of arrested development. This perspective was roundly criticized by Sridhar and Sridhar (1986), Sridhar (1994) and Kachru (1994) and others for its failure to distinguish between learners and users, between acquisitional stage and stable varietal properties and between second and foreign language learning contexts, where the functions, targets, interlocutors, input and context are all different. Instead, they called for a “multilingual ecology model” employed here for the analysis not only of Indian English but also second language varieties of English in general, for example, the Englishes of West and East Africa and Southeast Asia, among others. This model is now recognized as having led to the “multilingual turn” in second language acquisition (see May, 2014) and many of the arguments have now become mainstream second language acquisition theory (Bolton & De Costa, 2018).

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Changing attitudes toward Indian English: There is a range of attitudes toward the way in which Indians use English. The term “Indian English” is itself a contested one, mainly because in the past it has been used pejoratively and is reviled by prescriptivist pedagogues and language purists, who believed that there is only one correct English (or two at best, British and American) and that is English as used by an idealized native speaker of English. Any deviation was an “error.” This was the position of the British Council for many decades and was adopted by many training institutes and by teachers trained under their auspices. Generations of English teachers and users in India labored under a feeling of linguistic inferiority and insecurity, considering themselves second class citizens of the English-speaking world. With the exception of a small minority of highly proficient Indian users of English who believe they speak British English or correct English or international English, even when in practice it may be shown that their English differs from their presumed ideal (see Kachru, 1976), the vast majority of proficient speakers know that their English is different from native speakers’ English, even though they may hesitate to call themselves speakers of Indian English because of the pejorative connotations associated with that term. Many of them feel that Indian English is something that others use, not them. They associate Indian English with the variety that we may call the lower mesolect—one marked by high frequency of stereotyped features. There has been a change of attitude in this group of speakers over the last fifty years. There is a growing acceptance of the term Indian English and fewer pejorative connotations. This change may be a byproduct or co-product of Indians’ increasing confidence because of their economic prosperity, their role in world affairs and their distance from colonial self-abnegation. As a result, there is a growing acceptance of Indian English by teachers of English and by users themselves. This gradual embrace of a more socially realistic attitude may also be a result of the demonstration of the systematicity of Indian English and other second language varieties of English and their recognition in the world of English studies (see Nelson et al., 2020).

5.2 Indian English in the Mixed or Multilingual Mode One of the most striking ways in which English is changing in India involves the use of English with code-switching and code-mixing (see, for example, Parasher 1991; Sridhar & Sridhar, 2018a, b). Increasingly, educated and even moderately educated Indians resort to switching or mixing words, phrases, clauses and entire sentences from Indian languages while ostensibly using English discourse. The following example (see Pai, 2020) from a discussion of the ad campaign, ‘Lead India... tum chale toh hindustan chale... [‘If you march, India marches’] on an Internet blog is illustrative (translations of Hindi expressions have been added): ‘a noisy baraat [wedding procession] crosses a hospital ... which disturbs the patients. The doc, a lady, gets out, goes straight to the dulha miyaan [bridegroom] and speaks. ‘STOP THE MUSIC, I SAID. aaap logon ki vachai se yahae pe mareezon ko taqleef ho rah hai…[Because of you, patients are being disturbed.] Cant u please cross the street silently... at least till u cross this

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street…’ With heads high and with the fultoo courage to Lead the country and do what is right the lady stands. The baraat realises their mistake and crosses the street silently... and then comes the punch line, LEAD INDIA … Amazing’ (31 January 2008, 0:32 AM)—Originally posted by Rani_Das (Hindi mixed in English discourse). The blog editor’s plea at the end of the post is telling: ‘Please, this is an English languageforum!!’ (http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/chit-chat-your-interests/5166amazing-ad-113.html)

Another example: In an interview published in a major newspaper (Bangalore Times, 2007), a famous Hindi film actor uses an entire sentence from Hindi in his English discourse, and it is not translated. “Aap usko definitely pyaar karenge. [You will definitely love it.] That much I can guarantee you.” [Hindi-English, italics and translation added]. Such usage is found in billboards and on television, where English ads end with Indian language tags or punch lines, again not translated: “Vishvas hei is me kuch khas hei.” [“Believe it. There’s something special about it.”] from a cement ad, tagline in Hindi. “Yeh dil maange more.” [“The heart desires for more.”] from a Pepsi ad, tag line in Hindi.

Because the script in these ads continues to be English and there is no additional product information, it is clear that the function of such mixing is not to reach monolingual Hindi or other Indian language speakers but rather Indian bilinguals who can appreciate the social meaning of emotive engagement signaled by the Indian language expression. In short, the expressive code itself is bilingual. The same process of mixing is pervasive in the educated use of Indian languages, as well, where English appears interlaced with Indian languages: “Phone-u out-of-order aagide. Call maadidde, innuu party bandilla.” [The phone is out of order. I had called. The party [i.e. repairman] hasn’t come yet.] [Kannada-English] “Naanu work from home maadtiini.” [I work from home.]

Although this phenomenon has been described semi-humorously by journalists and authors as “chutnifying” (Salman Rushdie) or “khichrifying” (khichri is a North Indian mish-mash rice dish), it is one of the most potent, layered and nuanced expressive devices in the multilingual arsenal and has been put to brilliant, creative use for centuries in India. Such mixing or “translanguaging” is not restricted to casual conversation but extends to many public and private contexts. News readers, reporters, disk jockeys and audiences in call-in shows adopt this practice. Business transactions commonly held in restaurants, informal discussions by scientists and technocrats at conferences, newspaper articles, college lectures and discussions, stand-up comedy, email and text messaging, dialogue in films and plays, Internet chat rooms, all use English freely and extensively mixed with Indian languages. This may be the fastest rising use of English in India. What seems interesting about this is the pervasiveness and rapid expansion of this phenomenon and the attitude of bemused acceptance, despite the remonstrations of language purists.

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This “hybrid” English is rampant and often referred to as Hinglish (HindiEnglish), but this term is misleading, because this is a pan-Indian (actually pan-South Asian) phenomenon, and the language involved in such mixed usage is not only Hindi but, all the Indian languages. In fact, there are names for many hybrid languages— Tanglish (Tamil-English) and Kanglish (Kannada-English) are only two. A more accurate term to refer collectively to English mixed with Indian languages may be “Minglish” (Mixed Indian English) or “Inglish” (see Sridhar & Sridhar, 2018a, b). This gliding in and out of English and Indian languages signals the speaker’s attitudinal stance—avoiding fuddy-duddy puritanism and also the snobbery, foreignness and artificiality associated with using only English to an audience. Thus code-gliding is a compromise, an alternative to the extremes of monolingualism in either direction. It reflects the complex hybridity of contemporary globalizing culture rooted in indigenous authenticity. One cannot comprehend (or produce) Indian English discourse if one knows only English (of whatever variety) (see Sridhar, 1989a, b).

6 Summary and Implications We have reviewed how English is used in India, its structural and pragmatic features, how it has been studied, its sociolinguistic context and functions, the attitudes toward it and its emotive and communicative significance. We also explain how this is a dynamic phenomenon responding to India’s fast-changing socioeconomic and political situation. We stress the importance of distinguishing the two modes of use, the unilingual mode and the multilingual mode, and the value of studying them in relation to India’s multilingual ecology. The study of English in India, apart from its intrinsic value, relates to fundamental issues in many areas of linguistics, such as the ontology of the native speaker, the nature of bilingual (and multilingual) competence and creativity, the interaction between languages in the individual speaker-hearer’s mind, the complementarity of functions in multilingual communities, the processes and products of contactinduced language change, the autonomy of non-native varieties, the complex texture of language mixing, the representation and processing of multiple languages in the brain, the parameters of intelligibility across languages (Nelson, 1986), the goals and processes of second language acquisition and teaching outside the target language community and the rationale of practices in second language teaching, to name only a few. The study of English in India is of even wider interest to cultural studies in general, because it both mirrors and contributes to the larger currents of our contemporary culture.

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Kashyap, A. K. (2014). Developments in the linguistic description of Indian English: State of the art. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 9, 249–275. Macaulay, T. B. (1835). Minute. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/mac aulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html May, S. (Ed.). (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education. Routledge. Mohun, A. (2010). English or Hinglish—Does it matter what Indian students are learning? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2010/jan/27/english-hin glish-for-indian-students Nelson, C. L. (1986). My language, your culture: Whose communicative competence? World Englishes, 4(2), 243–250. Nelson, C. L., Proshina, Z. G., & Davis, D. R. (Eds.). (2020). The handbook of world Englishes (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics) (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. Pai, S. (2020). Blog. https://sajithpai.com/higher-education/engineers-india-produce/ Accessed September 6, 2020. Pandit, P. B. (1972). India as a sociolinguistic area. University of Poona. Parasher, S. V. (1991). Indian English: Functions and form. Bihari Publications. Pingali, S. (2009). Indian English. Edinburgh University Press. Pingali, S. (2022). Indian English: Features and development. In E. L. Low, & A. Pakir (Eds.), English in East and South Asia: Policy, features, and language use (pp. 153–167). Routledge. Ram, T. (1991). English and imperial expansion. In R. S. Gupta & K. Kapoor (Eds.), English in India: Issues and problems (pp. 28–57). Academic Foundation. Rao, R. (1938/2014). Kanthapura. Oxford University Press. Schneider, E. W. (2007). Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world. Cambridge University Press. Schuchardt, H. (1891/1980). Indo-English. In G. G. Gilbert (Ed.), Pidgins and creole languages: Selected essays (pp. 38–64). Cambridge University Press. Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10, 209–231. Sridhar, S. N. (1978). On the functions of code-mixing in Kannada. International Journal of Sociology of Language, 16, 109–117. Sridhar, K. K. (1991). Speech acts in an indigenized variety: Sociocultural values and language variation. In J. Cheshire (Ed.), English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 308– 318). Cambridge University Press. Sridhar, S. N. (1994). A reality check for second language acquisition research. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 800–804. Sridhar, S. N., & Sridhar, K. K. (1980). The syntax and psycholinguistics of bilingual code-mixing. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 34, 407–416. Sridhar, S. N., & Sridhar, K. K. (2018a). Mixing, multilingualism and intelligibility. World Englishes, 37(3), 511–522. Sridhar, S. N., & Sridhar, K. K. (2018b). Coda 2: A bridge half-built: Toward a holistic theory of World Englishes and second language acquisition. World Englishes, 37(1), 127–139. Sridhar, K. K., & Sridhar, S. N. (1986). Bridging the paradigm gap: Second language acquisition theory and indigenized varieties of English. World Englishes, 5, 3–14. Also in Kachru, B. (Ed.), The other tongue (2nd ed., pp. 91–107). University of Illinois Press. Sridhar, S. N., & Sridhar, K. K. (2020). Indian English. In K. Bolton, W. Botha, & A. Kirkpatrick (Eds.), Handbook of Asian Englishes (000–000). Routledge. Sridhar, S. N. (1988). Language variation, attitudes, and rivalry: The spread of Hindi in India. In P. Lowenberg (Ed.), Language spread and language policy: Issues, implications and case studies, (pp. 300–319). (Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics). Georgetown University Press. Sridhar, K. K. (1989a). English in Indian bilingualism. Manohar.

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Sridhar, S. N. (1989b). Syntactic markers of lectal range in an indigenized variety of English. In R. Baumgardner (Ed.), English in South Asia: Structure, users and use (pp. 55–69). University of Illinois Press, 1995. [Reprinted by Oxford University Press, Delhi] Sridhar, S. N. (1992). The ecology of bilingual competence: An Indian’s English. In L. Smith & S. N. Sridhar (Eds.), The extended family: English in global bilingualism. Special Issue of World Englishes (pp. 141–150). Pergamon Press. Sridhar, K. K. (1997). Asian Indian Communities in the United States and UK. In S. N. Sridhar & N. K. Mattoo (Eds.), Ananya: A portrait of India (pp. 861–880). Association of Indians in America. Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/75566025.cms?utm_source=conten tofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst Valentine, T. (1994). Agreeing and disagreeing in Indian English discourse: Implications for language teaching. In M. L. Tickoo (Ed.), Language and culture in multilingual societies (pp. 227–250). SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Whitworth, G. C. (1907). Indian English: An examination of the errors of idiom made by Indians writing English. Garden City Press (Reprinted in 1982 by Bahri Publications, New Delhi.). Yule, H., & Burnell, A. C. (1896/1995). Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian dictionary. Wordsworth Editions.

Great Andamanese the Sixth Language Family of India: An Inquiry into the Possible Human Language Anvita Abbi

1 About the Great Andamanese The Great Andamanese is a generic term used to refer to ten different tribes who spoke closely related varieties of the same language in the entire set of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Their language is known by the same name, i.e. Great Andamanese. It constitutes the sixth language family of India, the other five being Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, and Tai-Kadai, all of them spoken in mainland India. Initially, Great Andamanese was considered an ‘isolate’ (Basu, 1952, 1955; Manoharan, 1980, 1983). Some speculation has been made that the other Andamanese languages such as Onge and Jarawa belong to Austronesian language family (Blevins, 2007), although it is being disputed and rejected by several linguists including (Blust, 2014). Linguistic research was undertaken by Abbi (2003, 2006; 2008) established for the first time that there were two distinct language families in the Andaman Islands, i.e., Angan (Onge-Jarawa) and Great Andamanese.1 This was made possible by drawing first-hand data from three accessible languages of the Andamans, viz. Onge, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese, and employing two distinct but inter-related methods from Comparative Historical Linguistics and Language 1 Blevins later (2007) confirmed my results of two independent language families in the area however, named the second family Austronesian consisting of Onge and Jarawa—which has been disputed by scientists. From online version of my work [A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language—An Ethnolinguistic Study | Brill’s Studies in South and Southwest Asian Langaueges, Violume:4 URL: https:// brill.com/view/title/22087].

This Chapter is partially based on the theme contained in an already online version of my work [Ref: www.andamanese.net/Glimpses_of_Preneolithic.pdf (andamanese.net)]. The required copyright permission has been a sought for publication by the author. A. Abbi (B) Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_7

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Map 1 Migration route of early humans out of Africa

Typology. The results of the research were corroborated by geneticists (Thangaraj et al., 2005: 996, as quoted in Abbi, 2008) that Onge-Jarawa and Great Andamanese belong to two separate haplogroups, M31 and M32, respectively. Their research indicates that Andamanese are the descendants of early Palaeolithic colonisers of South-east Asia and are the survivors of the first migration from Africa that took place 70,000 years ago (Thangaraj et al., 2003). Refer to map of migration 1. They are the very first settlers of Southeast Asia and have lived in the islands in isolation practically with no contact with the outside world till the late nineteenth century when the British made the Great Andaman the penal colony commonly known as kaalaapaanii in 1858. The genetic history of Andamanese tribes in general and the Great Andamanese specifically, is of seminal importance for understanding of the evolution of modern humans. All living non-African human populations in South, South East Asia, New Guinea, and Australia are derived from a single dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, followed by subsequent serial founder effects. Great Andamanese are descendants of one of the founder populations of modern humans.

2 About the Great Andamanese Language Great Andamanese belong to the hunter and gatherer Negrito ethnic group. Their history of contact with colonial rule is marked by the genocide of their culture, language, and human existence. The Great Andamanese lived in the island called Great Andaman speaking ten different languages that were mutually intelligible like a link in a chain. Refer to map 2. Thus, the two ends of the chain were distant from

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Map 2 GA languages

each other, but the links in between were close to each other in mutual intelligibility scale. The present population of the Great Andamanese tribe lives a sedentary life and is dependent on the government subsidy system. A few men hunt in the sea as and when possible but not for subsistence. There was one male member of the tribe by the name Nao Jr. in mid-fifties who remembered his language and had a good experience of hunting in the forest and in the sea. It was sheer devotion of Nao Jr that we could extract much information on the civilization of the ancient community. When I first met the Great Andamanese community in 2001 there were ten speakers of the language who claimed to speak the language commonly known as Jeru. None of them were fluent in their language as Great Andamanese had become a moribund language by the time, we reached the island. All of them preferred to speak in a variety of Hindi known as Andamanese Hindi, however, they were willing to remember and teach their heritage language to the members of our team (Fig. 1).2 My subsequent research on their speeches established that the language was a mixture, a kind of a koine∼ = of four North Andamanese languages as the speakers of the North Andaman were dislocated from their ancestor places and were relocated in one small island named Strait Island. Because the language is a mixed one the term Present-day Great Andamanese (PGA) was used to refer to this language which had drawn its lexicon from Khora, Bo, Jeru, and Sare languages, the four North Andamanese varieties but the grammar was based on Jeru. A short sketch of the salient features of the PGA grammar is given later in the chapter. Unfortunately, in the span of the next ten years, we lost some key speakers of the language and at present, there are only four semi-speakers of the PGA. Our zeal and their cooperation facilitated us to be informed about their ancient civilization. Our approach had been to look into their society through language as we believe language encodes traditional knowledge, stories of migration and habitat, the world-view of 2

Initial project was funded by the Max Planck Institute, Leipzig Germany. The team members were Shailendra Mohan and Pramod Kumar. Subsequently, an extensive project Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (VOGA) was undertaken. It was funded by the Hans Rausing Endangered Language Fund, SOAS, the University of London, 2004 under the ELDP (Endangered Language Documentation Programme). For detail consult www.andamanese.net.

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Fig. 1 Great Andamanese community

a community, their way of life, beliefs, values, and the secrets of sustenance. In the absence of any written record (other than what the British regime left behind in the form of anthropological accounts, one dictionary of Aka-Bea, a south Andamanese language (Man, 1923) and comparative word lists of some of the ten languages then spoken (Portman, 1887) there was no other course but to study and research the existing language to get a glimpse of one of the oldest civilization on this earth. I spent long time with the tribe in Strait Island as well as in Port Blair to learn their language and the grammatical structure.

3 Is Great Andamanese Similar to Other Negrito Tribes of Andaman? In addition to Great Andamanese, another tribe that lives on the western coast of Great Andaman is known as Jarawa and speaks a language of the same name. Little Andaman is home to Onge and speak the language of the same name. Both Jarawa and Onge call themselves ang and hence, I refer to their languages as Angan languages. Their languages are genealogically related to each other but distinct from the Great Andamanese languages. It has also been established culturally that the Great Andamanese differ in their design and construction of huts, weapons, boats

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Table 1 Comparative lexicon in body part terms in three languages of the Andaman Islands No

Gloss

PGA

Onge

Jarawa

1

‘Forehead’

er=be:N

łne-Íale

@n-eˇch emug

2

‘Eye’

er=ulu

łne-bo

@n-epo

3

‘Ear’

er=boa

łne-ikh @w@

@n-ikh wa

4

‘Elbow’

bala-tara-ãole

łne-ith oha

@n-itoge @n-oboúage

5

‘Thumb’

oN=kenap

łne-oboth a

6

‘Thigh’

o=buco

łne-ibe

@n-ibo

7

‘Knee’

o=curok

łne-ola

@n-olage

and canoes, ornaments and customs from Jarawa and Onge. The Onge–Jarawas differ from the rest of the tribes of the Andaman Islands by an absence of the practice of tattooing. For details refer to Abbi, (2006, 2008). Please refer to Table 1 just to get an idea of how different the basic words are in the Angan languages and the Great Andamanese language. There are no sound-meaning resemblances and thus, the words are not cognates and rule out a genetic relationship between the two groups of languages. Our further study (Abbi & Kumar, 2011) ruled out any possibility of extensive contact between the Angan and the PGA languages. We cannot rule out the possibility of multiple dispersions from Africa at different times, and also from different locations. We may also consider positing not one but two separate migrations out of Africa into the Andamans; the first one by the Great Andamanese and the second one by the Angan family” (Abbi, 2008). Another tribe, residing in the Sentinel Island west of Great Andaman are called Sentinelese. They have protected themselves from outside intervention so far and thus, our knowledge about them is very minimal. All four tribes belong to the Negrito ethnic race. For details on body parts on Great Andamanese readers may consult Abbi (2012). The prefixes in the Angan languages before the body part represents ‘inalienable human possessor’, while the proclitics (symbolised by the = sign) attached at the beginning of the words in PGA represent body division classes discussed in detail later in the paper. For details on the differences between the languages of the Angan group and Great Andamanese, please refer to Abbi (2006, 2018).

4 A Word About the Topography of the Islands The Eurasian and the Indo-Australian tectonic plates meet in the Indian Ocean. Over geological time scales their collision- dynamics resulted in the formation of a long mountain range. The same collision-dynamics was responsible for tsunami in 2004. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands are the numerous peaks jetting out of the sea while most of the mountain range lies submerged underwater. This perhaps is the reason

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why it is believed that our ‘ancestors’ the Great Andamanese walked on foot to the area from Africa.

5 The World of Great Andamanese: Cultural and Environmental In the subsequent pages I am going to inform the readers of the world and culture of this pre-Neolithic tribe not through artifacts, written documents (which are almost non-existing), excavations, inscriptions but by analyzing words and grammar of the present language which is on the verge of extinction. Archeological studies made by Cooper (1993) does not take us very far in the past however informs us that Andamanese Kitchen middens indicate that Andamanese used Toalian stone technology found all over the Indonesian archipelago indicating that Negritos were more widespread than has been thought.

6 The Nature of the Language and the Loss of Narrative Ability As stated above, Great Andamanese is a moribund language that has ceased to be passed on from one generation to the other. Apart from the loss of language the Great Andamanese also suffer from the loss of cultural heritage, loss of ancient practices and rituals, as well as loss of the art of narration. The few persons, who speak the language now, did not remember any native stories or folk tales. Neither the mothers nor the old people of the community ever narrate any story to their children. A thorough investigation of the linguistic behaviour of the Great Andamanese towards their language and culture presents a bleak picture and points towards a future when they will become a group of people who would lose their language and culture, and, hence, their symbols of identity. While the art of narration perishes in the process of language death, songs and singing are not as adversely affected. Music is a memory-based activity and narration is language-use and grammar-based, and this difference in their cognitive processes has a serious impact on their retention, as exemplified by the case of Great Andamanese. It was a challenging task for our team to elicit any information in the language whose speakers were dwindling, had low competence in the heritage language because of depleting language use domains, offered several linguistic variations coupled with the melancholy attitude towards losing their heritage speech. However, a few speakers remembered their oral tradition which helped us documentation of the language in its various genres.

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7 What Does the Oral Tradition Symbolize? It is not difficult to realize that ancient civilizations primarily those which are represented by oral expressions and have lasted for thousands of years represent: • • • • •

Consciousness of Self Consciousness of society Consciousness of Environment Amalgamating all–to project the universe as one The factor of inalienability or inherency of actions, attributes and states with ‘self’ propels life.

Al of these can be easily found out enshrined in the PGA. Some of the aspects mentioned above are represented here to give a glimpse of a civilization that considered the cosmos embracing all that we see, feel, experience and are an inalienable part of ‘self’.

8 The Concept of Space Space is a cultural construct that can be defined by the movement of spirits, animals, and humans along the vertical and horizontal axes. In the worldview of Great Andamanese, space and all-natural elements in it (sun, moon, tide, winds, earth, and forest) together constitute the cosmos. This factor strengthens the holistic view of the world of the Great Andamanese, where birds and other creatures are essential and inter-related. Not only the living and visible elements but also the presence of the ancestral spirits constitutes the concept of space. Interestingly, the Great Andamanese believe that all the objects of the world have a distinct smell.3 The only elements that don’t smell are the spirits of the ancestors who protect them from destruction.

9 The Concept of Time The model of temporal categorization is known as the honey calendar. It is based on the names of the blooming flowers of that time of the year and the associated honey that the bees collect during the blooming of this flower. This naming process is related not only with seasonal change but also with the flower’s inherent relation with the availability and smell of honey. Thus, the sub-categorization of primary seasons into minor seasons is closely related to the availability of honey and its taste or smell. 3

I recorded 18 different names of smell in this dying language. I am sure there were many more but got extinct by the time I reached the Island. For detail see Abbi (2012).

114 Table 2 Honey Calendar

A. Abbi Name of flowers

Associated seasons

jili toro tipok tolo phocho tolo ret cher rea tolo chokhoro tolo

Onset of summer Mid-summer Intense summer End of summer and onset of rains Onset of mild rains Heavy rains

Interestingly, the Great Andamanese elders of the Strait Island claim to know the origin of honey i.e. the specific kind of flowers that bees used in making the honey. They can identify this by tasting it. Blooming of each flower is then associated with the change of the season and hence the specific time of the year, i.e. calendar (Table 2). Parameters of temporal categorization are divided into four phases. 1. Natural Time. It is measured by movement in the sky, waning or waxing of the moon, tide formation, blooming of flowers and fruits, and hunting and gathering criteria. 2. Life cycle viz. age of a person is measured by puberty rites, turtle eating ceremony, the marriage of a person, the birth of a child, and death. 3. Historical time is measured in the context of the Pre/Post British era identified by the introduction of dogs in the area. 4. Evolutionary Period is seen by mythological sources such as the origin of the earth, the origin of humans, the great flood, the great drought, creation, and saving of fire and transformation of animals or birds into humans and spirits.

10 Great Andamanese Comprehend Life in Some Sort of Hierarchy The foremost distinction is between living and nonliving—tajio ‘living’, ‘existential’ and eleo ‘not living’. Thereafter appears the living domain of sky, i.e. ‘birds’ tajio-tutbech (living objects with feathers). After that, the living entities, which walk on four legs tajio-chola (the domain of land) and many subcategories appear. The domain of water is the next tajio-chaur (living bodies with scales), i.e., ‘fish’ and other water creatures. And the last two in the list are i-shongo ‘human-body’ ‘humans’ and tong ‘plants, trees’ (forest). We could through their mythical beliefs decipher that the creator resides in the sky: mautkochua which is not equivalent to the concept of ‘God’ as the community neither believes in God nor worships any deity. Only the northwest wind bilikhu is remembered before taking a journey in the sea to calm the tides and the wind. Although the art of narrative as said earlier in the article was

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decaying, Nao Jr. could render ten stories to us out of which two of them had a clear mention of cannibalism.4

11 Empirical Classification of the Names of the Great Andamanese Birds I am now going to discuss the indigenous knowledge about birds that the Great Andamanese, especially one speaker, Nao Jr. shared with me. For details on this and to see pictures of each bird identified by the tribe readers may consult Pande and Abbi (2011). Folk system of ornithological classification and nomenclature gives us names for birds of the ocean, shore, prey, forest-floor, doves and pigeons, parakeets, mynas, kingfishers, bee-eaters, birds of the forest canopy, birds of omen, birds of warning, household birds, tiny birds, birds of the roof, birds related to ancestors and residual taxa, e.g. heron, vulture etc. One may notice that specific names of birds in the Great Andamanese nomenclature often consist of contrast sets which in turn have a certain underlying meaning. Pande and Abbi (2011) have classified various dimensions or attributes in the Great Andamanese bird names into ornithological and pragmatic categories based on their semantic properties. One bird name may have more than one attribute and such names are constructed by compounding.

11.1 Ethno-Ornithological Descriptions (a) The primary attributes of the detonata are size as in phuro (big one, to clap on thigh)‘owl’ and shape of the bird or its body parts like head, beak, legs, tail e.g. bala (a kind of cuckoo with a broom) ‘Andaman drongo’, perch sites, loud calls and habitats where birds are seen. Our analysis of Great Andamanese names shows that 52 bird species are recognized by primary attributes. (b) The secondary attributes of denotata essentially require in-depth observations and a higher level of ornithological understanding. The various secondary attributes are behavioural bird vocalizations (voice-related and onomatopoeic names), food and feeding habits, as in baue (found in pairs, attached to the ground because this kingfisher is often seen away from water and therefore subsists itself on terrestrial food than fish.) The ‘crab plover’, chelene (the one who eats harmful wild crabs), nesting behaviour, movement, repetitive movement, conjugal behaviour, and status whether residential or migratory such as laotei-tut-bech (foreign blood-bird) ‘migratory bird’. There are 66 bird species known to the Great Andamanese recognized by secondary attributes. 4

Abbi (2020). Voices from the lost Horizon. Stories and Songs of the Great Andamanese. Niyogi Publishers Delhi. With QR Code to view videos of songs.

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(c) The Pragmatic Category includes bird names with analogies drawn with human culture and the human way of life and relating to the human sphere of observations. The Great Andamanese have related birds to their own lives by giving them the names of their ancestors-etic names (such as, benge ‘Andaman serpent eagle’, kaulo ‘Brahminy kite’, phatka ‘crow’, mithe ‘dove’) or naming them as toponyms. They have also named birds by associating them with animate objects or to other animal species based on some common characteristics. Great Andamanese have also drawn analogies with shape, colour and other properties of inanimate objects known to them (harpoon, the bark of a tree, jewellery and human body parts.). Birds are conceived as objects of beauty as in bemokatap (the one who has a small waist) ‘Andaman bulbul’. There are 26 bird species known to the Great Andamanese that can be included in the pragmatic category. Pictures of some of these birds are given here. Birds are woven in folklore5 and culture and are perceived as warnings and omens, e.g. chetale’s call is a good omen for hunting in the sea or baue warns of approaching enemies or Jarawas. Birds are also symbolically perceived based on spiritual virtues and mythological significance. Birds are not considered eating objects but are looked upon as ‘living objects with feathers’—tajio-tut-bec. The other reason why birds do not constitute their diets is that birds are seen as their ‘ancestors’. Interestingly, although birds are not their regular food, the Great Andamanese recognize several species of birds. I once caught Boa Sr. talking to birds. When I asked why she was talking to birds she said “they understand my language. No one here does.” I could perceive her agony of being able to speak to no one else as she was the last surviving speaker of Bo language. On inquiry I found out birds are treated as their ancestors and thus, I collected one of my favourite folk tales of Jiro Mithe.6 Contrary to general belief Great Andamanese had a very keen sense of perceiving colours and different shades. The heightened perception of hues and shades of colour reflects in the names of birds. They recognize several species of birds after their prominent plumage colour or colour of a body part. The Great Andamanese also recognize the properties of colour. The glittering nature of the plumage is recognized for species like Nicobar Pigeon and Emerald Dove which is called miliidiu, ‘glittering’ where mili means ‘shaking’, diu means ‘to glitter/shine/sun’. The most important fact which came to light was that when compared to scientific names many Great Andamanese names for birds came remarkably close to the scientific nomenclature. For instance the Storm Petrels have the scientific name as Puffinus, Fregetta sp. which translates as ‘birds that walk on water’. The equivalent Great Andamanese name translates as ‘Splashing water surface like a waterfall’; Eurasian Curlew is known as Numenius arquata ‘Bow-like beak’ the parallel example in Great Andamanese translates as ‘foreigner with a bow like beak’.It is called foreigner 5

Refer to the folk tale on birds Jiro Mithe by Abbi (2013a, b) New Delhi. National Book Trust. Also given in Abbi (2020) with line-by-line translation. 6 National Book Trust published the folk tale by the same name Jiro Mithe 2013. New Delhi. Subsequently the story is also included in the Voices from the Lost Horizon 2020. Niyogi Books.

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because it is a migratory bird. Oriole is known as Oriolus sp. scientifically but menas ‘yellow bird’ both in Great Andamanese and in scientific terminology.

12 The Naming of a Person An average Great Andamanese person acquires several names in his/her life depending upon various factors including ecological. The very first name is given when the child is in his/her mother’s womb. Hence pre-natal names are genderneutral. This name changes to seasonal flower name in case of a girl child when she reaches puberty. The male child acquires the name of ejido at puberty which lasts till he reaches adulthood when the name of khimil is given to him. After attainment of adulthood, i.e. the right of passage, the male child acquires again the pre-natal name which lasts till his death. At the time of the first birth of a child to him, both husband and wife are addressed by the same term for a short period. It is only after the first birth that the pre-natal name of a woman is given back to her. After death prefix, Maya is attached to the pre-natal name. This implies that female names change the fewer number of times than that of males. For example, the name Boa is given to the unborn child who happens to be a female. The trajectory of the name change would be: Boa > Phocho (a flower name) > specific address term after the first childbirth > Boa > Maya Boa. In the case of a male child let us presume the name in the womb was given Jirake. The trajectory of the name change would be: Jirake > Ejido > Khimil > specific address term shared by both husband and wife after the first childbirth > Jirake > Maya Jirake. It is to be remembered that Jirake can be the name of a female and Boa could be the name of a male.

13 The Naming of a Location Most of the islands in Great Andaman already have indigenous names that represent the characteristics of the place. The transparency of the words informs us of the Andamanese culture and way of life. For example, Port Blair is called Lao-taranyo ‘house of foreigners/spirits/devil’. This is because Britishers stepped on this land for the first time. The word for Strait Island where all the Andamanese stay at present was known as Khringkosho, and the islet opposite of the Strait Island was known as Phocho Toy ‘Place where Phocho flower is found’. Similarly, the famous island among tourists the Havelock Island was known as Thi-lar-Shiro ‘emerging land from the open sea’. Since Jarawas were their arch enemies, the portion of the island (i.e. South of the Great Andaman) occupied by the Jarawas was known as Sorbul ‘dangerous area’. Original place in Mayabunder where Boa Sr used to live was known as Mara Tong ‘the place where Mara tree is grown’. Unfortunately, as of today complete deforestation and a helipad have replaced the thick forest of Mara.

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The Andaman archipelago was known as Marakele ‘our place’. For details refer to the Great Andamanese Dictionary (Abbi, 2012: 321–322).

14 The Great Loss of Knowledgebase If languages are repositories of human perception, human history, human civilization and migration, then depleting indigenous language speaking population of hunter and gatherers in the Andaman Islands signifies loss of large scale knowledge base. The contact between the Great Andamanese and food-producing communities have led to a loss of old cultural practices as well as diminishing indigenous vocabulary about specific hunting activities, local flora and fauna, medicinal plants and their uses, boat-building and diverse gathering activities. The author believes that languages carry evidence of earlier environment, habitat, and practices which are no longer in the memory of the community. Hence language death signifies the closure of the link with its ancient heritage. Most importantly, a grammar of any language is not merely a set of rules but also encodes worldview of the speaker, social pattern of the language where it is used and philosophical underpinnings that a language structure has. Following section gives a brief summary of the language structure that will verify the statement made above.

15 The Grammar of the PGA 15.1 Typology PGA is agglutinative in terms of its treatment of morpheme boundaries but polysynthetic in word morphology. A large number of morphemes, affixes, phonological words, clitics, and incorporated elements can constitute a single word (1). The incorporation of reflexives (2) and nouns (3) is seen in verb complexes. These verb complexes may constitute a verb phrase. Thus, verbs are much more versatile and elaborate than nouns. Schema 1: (proclitic) (valency) (reflexive) verb root ([formative affix]) (mood/aspect) [tense] 1.

a = joe

a = toN-nu

cl1 = Joe

cl1 = Tong-pl

‘Joe and Tong went to see the spring.’ 2. úh a(ε)m-eúh -om. 1sgrefl-recline- npst. ‘I am reclining.’ 3. úh = ut = ãiu-birate-k-ºom.

tara cº r-e spring-abs

eole-inci-k-o see-go-fa-pst.

Great Andamanese the Sixth Language Family of India: An Inquiry … Table 3 Vowels of Great Andamanese (Abbi, 2013b)

Front

Central

119 Back

Close

i

u

Half close

e

o

Half open

E

O

Open

A

1sg = cl 4 = sun set-fa- npst. It will take me the whole day (to finish the job).’ Literally: ‘I will be working till the sun sets’.

15.2 The Sound System Comparing the results of Abbi (2013b) with the late 19th-century works of Man (1923) and Portman (1887), the following conclusions can be made about the sound system of the language family in general, and PGA in particular. PGA has a seven-vowel system distributed in the front and the back part of the tongue, as shown in Table 3. The language has no central vowel, a rather striking feature as compared to other languages of the Andaman Islands (Abbi 2006 and Kumar 2012). A variety of combinatory possibilities of vowel clusters in all positions is rather striking feature of the language family. A three-vowel cluster at the end of a word such as [mAiA] ‘sir’ or [e-boio] ‘ripen’ is not uncommon. Other languages of the Andaman Islands, namely Onge and Jarawa do not show such a pattern (Abbi, 2006). As far as consonants are concerned, there are 13 oral stops, most occurring in contrasting pairs. The language has ample examples of voiced and voiceless dental and retroflex stops. Only the voiceless sounds are aspirated. Thus, /t/: /th /: /ú/: /úH/: /d/: /|/, /p/, /b/, /c/,7 /Í/, /k/, /kh / exist; though /g/ is noticeably absent in PGA. A voiceless bilabial fricative /F/, a voiced bilabial fricative/β/ which occur only in the speech of one person (hence in parenthesis in Table 9.4), and a labialised /lw / are unique features (occurs in one male speech) of this language family. However, due to contact with Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages these sounds are being replaced by /ph /, /b/ and /l/ respectively across speakers. Some of the examples for /lw / in all positions from Jeru, one of the North Great Andamanese languages, are: / lw ec/ ‘arrow’/, /bi:lw u/ ‘ship’, and /bolw / ‘rope’. This labialised lateral is a unique feature of one of the terminal speakers and cannot be considered a characteristic feature of the PGA language family in the absence of substantial evidence from other speakers. Four distinct nasals /m, n, ñ, ï/exist in all positions. Two liquids /l, r/ and two sibilants /s, ∫/ are commonly found in all Great Andamanese languages. Retroflex 7

Its variant /ch / exists in some varieties as in the speech of Khora and Bo. For details on variation refer to Abbi (2013b: 47).

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[ó] was observed in Khora in all positions. Thus, /εr = óulu/ ‘eye’, /EólA/ ‘alone’ and /bOótε}/ ‘storm’ in the speech of the last speaker of Khora was attested. Languages of this family are rich in consonant clusters existing both initially and medially in a word. The medial consonant clusters offer a large variety unparalleled by other languages of the Andaman Islands. A word can be as long as seven syllables in PGA. The names of body parts, birds, fish, insects, reptiles and other jungle creatures provide most of the complex words with long syllable structures, e.g., araomototlOcoN ‘skin of scrotum’. For details please refer to the grammar of the Great Andamanese language (Abbi, 2013b).

15.3 The Concept of Inalienability and Inherency8 The concept of inalienability has been much discussed in linguistic literature (Chappell & McGregor, 1989, 1996; Diem, 1986; Haiman, 1985; Heine, 1997; Hyman et al., 1970; Nichols, 1988; Seiler, 1983; Spanoghe, 2001; Wierzbicka, 1976). Because the phenomenon has been considered language and culture-specific (Bally 1926 [1996]; Chappell & McGregor, 1996: 9) there is no consensus as to the number or nature of the objects to be considered inalienable (Stolz, 2008). The Sixth language family of India, i.e. the Great Andamanese has a very elaborate system for marking inalienability nested in seven possessive markers designating different body divisions. Each division houses several body parts. The same division is carried over in perceiving human relations and other objects which are conceptually dependent. The seven markers are further grammaticalized in the language and appear as proclitics (for details refer to Abbi, 2011) which classify dependent nouns including kin terms, attributive and verbal modifiers (i.e. adjectives and adverbs), transitive verbs and intransitive verbs of experience, ambience, and motion. As such they demonstrate the conceptual dependency or inalienablitiy that exists between concepts designated by various grammatical categories and related phenomena. As one can not separate the dance from a dancer, each grammatical category in this language family is inseparable from its host which is a grammaticalized form of a body division. :: VOGA:: Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese The Great Andamanese people visualize their world from a vantage point of view centered in the ‘self’ or ‘ego’. The binary distinction of alienable versus inalienable does not exist in a strict sense as we will see in the following section. There are only a few prototypical alienable nouns referring to flora and fauna which exhibit external possession (and thus do not take proclitics) while all others fall within the purview of inalienability.

8

From online version of my work URL: http://andamanse.net/grammar_notes html [:: VOGA:: Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese].

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Table 4 Seven basic zones in the partonomy of the body in PGA Classes

Partonomy of human body

Body division markers

1

Mouth and its semantic extension

a=

2

Major external body parts

Er=

3

Extreme ends of the body like toes and fingernails

oN=

4

Bodily products and part-whole relationship

ut=

5

Organs inside the body

e=~ E=

6

Parts designating round shape/sexual organs

ara=

7

Parts for legs and related terms

o= ~ O=

It is observed that nouns, verbs and modifiers, all can be classified by a dependency feature. The Great Andamanese conceptualize their world through these interdependencies and hence the grammar of the language encodes this important phenomenon in every grammatical category expressing referential, attributive and predicative meaning. Let us see how the grammar is constituted to represent these interdependencies. A brief note of the Great Andamanese grammar will explain the unique feature of the sixth language family.

15.4 The Basic Seven Divisions of Body and Proclitics Table 4 introduces the basic zones in a human body grammaticalized in the form of a monosyllable used as proclitic attached to all the grammatical categories found in the language. Which body parts are referred to by each of the divisions is given in the second column. Let us see how these proclitics are used in the language. To begin with I would discuss possession and genitive constructions.

15.5 Possession and Genitive PGA is a prototypical ‘double-marking’ language where the head or possessed noun is obligatorily marked in inalienable possession, but it is the possessor, the dependent noun, which is marked in an alienable possession (sentence 4). While the genitive phrase precedes the head noun (as is typical of verb-final languages), other modifiers follow the modified elements (5). 4. nu i ∫ o julu Nu gen dress. ‘Nu’s dress.’ 5. Íulu tEr = ãiúh -(bi) k h uro be.

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A. Abbi dresscl2 = hole-absbig cop. ‘There is a big hole in the dress.’

Moreover, animacy determines the phonetic shape of the base form of the class marker. If the possessor noun is inanimate, the class marker is prefixed by a dental consonant t-otherwise, with all animate possessors, both human and non-human, class markers begin with a vowel. Thus, possessive class markers ara=, ot=, etc., which are indicators of animate possessors, will be rendered as tara=, tot= respectively, if the possessors are inanimate beings. Thus, live animals and their body parts will be marked by a class marker without the initial /t-/ as is the case with human body parts. However, when the part is cut and segregated from the body the associated marker will be prefixed with /t-/. Thus, ra εr=co ‘pig’s head’ but ra tεr=co ‘pig’s head’ [cut]. Part-to-component relationships follow the same principle as the two parts are inherent and inalienable but inanimate (6). 6. f εc ta = ph oN Vesselcl1 = cavity. ‘The mouth of the vessel.’

15.6 Structuration of the Language The grammar of the language represents the cognitive aspects of the community. The conceptualization by Great Andamanese is anthropocentric. They use human categorization to describe and understand non-human concepts. The human body provides the most important model for expressing concepts not only of spatial orientation but also of relational nouns, attributive categories, inherently related objects of actions and events, or any two objects and two events which are conceptually dependent upon each other. Although many languages use human body part terms to represent different aspects of grammar (Majid, 2010), yet what I am going to present here is unparalleled and unique. The conceptual dependency is represented by the appropriate clitic that attaches to various grammatical categories. Thus, a marker for organs inside the body, i.e. class 5 is attached to the verb ‘think’ as in e-biNe as thinking is an internal activity. The same marker can be used with a modifier for an internally beautiful person (English ‘nice’) as in e = buNoi but it is Er = buNoi for an externally beautiful person because Er = is reserved for external parts of the body such as ‘teeth’, ‘arms’, ‘face’, etc. Or class 1 a = which is reserved for mouth and its extension can be used with adjective e.g., a = mu ‘dumb’ because marker a = implying inalienable relationship between the mouth of the person and the modifier ‘dumb’. Class 3 as we saw in Table 4 is oN = which designates extreme ends of the body like toes and fingernails is used for verb ‘stitch’ or ‘pick up’ and as expected also for modifers used for ‘crippled person’. It is in the area of adverbs that these classes are grammaticalized to an extenct that the transparency is almost lost now. For instance tempoal adverb of evening or sunset is

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o-kara which uses class 7. The degree of grammaticalization varies from category to category. For details refer to Abbi (2011: 778). We observed that the same noun can take different proclitics designating different locations of nouns. Consider the following examples. The noun tei ‘blood’ is a dependent noun as one has to state where the blood is or from where it is coming out. ut = tei[class 4] ‘oozing out blood’. er = tei[class 2] ‘blood on any external part of the body’. a = tei [class 1] ‘blood in the mouth’. oN = tei[class 3] ‘blood on fingers’. o = tei[class 6] ‘blood on legs’. e=tei [class 5] ‘internal bleeding’. Interestingly, these verbal clitics are intertwined with the manner of action and thus, each of the seven clitic represents distinct manner of an action when attached to verbs. Consider verbs related to ‘to cut’. ara=ph o[class 6] ‘cut down’, ‘fell’ (tree) εr=ph o[class 2] ‘hit with a stick’ (from front) ut=ph o[class 4] ‘cut from the source’ (betel nut or coconut). Very few verbs in the language are free forms such as ‘rain’, ‘sneeze’ ‘get away’ etc. Most of the free personal pronouns exist in reduced form as simple proclitics and when they occur with other clitics, such as body-class proclitics, they offer the possibility of clitic sequencing. Consider: 7. úh = a = maik-a = úhi-(u)t = bºl-o. 1sg = cl1.poss = fatherobj- cl1 = land search-cl 4 = went off-pst. ‘(They) went off to search my father.’

Over the years, these proclitics have fused with nouns and verbs and are no longer segmental or transparent in meaning in many words. This may be a result of grammaticalisation or of the development from concrete lexemes to abstract grammatical concepts that normally takes place during language change, but more significantly also during language evolution (Givón, 2002; Heine & Kuteva, 2007). Table 5 is exemplary for all class markers designating seven body divisions occurring with all grammatical categories. Examples given here are self-explanatory. Body division class markers occur with nouns, modifiers, and both action and state verbs, and express the relationship between (a) an action and its object in case of transitive verb, (b) between an action and its result, (c) between an action and its manner, or (d) between an object and its state. This relationship between the two grammatical categories symbolised by class markers represents the concept of inherency that is perceived by the speakers of the language. The dependency feature of various grammatical categories on the preceding body division class marker may be understood as the ‘inherency factor’.

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Table 5 Partonomy of human body and grammaticalisation process in PGA Classes

Partonomy of human body

1

Mouth and its a= semantic extension

2

Major external body parts

3

Body division markers

Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

Mouth-related activity, origin, e.g. a = jire ‘abuse’, a = koph o ‘sprout’

Mouth-related attributive quality of a person, e.g., a = mu ‘mute’, a = tutlup ‘greedy’

Deictic meaning of front or back, anteriority of an action, e.g. a = karap ‘behind’, a = kaulu ‘prior to’

Er=

Activity in which the front part of the body is involved. e.g. er = luk ‘weigh’

Attribute of size, external beauty, e.g. er = buNoi ‘beautiful’

Deictic meaning of adjacency, uncontrollable actions/emotions, e.g. er = betto:⎧o ‘adjacent to/near X’, er = achil ‘surprised’

Extreme ends of the body like toe and fingernails

oN=

Hand-related activity, action to do with extremities of body, e.g. oN = ch o ‘stitch’, oN = tujuro ‘trembling of hands’

Attributes related to limbs, e.g. oN = karacay ‘lame’, ‘handicapped’, oN = toplo ‘alone’

Indicating manner, oN = kocil ‘fast’, ‘hurriedly’

4

Bodily products and part-whole relationship

ut=

Directional, away from the ego, experiential, e.g. ut = cone ‘leave’, ut = úh eúh e-bom ‘be hungry’

Attributive quality of an X after a part is taken out of it, e.g. ut = lile ‘decay’, ut = lºk h o ‘bare’

Emerging out of something, deictic meaning of ‘towards X’, e.g. ot = le, ‘seaward’, ot = bo ‘backwards’

5

Organs inside the body

e=, E=

Internalized action, when the effect of an action can be seen on the object, or experienced, e.g. e = lεco ‘suck’, ε = rino ‘tear’

Inherent attribute of X, e.g. e = sare ‘salty’, ε = bεn ‘soft’

Deictic meaning of ‘in the middle of X’ te = k h il, e = kotra ‘inside’

6

Parts designating round shape

ara=

Action that involves side or middle portion of the body, e.g. ara = ãelo ‘be pregnant’

Attribute of size, ‘time’ and belly-related, e.g. ara = ph eúk h e tº ‘big bellied’, ara = kaúa ‘stout/dwarf’

Deixis of immediate vertical or horizontal space, e.g. ara = balo ‘behind X’, tara = tal ‘right under X’ (continued)

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Table 5 (continued) Classes

Partonomy of human body

Body division markers

Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

7

Parts for leg and related terms

o= ~O

Action which results in roundish object or in a definite result, e.g. o = cºrno ‘make nest’, o = beo ‘sting’

External attribute of an X, shape or structure, e.g. o = baloN ‘round’, o = ph elaña ‘slippery’

Temporal deixis relating to ‘sun rise’ or directional deixis, o = tº: ‘day break’, o = kara ‘sunset’

16 To Conclude the Discussion We thus, propose that various kinds of inherent, non- transferable, inter-dependent relations between two elements are represented by inalienable body division markings. The knowledge of the concept of inalienability and its various manifestations in the language as proclitics is very essential to comprehend the grammar of the Great Andamanese language. The structures discussed here, viz. body division classes and their pervading character are culture-specific traits and developed in stages as a coevolutionary product. This is a coevolutionary journey of the language development. Such structures are not attested in any language of the world including those of North and South American Indian languages or Asutralian aboriginal languages (Abbi, 2011, 2018) so far; however, they were present in other Great Andamanese languages, e.g. Aka Bea (Man, 1923), Aka Kede (Portman, 1887), Khora, and Bo,9 all of which have become extinct. Despite several other internal innovations, PGA still retains these structures. This proves that it was inherent feature of the grammar of the entire language family. Considering the sociohistorical aspects of the Great Andamanese, a speculation can be made here. Since it is believed that the Great Andamanese tribes are remnants of the first migration out of Africa from 70,000 years before present, and have lived in isolation (Kashyap et al., 2003) all along without any contact till the late nineteenth century, the body division markers appearing on every grammatical category of content words appear to be very archaic in nature. The system is indicative of the early times when human beings conceptualized their world through their body and its divisions. This could be the evidence of the structure of the “possible human language” that ever existed in human evolution.

9

I was fortunate to study both Khora and Bo from the last speakers Boro Sr. and Boa respectively whom I met during my field study in the Andaman Islands. Both the languages also had the occurrence of pervasive body division markers as proclitics.

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References Abbi, A. (2003, June 13). Vanishing voices of the languages of the Andaman Islands. Paper presented at the Max Planck Institute, Leipzig. [Published online in 2004 at http://www.andaman.org/ BOOK/originals/Abbi/art-abbi.htm] Abbi, A. (2006). Endangered languages of the Andaman Islands. Munich: Lincom. Abbi, A. (2008). Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa? Language Sciences, 31, 791–812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2008.02.002 Abbi, A. (2011). Body divisions in Great Andamanese possessive classification, the semantics of inherency and grammaticalization. Studies in Language, 35(2), 739–792. Abbi, A. (2012). A Dictionary of the Great Andamanese language. English–Andamanese–Hindi with sound files. Ratna Sagar. Abbi. (2013a). Jiro Mithe. Folk tale of great Andamanese. New Delhi: National Book Trust. Abbi, A. (2013b) A grammar of the Great Andamanese language. An ethnolinguistic study. Brill. Abbi, A. (2018). In dynamics of language. Plenary and focus lectures from the 20th International Congress of Linguists. R. Mesthrie & Bradley D. (Eds.). International Congress of Linguists (pp. 134–152). UCT Press. Chapter 9. Abbi, A. (2020). Voices from the lost horizon. Stories and songs of the Great Andamanese. Niyogi Publishers Delhi (in press). Abbi, A., & Kumar, P. (2011). In search of language contact between Jarawa and Aka-Bea: The languages of South Andaman, Acta Orientalia, 72, 1–40. Abbi (2013a) Jiro Mithe. Folk Tale of Great Andamanese. National Book Trust. New Delhi. Bally, C. 1996 (1926). The expression of concepts of the personal domain and indivisibility in Indo-European languages. In H. Chappell & W. McGregor (Eds.), The grammar of inalienability. A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation (pp. 31–61). Mouton de Gruyter. Basu, D. N. (1952). A linguistic introduction to Andamanese, Bulletin of the Department of Anthropology, ASI, 1(2), 55–70. Basu, D. N. (1955). A general note on the Andamanese languages, Indian Linguistics, 16, 213–225. Blevins, J. (2007). A long lost sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands, Oceanic Linguistics, 46, 155–198. Blust, R. (2014, December). Some recent proposals concerning the classification of the Austronesian languages, Oceanic Linguistics, 53(2), 300–391. Chappell, H., & McGregor, W. (1989). Alienability, inalienability and nominal classification. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 15, 24–36. Chappell, H., & McGregor, W. (Eds.). (1996). The grammar of inalienability. A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Mouton de Gruyter. Cooper, Z., (1993). The origins of the Andaman Islanders: Local myth and archaeological evidence, Antiquity, 67, 394–399. Diem, W. (1986). Alienable and Inalienable relation in Semitischen. Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft, 136, 227–291. Givón, T. (2002). Bio-linguistics: The Santa Barbara lectures. John Benjamins. Haiman, J. (ed.) 1985. Iconicity in syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Heine, B. (1997). Possession. Cognitive sources, forces and grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press. [Cambridge studies in linguistics]. Heine, B., & Tania, K. (2007). The genesis of grammar: A reconstruction. Oxford University Press. Hyman, L. M., Alford, D. K., & Akpati, E. (1970). Inalienable possession in Igbo. Journal of West African Languages, 7, 85–101. Kashyap, V. K., Sitalaximi, T., Sarkar, B. N. & Trivedi, T. (2003). Molecular relatedness of the aboriginal groups of Andaman and Nicobar Islands with similar ethnic populations, International Journal of Human Genetics, 3, 5–11. Kumar, P. (2012). Grammar of Jarawa: A typological study. Ph.D. dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

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Majid, A. (2010). Words for parts of the body. In B. C. Malt & P. Wolff (Eds.), Words and the mind (pp. 58–71). Oxford University Press. Man, E. H. (1923). A dictionary of the South Andaman (Âkà-Bêa) language. British India. Manoharan, S. (1980). Language of the present Great Andamanese. Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society, 15, 43–55. Manoharan, S. (1983). Subgrouping Andamanese groups of languages, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 12(1), 82–95. Nichols, J. (1988). On alienable and inalienable possession. In W. Shipley (Ed.), Honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival Conference in Native American Linguistics (pp. 557–609). Mouton De Gruyter. Pande, S., & Abbi, A. (2011). Birds of the Great Andamanese. Names, classification and culture. Ela Foundation with Bombay Natural History Society Pune and Oxford University Press. Portman, M. V. (1887). Manual of the Andamanese languages. Allen. Spanoghe, A. M. (2001). (In)alienability and (in)determination in Portuguese. In I. Baron, M. Herslund, & F. Sørensen (Eds.), Dimensions of possession (pp. 227–242). Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 47]. Stolz, T. (Ed.) (2008). Hansjakob Seiler. Universality in language beyond grammar: Selected writings 1990–2007. Universitaetsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer. [Diversitas Linguarum 17]. Thangaraj, K., Singh, L., Reddy, A. G., Rao, V. R., Sehgal, S. C., Underhill, P. A., Pierson, M., Frame, I. G. & Hagelberg, E. (2003). Genetic affinities of the Andaman Islanders. A vanishing human population, Current Biology, 13, 86–93. Thangaraj, K., Chaubey, G., Kivisild, T., Reddy, A. G., Singh, V. K., Rasalkar, A. A. & Singh, L. (2005). Reconstructing the origin of Andaman Islanders. Science, 308, 996. Seiler, H. (1983). Possession as an operational dimension of language. Gunter Narr Verlag [Language Universal Series 2]. Wierzbicka, A. (1976). Mind and body from a semantic point of view. In J. McCawley (Ed.), Notes from the linguistic underground (pp. 129–158). Academic Press. [Syntax and Semantics 7].

Web Sources of My Own Works www.andamanese.net/Glimpses_of_Preneolithic.pdf (andamanese.net) https://brill.com/view/title/22087 [A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language – An Ethnolinguistic Study | Brill’s Studies in South and Southwest Asian Langaueges, Violume:4] http://andamanse.net/grammar_notes html [ :: VOGA :: Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese]

Case and Lexical Categories in Dravidian K. A. Jayaseelan

1 Introduction: The Importance of Destabilizing Received Knowledge This program for which we are assembled here is about ‘continuing education.’ One way in which one can continue one’s education is not just by adding new knowledge to the knowledge we already have, but also, interestingly, by destabilizing some old knowledge. If we can take some old knowledge which you think you have, and if we can unsettle your conviction that it is true, that is also continuing education. What I am going to say today is going to be of that nature. For example, there are some settled beliefs we all have about the nature of case in language and about lexical categories. What I will tell you today is that some of these settled beliefs have been questioned; they are in the process of being thrown out; so you should be cautious when you depend too much on these traditional notions.

2 Case: The Traditional Notions and Some New Ideas Let us first take case. Traditional grammar tells us that case is something that is assigned to nominal expressions—NPs, gerunds, etc. Case is assigned to nominal expressions by a case assigner. For example, we think that a transitive verb assigns accusative case to its direct object; this has been the conviction that the traditional grammars have nurtured in us since I do not know when—may be since the time of Panini. So then, there are case assigners and there are also certain configurations in which case is assigned. Another example is the genitive case in the possessive K. A. Jayaseelan (B) The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_8

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position within NP, or what Chomskian grammar calls the ‘specifier’ of NP: genitive case is simply assigned to this position. We were also told that once a case is assigned to a nominal expression, it stays on that nominal expression throughout the derivation. It is not only traditional grammars that nurtured these notions. There is a variety of Chomskian theory that came to be known as the ‘government and binding’ theory—often abbreviated as ‘GB Theory’— which had a case theory component; and it said that every noun phrase has to get a case, and only one case; otherwise, the derivation crashes. This was called the ‘case filter.’ All these beliefs have now been questioned. Some very interesting work is being done in many specialized areas of current research, especially in an area called Nano Syntax. You know what ‘nano’ means: ‘nano’ means very small. Nano-syntax is a syntax which focuses on analyzing very small elements in syntax. The big names here are Michal Starke, Pavel Caha, etc. (see References). In the framework of nanosyntax, it has been claimed that noun phrases do not have just one case; there is case stacking, which means that a noun phrase can have multiple cases, one on top of another. Another very challenging claim is that there is a universal case hierarchy; a case hierarchy is an ordering of cases, one case being above another, and another, etc. And a claim made is that when a case is generated on a noun phrase, all the lower cases on the hierarchy are also generated on it. When multiple cases are stacked on a noun phrase, the standard thing is for only the highest case to be visible. For example, if there are 3 cases—case 1, case 2 and case 3—stacked on a noun phrase, normally you will see only the highest case, namely case 3; but case 2 and case 1 are there underneath. And when any syntactic process removes a case from a noun phrase, for example if it removes case 3, then the noun phrase will appear on the surface with case 2; and if case 2 is also removed, it will appear with case 1. If all cases are removed, it will appear with no case, which is what we often call nominative case. That is one line of thinking. Another settled belief of ours was that once a case is assigned, it stays on the noun phrase. That is something I am going to question today. I am going to show that cases move from one element to another, cases get absorbed: element A absorbs element B’s case, element C absorbs element D’s case, etc. I am also going to show that this case absorption is the genesis of certain lexical categories. I am not the first to say all this; there are several people who have said it.

3 Lexical Categories: How They Are Generated in Grammar Now we will come to the notion of lexical category. What do we mean by lexical categories? These are what used to be called ‘parts of speech’ in traditional grammar. Everybody who has done traditional grammar will know some examples of parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb and preposition. These are all listed as parts of

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speech, and traditional grammar tells us that these are primitives of grammar. The lexicon has a set of nouns, a set of verbs, a set of adjectives, a set of adverbs, a set of prepositions. And we also have a notion of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ lexical categories. Open categories are categories into which new words can be borrowed and added. For example, we can borrow new nouns: We did not have the noun ‘Google’ earlier, now we have got that noun. New verbs can be added, and new adjectives can be added. But there are certain closed categories to which you cannot add new items. For example, take affixal morphemes—e.g. the English plural morpheme -s in boys; you cannot add to this class. And prepositions (or postpositions as the case may be) are other examples: you cannot create a new preposition. These are supposed to be closed categories. Now all these ideas have been questioned, because it has now been claimed that some or all of the lexical categories are actually generated in the syntax. There is a linguist named Alec Marantz (see References) who is now at New York University but was earlier at MIT; he claimed that the lexicon does not have noun, verb, adjective, etc. The lexicon has only roots, and these roots have no category. A category-less root becomes a noun or a verb because of certain affixations, syntactic operations. Then there is another claim: David Pesetsky (see References), a linguist who teaches at MIT, has made the rather outlandish claim that a category-less root becomes a noun when a genitive case is affixed to it. And the same category-less root can become a verb when an accusative case is affixed to it. The most interesting claim is one by Richard Kayne, who earlier taught at MIT but now teaches at New York University. Richard Kayne has claimed in a 2010 paper (see ‘References’) that the only open category is nouns, and nouns are the only category capable of denotation. (Denotation means referring.) The other socalled open categories, like verbs and adjectives, are actually derived from nouns by functional affixation, i.e. the affixation of functional elements. So, nouns are the basic category and other categories are derived from it by a syntactic process of affixation. In this context, I must put in a plug for us, i.e. Amritavalli and Jayaseelan. We claimed in a 2003 paper of ours (see ‘References’) that what we call ‘adjective’ is actually a nominal element which has a dative case affixed to it. That is, what we call ‘adjective’ is generated (in the syntax) when a nominal root ‘absorbs’ (or gets) a dative case from another element. In this presentation, as part of this attempt of mine at ‘unsettling knowledge’ as I called it, I will extend that earlier claim to verbs also: I will now claim that both adjective and verb are generated when a nominal head absorbs dative case. Most of my data will be from Malayalam. So, Malayali listeners will have an advantage, but others also can follow the data.

4 The Dative Case in Dravidian: How It ‘Travels’ Take the dative case in Malayalam: it is ikkђ or kkђ or ђ; i.e. it has got three allomorphs. This is illustrated below:

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a.

John

Mary-k’k’@

oru

pustakam

koDuttu

John(NOM)

Mary-DAT

one

book(ACC)

give.PAST

John gave Mary a book.’ b.

John

awaL-kk@

oru

pustakam

koDuttu

John(NOM)

she-DAT

one

book(ACC)

give.PAST

John gave her a book.’ c.

John

awan-@

oru

pustakam

koDuttu

John(NOM)

he-DAT

one

book(ACC)

give.PAST

John gave him a book.’

Now the Dravidian languages are case-stacking languages; that is, many cases can be stacked on a noun phase. But normally you see only the last suffixed case, the highest case (as I told you earlier): When a noun phrase has case 1, case 2 and case 3, you will normally see only case 3, i.e. the highest. That is what happens in Dravidian also, that is what happens in many languages. For example, Russian which is a case-stacking language also has this rule where the last suffixed case is visible and the other cases become invisible or silent. Now interestingly, how we know that there is case-stacking is that sometimes an earlier case “shows through.” In Malayalam, and in Dravidian generally, the typical case that shows through is genitive. For example, when you get a dative case or an accusative case on a noun phrase, very often this genitive “peeps through.” Consider the following examples of dative case: in the (b) examples, though not in the (a) examples, the genitive suffix -in shows through. (2)

a. b.

Mary-k’k’@

aana-k’k’@

vaazha-k’k’@

Mary-DAT

elephant-DAT

banana tree-DAT

John-in-@

pas’u-(w)in-@

teŋŋ-in-@

John-GEN-DATcow-GEN-DAT coconut tree-GEN-DAT

The genitive surfaces also with the accusative case in Malayalam, again with the same stems as with the dative case: (3)

a. b.

Mary-(y)e

aana-(y)e

vaazha-(y)e

Mary-ACC

elephant-ACC

banana tree-ACC

John-in-e

pas’u-(w)in-e

teŋŋ-in-e

John-GEN-ACCcow-GEN-ACCcoconut tree-GEN-ACC

In fact, this is not something I discovered. Traditional grammarians of Dravidian have noted this. Bh. Krishna Murthy in his monumental work on Dravidian languages (see ‘References’) has said that all Dravidian cases are suffixed to a genitive stem.

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It is not only Genitive that shows through. For example, if I want to say in Malayalam ‘to London’ I would say: London-il-eekk@. Here, -il is the locative case and -eekkђ is the dative case. So then, there is locative ‘inside’ the dative here, there is a sequencing of cases. So, case stacking is a fact about Dravidian languages, also Russian and a whole lot of other languages. How can we make sense of this? If we take advantage of the claims made in Nano Syntax that when a case is generated on a nominal expression all the lower cases on it are also generated, and that there is a case hierarchy, we can make sense of it. The data shows that the dative is above genitive because the genitive -in shows up inside dative -@ in (2b). Similarly, the accusative is above genitive because the genitive -in shows up inside accusative -e in (3b). And there are certain languages in which the dative is based on the accusative; that is, every dative contains an accusative morpheme inside it. So, the sequencing we get is: dative above, then accusative, then genitive, then the noun phrase.

(4)

DAT ACC GEN (NP)

That is, if a noun phrase gets the dative case, it has actually got three cases on it: noun phrase first, then case 1- genitive, then case 2- accusative, then case 3- dative. And if any syntactic process comes and takes away the dative case, then the noun phrase will surface with the accusative case. You see how the layering works: take away one layer, the next layer shows up.

5 Adjective as a Derived Category Now, I will give you the evidence which Amritavalli and Jayaseelan presented in their 2003 paper for claiming that adjective is a derived category. We get two kinds of evidence; one is distributional, and the other is morphological.

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5.1 The Distributional Evidence: The Dative Subject Construction The distributional evidence has to do with the so-called dative subject construction. You must be familiar with the dative subject construction in South Asian languages. It is illustrated below: (5)

a.

eni-k’k’@

raND@

kuTTikaL

uND@

I-DAT

two

children

are

‘I have two children.’ b.

John-in-@

oru

naaya

uND@

John-GEN-DAT

one

dog

is

John has a dog.’

The dative case is ‘all over the place’ in South Asian languages and even in East Asian languages, e.g. in North Indian languages, Dravidian languages, Japanese and Korean. Interestingly, old English had dative subjects, which it lost at the beginning of the modern English period. Now, look at the way a language like Malayalam or Hindi or Bangla or Japanese expresses notions like possession or experience. Consider (6): (6)

John-in-@

paNam

uND@

John-GEN-DAT

money

is

‘John has money.’

This sentence literally says: To-John money is. The subject has the dative case; the verb is a copula, i.e. ‘be’; and the complement of the copula is an NP, here just a bare noun paNam ‘money.’ Now, modern English cannot say To John money is; in modern English you have to say John has money; and you can also say in English John is wealthy in which the complement of the copula (the predicate) is an adjective. We do not have adjectives in Dravidian; Hindi has adjectives, but Dravidian has hardly any adjectives. Functionally many nouns are used with an adjectival function, but as lexical category they are not adjectives, they are nouns. Now consider the following contrasts: (7)

a.

John-in-@

paNam

uND@

John-GEN-DAT

money

be.PRES

Lit. ‘To-John is money b.

John is wealthy

c

John has wealth

Note the following contrasts:

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i. Dative subject in the Malayalam sentence vs. Nominative subject in the English sentences; ii. ‘be’/‘have’ alternation of the verb in the English sentences; and ‘be’ takes an adjective as complement ‘have’ takes a noun as complement

Consider the English sentence John has money (or John has wealth). Note this verb have (which Malayalam or Japanese doesn’t have). Where does this have come from? It is now a widely accepted hypothesis that have is a later creation in the language and that have arose when a dative case was suffixed to the copula ‘be.’ [This idea was first proposed by a French linguist named Benveniste, about the French verb avoir (‘to have’); but we will not go into the details here.] So then: ‘be + to’ → ‘have’. You can now see that if you start with the sentence To me is money and then you remove the dative case on the subject and attach it to be, you get I have money. That is, To John is money in the Dravidian languages and John has money in English are related by the movement of a dative case from the dative subject to the copular verb. But there was one thing which was left out in this analysis: How do we get a sentence like John is wealthy? (This is the (b) sentence in (7) above.) Here the verb ‘be’ (i.e. the copula) has an adjective as its complement. Where does the adjective come from? This is the problem that Amritavalli and Jayaseelan (2003) tried to solve. We hypothesized that the adjective arises when the dative case on the subject—instead of attaching to the verb be to yield have—attaches to the nominal predicate. That is, you start with To-John is wealth, and the dative case goes and attaches to wealth and you get wealthy. In other words, the category of Adjective arises when the dative case of a noun phrase moves and gets attached to the predicate nominal. You will notice that in English a whole lot of adjectives have the ending -y, e.g. wealthy, dusty, dirty. In fact, there is a fairly productive process in English whereby any noun can be turned into an adjective by adding /i/ to it: dust-dusty; sleep-sleepy, etc. Think of any noun that you can turn into an adjective by adding this -y: Where does this /i/comes from? -i was a suffix in old English which may have been the dative case. So, that was a regular process in the formation of the class of adjectives in English, namely this borrowing of a dative case from a noun phrase. If we grant this claim, then the claim that the verb have is be which has absorbed a dative case becomes more understandable; you can say that verb formation and adjective formation always seem to involve the absorption of a dative case.

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5.2 The Morphological Evidence Now we present some very transparent morphological evidence for this process of the dative case of the subject being borrowed by the nominal predicate and that evidence comes from Kannada. Consider the following: (8)

Kannada a.

raaman-ige

udda

ide

Rama-DAT

height

be.3n

‘Rama is tall.’ (Lit. ‘To-Rama is height.’) b.

raama

udda-kke

idd-aane

Rama(NOM)

height-DAT

be-3msg

‘Rama is tall.’ (Lit. ‘Rama is to-height.’)

When the dative case does not show up on the subject, it is suffixed to the nominal complement, yielding a form which is clearly adjectival in function. That is, in Kannada (but not in Malayalam), you can either say To-Rama height is, which is the dative subject construction; or you can have a nominative subject ‘Rama’ and the dative case of the earlier dative subject can show up on the nominal predicate, to give Rama (NOM) to-height is. Now that ‘Rama’ is a nominative NP, the verb agrees with it and you get third person masculine agreement here. So, it is very transparent how the case of the subject moves and gets attached to a nominal predicate and gives rise to what is functionally an adjective. And, it is very transparent that this form has come from a noun.

5.3 Case Movement and Case Absorption Let us display the case movement and case absorption that give us the three-way alternation that we saw earlier in (7). Look at (9): (9)

a. b.

c.

John -DAT be wealth

John-DAT be+DAT wealth

John-DAT be wealth+DAT

→

‘To-John is wealth’ (Dravidian pattern)

→

‘John has wealth’

→

‘John is wealthy’

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6 Verb as a Derived Category So then, case moves from one element to another and it gives rise to a new category. I will now give similar arguments, and similar data, to show that the Malayalam verb is generated when a dative case is suffixed to a nominal stem.

6.1 The Dative Case in the Malayalam Verb First, we note that a whole lot of Malayalam verbs end with -k’k’@ or -kk@: (10)

a.

kaDi

k’k’@

‘bite’

b.

koDu

kk@

‘give’

c.

iri

k’k’@

‘sit’

d.

naDa

kk@

‘walk’

e.

we

k’k’@

‘put’

f.

noo

kk@

‘look’

g.

ciri

k’k’@

‘laugh’

h.

nil

kk@

‘stand’

i.

cila

k’k’@

chatter’

j.

keeL

kk@

‘hear’

When Sanskrit roots are borrowed to form Malayalam verbs, it is a completely regular process to suffix -k’k’@ / -kk@ to it, so that all Sanskrit-derived verbs end in -k’k’@ / -kk@: (11)

a.

sneehi-k’k’@

love’

b.

mari-k’k’@

‘die’

c.

paDhi-k’k’@

‘study’

d.

dhari-k’k’@

‘wear’

e.

moohi-k’k’@

desire’

f.

daahi-k’k’@

‘thirst’

It must be noted that there are also many verb forms in the language that do not end in -k’k’@ / -kk@: (12)

a.

paaD@

‘sing’

b.

ooD@

‘run’

c.

caaD@

‘jump’

d.

kaaN@

‘see’

e.

paRay@

‘say’

f.

aRiy@

‘know’

But what is interesting is that when any one of these verbs is causativized, the -k’k’@ / -kk@ suffix is the “causativizer”: (13)

a.

paaD

ik’k’@

‘make sing’

b.

ooD

ik’k’@

‘make run’

c.

paRay

ik’k’@

‘make say’

d.

aRiy

ik’k’@

‘make know’

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Now, do we have to say that the verbs of (12) are not formed with a dative case? We don’t have to say that. Recall that there are three allomorphs of the dative case in Malayalam, see (1): -kk@, -k’k’@, and -@. If the verbs of (12) are made with the third allomorph -@, this can be easily elided in speech. So we can maintain that all Malayalam verbs incorporate a dative case. All the things which I said about Malayalam can be extended to Tamil. They cannot be extended to Kannada and Telugu which is a problem for my theory. In Kannada, the causative marker and the verbalizer is -isu, which apparently has nothing to do with the dative case. In Telugu, the verbalizer morpheme is -inchu, which in the contemporary language is the ablative case, not the dative case.

6.2 Adjective and Verb: What is the Difference? Now I have argued that both the adjective and the verb are generated in the same way in at least two of the Dravidian languages, Malayalam and Tamil, by the suffixation of the dative case to a nominal stem. But now, how do we distinguish between adjective and verb? After all, they have different semantics, verbs denote events and adjectives denote states. I do not have a full answer to this question, but one guess I have is that verbs are forms which raise to tense, and adjectives are forms which do not raise to tense; and it is the raising to tense which generates the event reading. (This is only a guess of mine, it can be questioned, because after all there are stative verbs.)

7 The Dative Subject/Nominative Subject Alternation in Dravidian 7.1 Case Alternation on the Subject Now we will look more closely at how the dative suffixation goes. Look again at the dative subject construction. Consider a typical possessive construction in Malayalam: (14)

John-in-@

oru

naaya

uND@

John-GEN-DAT

one

dog

be.PRES

‘John has a dog.’ (Lit. ‘To-John is a dog.’)

In this example, the predicate nominal oru naaya ‘a dog’ is a complex nominal expression. But if we take an example with a predicate nominal which is a bare noun, an alternative derivation is possible in Malayalam: the predicate nominal can “absorb” the Dative case of the subject (the experiencer DP) and become a verb. We get sentence pairs like the following:

Case and Lexical Categories in Dravidian

(15)

a.

139

en-ik’k’@

dukham

uND@

I.GEN-DAT

sorrow

be.PRES

‘I am sorry.’ (Lit. ‘To-me is sorrow.’) b.

ñaan

dukh-ik’k’

-unnu

I.NOM

sorrow-DAT

-PRES

‘I am sorry.’ (Lit. ‘I sorrow.’)

The dative case is on the experiencer argument (i.e. the subject) in (15a) and on the verb in (15b).

7.2 The Nominative Subject Now, you will remember that I said that when a dative case is generated on a noun phrase, it is the top case of a layer of three cases—case 1, case 2 and case 3. There is an accusative beneath it and a genitive beneath the accusative. So, if the dative case is removed you should expect the noun phrase to appear with accusative case. But that is not what you see here in (15b). Here the subject shows the nominative case. And the nominative case (we said) is ‘no case.’ How come there are no cases on the subject? The claim which I make in this paper is that finite inflection is a case absorber just like adjective and verb. And finite inflection eats up all the structural cases on the first, i.e. highest, argument of the sentence. In this case, there is only one argument in the sentence, and the finite inflection eats up the accusative and genitive cases on it. And therefore, the subject has nominative case.

8 Sentences with Transitive and Ditransitive Verbs But when there are two arguments in a sentence, i.e. when it has a transitive verb, what happens? Look at (16): (16)

naaya

kuTTi-(y)e

kaD-ik’k’

-um

dog.NOM

child-ACC

bite-DAT

-FUT

‘The dog will bite the child.’

And when we have a ditransitive predicate, we get a sentence like the following: (17)

awan

awaL-kk@

oru kuTTi-(y)e

koDu-kk-um

he.NOM

she-DAT

one child-ACC

koDu-kk-um

‘He will give her a child.’

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Consider first, (16). The verb starts out as a nominal element; to become a verb it requires a dative case. It takes the dative case from the first argument it merges with, which is the direct object; the direct object is the closest argument of the verb. And therefore, the direct object surfaces with the accusative case. There is one remaining argument, the subject. The finite inflection comes and knocks off all the cases on it, and it surfaces with nominative case (i.e. no case). Now consider (17). A verb like ‘give’ has three arguments: the ‘giver,’ the ‘receiver,’ and the ‘thing given.’ Each of these arguments has three layers of case: genitive + accusative + dative; and the dative is the topmost case. The verb’s first argument is the direct object, the ‘thing given.’ Its dative case is taken away by the verb as a part of verb formation. So the direct object surfaces with the accusative case. The highest argument of the verb is the subject, the ‘giver.’ All its cases are absorbed by the finite inflection. So it surfaces with nominative case. But what happens to the indirect object, the ‘receiver’? It too has got three cases, but nothing happens to them! All its cases are preserved; and therefore, it surface with dative case, with all its case intact. That is how you get the three cases—nominative, dative and accusative—with the verb ‘give.’ This is a very different explanation from the explanation of traditional grammar which says that the verb assigns accusative case to the direct object, the finite inflection gives nominative case to the subject, and nobody knows how the dative case of the indirect object comes about. We are saying that arguments come with three cases: genitive + accusative + dative; and if nothing happens to any of these cases, then the argument will surface with dative, because it is the topmost case. In other words, the claim is that the default case of arguments is dative. Now I am not the first person to say that dative is the default case; this has been claimed for oblique arguments (i.e. PPs) of German by a linguist named Henk von Riemsdijk (Riemsdijk, 2007, 2012).

9 Conclusion To conclude: The main claim of this paper is the following: • The Malayalam verb is a non-primitive lexical category, which is derived when a predicate which is N0 “absorbs” the Dative case of the first argument that it merges with. This can be seen as an extension of the claim about the genesis of adjective made in Amritavalli and Jayaseelan (2003).

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References Amritavalli, R., & Jayaseelan, K. A. (2003). The genesis of syntactic categories and parametric variation. In H.-J. Yoon (Ed.), Generative Grammar in a Broader Perspective: Proceedings of the 4th GLOW in Asia 2003, Hankook, Seoul. Caha, P. (2009). The nano-syntax of case (Doctoral dissertation). University of Tromsø. (http://ling. auf.net/lingBuzz/000956). Jayaseelan, K. A. (2013). The dative case in the Malayalam verb. Available at: http://ling.auf.net/ lingBuzz/003229 Kayne, R. (2008). Antisymmetry and the Lexicon. In Linguistic variation yearbook (Vol. 8, pp. 1– 31) (Reprinted in Comparisons and contrasts, pp. 165–189, by R. Kayne, Ed., 2010, OUP). Krishnamurti, Bh. (2003) The Dravidian languages, CUP. Madhavan, P. (2006). The layered vP: Transitivity alternations in Malayalam. Paper presented at the Hyderabad-Nanzan Joint Workshop on the Syntax-Semantics Interface, Nanzan University (Nagoya), 21–22 October 2006. Marantz, A. (1997). No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own Lexicon. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 4(2), 201–225. Marantz, A. (forthcoming). Phases and words. Available at http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ma988/ Phase_in_Words_Final.pdf Pesetsky, D. (2013). Russian case morphology and the syntactic categories. MIT Press. van Riemsdijk, H. (2007). Case in spatial Adpositional phrases: The dative- accusative alternation in German, Pitar Mos: A building with a view. Bucharest University Press. van Riemsdijk, H. (2012). Discerning default datives. In G. Grewendorf & E. Zimmermann (Eds.), Discourse and grammar. Mouton de Gruyter.

Linguistic and Mental Landscaping in India: Reach and Impact Tej K. Bhatia

1 Introduction If one travels from East to West and from North to South, the urban landscape in India gives way to green, open farms. Along the railroad tracks and highways, every standing, sitting, movable or permanent structure is painted with vibrant colors and messages. To an uninitiated eye, it might appear that the entire landscape is littered with graffiti. However, such outdoor wall or shop paintings, termed ‘nonconventional’ advertising, represent the traditional linguistic landscape of advertising messages. These messages have been integral to both rural and urban areas since before the advent of the Indus civilization dating at least back to 2000 (BCE); (see https://oohtoday.com/8000-year-old-billboard-found-in-ancient-india/.) Archaeological evidence shows that outdoor commercial signage either on walls or shops represents a continuum between ancient and modern outdoor advertising. So powerful is this mode of commercial communication that even urban advertising cannot resist its influence. In short, colorful wall advertising, also called wall paintings, represents the core aspect of the linguistic and mental landscape of Indian advertising. What is more remarkable about this mode of advertising is that even private structures are not spared. The outer wall of a private house or shop might be painted, with or without the permission of its owner, because wall advertising is a largely unregulated media. Surprisingly, even homeowners do not mind a colorful outer wall, preferring it to a dull unpainted wall. Recently however, wall advertising has come under some scrutiny on environmental grounds. In this chapter, we will examine the salient linguistic features of the various manifestations of outdoor advertising while focusing primarily on wall advertising and secondarily on shop signs and billboards. It presents a comprehensive overview T. K. Bhatia (B) Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_9

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of the rural and urban linguistic landscape of India. In order to achieve this goal, various facets of what is termed ‘non-conventional’ advertising and outdoor signage are examined from three perspectives—language, advertising, and marketing. This chapter addresses the following two key questions: One, how do marketers and advertisers craft their outdoor linguistic landscape in order to reach out to their audience/consumers in India, a country marked by exceptional linguistic and geographic diversity? Two, what factors determine media and linguistic choices of marketers and advertisers in the Indian linguistic landscape? These questions are examined primarily from three perspectives: linguistic impact, marketing strategies and communicative environment. Advertising in India, a country with sharply defined rural and urban linguistic landscapes, comprises commercial, social developmental, and service messaging. While the population of India is over 1 billion people, the demographic details present only a surface analysis of the similarities and differences between (1) Indian and the Western markets and (2) rural and urban contexts. The proponents of the ‘Standardization’ hypothesis in advertising believe that urban markets all over the world fit the same size and shape (See Bhatia, 2007; Chandra et al., 2002). Therefore, this chapter focuses on the rural demographics, which are often ignored in other analyses of language landscaping. This chapter fills an important gap in the study of linguistic landscapes as well as in the key issues involving international advertising. The chapter argues that the overwhelming dominance of Indian rural advertising, termed ‘non-conventional’ advertising, mirrors the pattern of at least four thousand years of uninterrupted natural bilingualism, sending information-based messages to consumers in a way that reflects the rural mental landscape. This chapter is organized into five parts. The second part discusses key definitions, approaches and methodological bases of the present study. The third part outlines the multilingual linguistic and multiethnic context of India, which is the heart of Indian mental and cultural landscaping. Based on current advertising research in India and abroad, the third part identifies the ‘conventional’ and ‘non-conventional’ modes of advertising in India, while focusing on wall advertising—an important subcategory of non-conventional advertising involving key defining structural and typological features. In-depth linguistic and information structural analysis is also performed in part 4. The central issue of resolving the global vs. local paradox in international advertising also receives attention in part 5. Part 6 argues that the rural advertising percolates not only to the urban linguistic landscape but also reaches to ecologically sensitive areas of the Himalayas and other regions. Ecological issues are addressed in this section. The chapter closes by drawing conclusions about the cultural bases and impact of Indian rural advertising.

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2 Definition, Terms and Methodology According to Indian advertising research, ‘Conventional Advertising’ includes print, TV, radio and digital advertising. ‘Non-Conventional Advertising’ refers to advertising modalities termed wall advertising, video van advertising, calendar and EChaupals. These four modalities appear outdoors. The only disadvantage is that since non-conventional advertising is unregulated, the message cannot be controlled, as is the case with TV, radio or print ads. Such a perceived disadvantage can, however, be compensated amply by the regional and local adaptation of a message with the signature line of the painter. For our purpose, this adaptation is an advantage as it allows us to observe the actual execution of advertisements as they are displayed in the markets and not what the advertisers would design sitting in their offices. Additionally, given how these local advertisements are produced and viewed, they will necessarily be used to carry short messages (like the other outdoor media). Linguistic landscaping is referred to as ‘the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region.’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 23). Recent works on linguistic landscaping have further renewed awareness about non-conventional/outdoor advertising (Bhatia, 2000, 2007; Cenoz & Gorter, 2006; Coulmas, 2009; Itagi & Singh, 2002; Meganathan, 2017; Ninan, 2007; among others). Outdoor advertising in India embodies public and social advertising. Therefore, it is not surprising to find public signs (e.g. road signs, billboards, even garbage cans) superimposed with commercial messages. It is worth pointing out again that such advertising, particularly wall advertising, is largely unregulated. The theories of linguistic landscaping are founded on a cross section of language, advertising and marketing research. Our treatment of the topic attempts to interweave these three main threads. The linguistic component of this research is informed by the following three fields: (1) linguistic/information studies including the discourse structure of the message and its content analysis; (2) sociolinguistic explanations of language choices in relation to social structures (gender, social class among others); and (3) psycholinguistic research studies of the effect on consumers in terms of language processing comprehension. For a more comprehensive treatment of approaches in linguistic landscaping, see Bhatia (2000: 108–117), Gorter (2018).

2.1 Methodology: Data and Selection Before we progress further, some remarks about methodology are in order. The data for this research was a part of ongoing large project on rural advertising landscaping (Bhatia, 2000, 2007). The overall study involved detailed visits over five months covering various states in India during the time span of two years (1998–2000). The study collected audio and video data on a variety of commercials in addition to wall advertising. The present study is based on an analysis of over 2000 wall advertisements collected from villages and highways in three zones. The villages were

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located in Bengal in the Eastern zone (n = 300); Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the Western zone (n = 800); and Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab in the Northern Zone (n = 900). The advertisements were in six languages: English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali. Some of these are photographs, while others are on recorded on videotape and in personal notes. The advertisements covered a variety of products and services as well as social/developmental messages (ideas). The original data was further supplemented by outdoor ads (n = 50) collected on the Roorkee–Haridwar–Rishikesh Highway in 2018. Since Haridwar is a sacred center for Hindu pilgrims, the ads fall attempt to sell global and local products aimed at Hindu pilgrims. Most ads represented the following product types: toiletries; washing soaps and powders; tea; batteries; cement; farming and transportation equipment and cold and headache medicines. Ads with religious appeals depicted symbols and deities from Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Christianity. Although this is a large sample, it is admittedly a sample of convenience. However, with an unknown “population” of the universe (e.g. how many wall advertisements exist in the marketplace), it is impossible to claim that a representative sample has been selected. However, given the sample size covering three out of four regions and six major languages, it is a representative sample on typological and linguistic grounds. All the data is objective and did not require multiple coders.

3 Multiple Diversity: Market and Communicative Environment India is a land of contrasts with many major religions such as Hinduism (dominant), Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. Besides the presence of every conceivable ethnic diversity, the linguistic diversity is staggering, there are 22 major languages and many vernaculars (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2013a). The linguistic situation and communication networking in India can be represented as shown in Table 1. Hindi and English are the two national and link languages of India. While Hindi is the language of the masses in the North-western and Northcentral parts of India, English is the pan-Indian language of the educated elite. Thus, English and Hindi represent the top of the hierarchy. Hindi is written in the Devanagari script. “Scheduled” languages (i.e. state languages) are spoken predominantly in their respective states. Hindi, along with English, is the only state language that is spoken in more than one state. Urdu is the official language of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. However, not all “scheduled” languages are spoken in a particular state. Sindhi is not the official language of any Indian state. Kashmiri is spoken in the state of Jammu & Kashmir but the official language of the state is Urdu. A collection of rural varieties makes up a small but significant portion of speakers spread across the country. Table 1 is a rough graphical representation of the linguistic environment of the Indian subcontinent.

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Table 1 Hierarchical representation of the linguistic situation in India National languages

Hindi, English

Scheduled languages

Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu

Languages with widespread currency

47 languages used for primary education 100 + used in print media 71 used in radio 13 used in films (e.g. Bhojpuri) 22 in state-level administration See ‘Scheduled Languages’ above

Local- vernaculars

Over 122 recognized varieties 234 “mother tongues” with more than 10,000 speakers were recorded in the 2001 census

Defined by linguistic, religious and ethnic diversity, rural India is the heart of India. The 2019 census recorded a total of 664,369 rural Indian villages, an increase from the 649,481villages registered in the 2011 Census of India. Over 65–70% of the Indian population lives in rural areas. Despite the challenges posed by poverty and illiteracy, rural India is awakening and flexing its economic muscles (Mishra, 1995). Rural markets are hot since rural India has more disposable income than urban India (Bhatia, 2007; Kilpatrick, 2001; Prahalad, 2004; Rao & Natarajan, 1996). As urban India witnesses large job losses and declining incomes, rural India fares better than urban areas because of higher yield of food grains, rising literacy and prosperity. To address the formidable challenge of reaching out to a linguistically and geographically dispersed audience, Indian advertising utilizes all-inclusive modes of advertising. Rural Indian advertising employs of both types of advertising—‘conventional’ and ‘non-conventional’ advertising. As is evident from our introductory remarks, wall paintings are a mark of a vibrant economic and social life. Wall paintings become more prevalent and more important as one goes deeper into the rural hinterland. Their location is very central in the sense that they are next to a village shop, highway stop/railway station, or an area where villagers gather or pass by daily. This is an economical advertising medium costing less than a couple of dollars. Additionally, since the wall advertisements are replaced only if another advertisement is painted over it, the messages have a much longer duration than print and broadcast commercials. Wall paintings are a combination of various forms of outdoor media (such as the posters and kiosks) which are common in developed countries. Outdoor media employ a diversity of languages and take on a variety of forms and shapes A few select examples below illustrate the diversity of rural Indian wall art. The first example (Fig. 1) shows a structure whose front wall is painted blue in its entirety to promote Pepsi. The brand name Pepsi is written in English. The second

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Fig. 1 Pepsi wall ad

example shows a wall advertising a German Engine oil. However, in this ad the linguistic landscape is grounded in Hindi in the Devanagari script. Wall paintings also combine the size of shop signage and kiosks with point of purchase displays in retail stores (Fig. 2 see, Coca Cola). Embedded between the two English Coca Cola ads are two ads: one for Vaishno Hotel Rana ad and the other one for Rana Provisional Store. The two Indian words, Rana (proper name) and Vaishno, a major Hindu denomination, are written in the Roman script. The ad attempts to optimize its message by clustering both global and local products in the same space. Figure 3 exemplifies the outdoor signs on the Haridwar-Rishikesh National Highway 58. These advertisements are devoted to the Clean India campaign and its association with Ayurvedic products produced by Patanjali. Haridwar and Rishikesh are important pilgrim centers for Hindus and Sikhs in the state of Uttarakhand. Next to this sign in Fig. 3 is a sample of wall advertising, painted on a white boundary wall, devoted to delivery of astrological services. Both signs/ads are written in Hindi in the Devanagari script. Practically all wall ads and shop signs refer to vegetarian food and accommodations for pilgrims. Only one exception was a meat shop which offered fresh and cooked pork. This ad was targeted primarily at Hindi–Punjabi bilingual males. The ads are written in Hindi. The Chotiwalla vegetarian restaurant in Rishikesh is notable for its Hindu branding (Fig. 4). The male model dressed in Brahmic dress, hairstyle and makeup, along with other Hindu symbols, is key to the popularity of this restaurant and has been the subject of tourist guides for westerners (for more on branding, see Bhatia, 2012). Though Hindi and English announce their dominant visible presence in advertising,

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Fig. 2 Coke signage at the point of purchase Fig. 3 Healthy India campaign

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the use of dialects is not totally absent. Figure 5 (Chaukhi Rhani ad) is an ad grounded in a Rajasthani dialect (Jaipuri) with a drawing of a puppet art, a symbol of Rajasthan. Besides content, phonological adaptation (-ending in o) gives the dialect-specific rendering of key greetings and pronominal elements (e.g. ii ‘this’ in the ad). Fig. 4 Branding Chotiwala restaurant, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand

Fig. 5 Chaukhi RaaNii ad, Jaipur, Rajasthan

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Wall advertising (Fig. 6) serves an important vehicle of waging social development campaigns. This ad is designed to discourage public urination, local deities (Sai Baba), together with Jesus Christ are displayed prominently. A Marathi language attention-getter conveys the message of cleanliness (For more details, see Bhatia, 2000: 166). This wall advertising campaign turned out to be one of the most effective because the general population revered the gods, and thus, they would not dare to urinate on such walls. For more social developmental ads in Bengali and Gujarati (see Bhatia, 2000: 154–159). The small collection of examples above illustrates the vast scope of wall advertising in Rural India. These examples also underscore the integral part that wall art plays in the linguistic landscaping of commercial, social/development and service

Fig. 6 Cleanliness campaign in Marathi, Mumbai

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ads, in which English, Hindi and other major regional languages and dialects interact to create a message.

4 Wall Advertising: Ad-Internal Structure, Typology and Languages Wall advertising is overwhelmingly an information-only ad form. Naturally then, they are largely neutral in tone, in order to garner a wider appeal. However, it is premature to assume an absence of consumer-group targeting or ad-internal structure. What is common to all the advertisements is that they all provide the product name. While specific product names—global or local—are a common sight, interestingly some ads cast a wider net by carrying generic product identification, e.g. davaiiyãã ‘medicines’ and jewelry. Regarding language choices, our sample reveals that 40% of the ads were Hindi-only, 36% were mixed language ads, and 24% were in English only. In the states where regional languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil and Telugu are dominant, the regional languages are quite prevalent in wall advertising. Only 12.8% of the ads analyzed contained additional information cues. Of this 12.8% that did contain information cues, only 4.2% provided contact information. The bulk of the ads containing contact information were service and social ads, which displayed contact information very prominently. 2.8% of the ads in the sample provided information cues such as product attributes (e.g. taste), while 1.4% mentioned price and any other assurances. The rank ordering of information cues present in wall advertising of commercial products is given below in descending order of prevalence (i.e. product name = most important; slogan = least important). • • • • • • •

Product name Company’s name Contact information Taste or other properties Price and/or Assurance Invitation to use the product Slogan

Visual and verbal interface represents another striking feature of wall advertising. The visual (image and logo) and the verbal (headline, tagline/signature line, main body text, etc.) are combined together in a single ad. A case in point is the Fena soap ad depicted in Fig. 7. The advertisement features a Hindi attention-getter phrase, daam hai kam safedii chamachama ‘the price is less [and yet make clothes] glitter white,’ which is separated from the prominent display of the product name on the package using a blue package background. A subheader, naii ‘new’ is also displayed on the package. The third structural property, the slogan, is distinguished by using a different color scheme (blue) within the rectangular border. The slogan is in Hindi, fenaa hii lenaa ‘Take/buy only Fena.’ The verb lenaa ‘take/buy’ rhymes with the

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Fig. 7 Fena soap

product name, Fenaa. The slogan further highlights the magical touch of the product by means of visual cues, such as the use of a fairy. The product in question is local; therefore, the local appeal is created entirely by means of the Hindi language and the Devanagari script in which the Hindi is written. The color scheme is not only used to impose a structure on the ad but adds to its aesthetic value which is in agreement with the sensory perception of the Indian culture. The white color carries an association with ultra-whiteness in the Indian context. This color is different from the perception of whiteness in Western advertising. The blue color is associated with Lord Krishna, a symbol of love and devotion. Reaching rural consumers by means of organized ‘conventional’ media (e.g. television, radio and print) has serious limitations for the following reasons: (1) Coverage: some rural areas and segments are still beyond the reach of the conventional media, particularly television; (2) Delivery: rampant power failures lead to low reliability about the delivery of the messages (3) cost of reach; (4) limited exposure time; and (5) Clutter: channel surfing among the segment that can be reached by traditional media. Therefore, in order for advertisers to reach the rural markets, it is important for them to use or mix both the conventional and non-conventional media. (See Bhatia, 2002; Bhatia & Ritchie, 2013a, 2013b; Duncan, 2005 for details) In the unique sociocultural environment that is rural India, non-conventional advertising is a necessity. The examples above also illustrate how this form of advertising is a microcosm of the linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity that characterizes the region.

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5 Globalization: Two Views and Underlying Strategies A central theme of globalization for international companies is how to resolve the paradox of globalization and local adaptation (national and regional interests, appeals, affiliations, etc.). The concern has manifested itself in terms of the “standardization” versus “adaptation” debate in international advertising, media, and marketing (see Agrawal, 1995; Bhatia, 2006, 2021; Onkvisit & Shaw, 1999; Razin & Sadka, 1999). The standardization approach follows a ‘one size fits all’ argument and favors a single commercial sent across the globe in a uniform way without tailoring to the individual linguistic and cultural tastes of a country. The adaptation approach favors customization of an ad to individual linguistic and cultural tastes. It is intriguing to observe that advertisers, either unconsciously or by design, have developed two distinct models of globalization versus adaptation which govern their linguistic representational strategies and linguistic choices. These views can be categorized as “competitive” and “cooperative” use of linguistic choices. These two divergent approaches lead to two distinct underlying linguistic representational strategies. The competitive approach leads to language segregation, whereas the cooperative style leads to language mixing. Language segregation is an outcome of the perception that globalization and adaptation are at two ends of a scale. Language integration, as a contrast, provides an accommodation between these two perspectives (see also Bhatia, 2021; Coupland, 2012; Gorter, 2013; Hult, 2009). Past research found that English is more appropriate to voice the theme of globalization, whereas Hindi (and other regional languages) is more suitable for national and local themes. For further details about how different languages—Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian and English—carry different functional roles in Indian advertising, see Bhatia (1987, 1992). Two patterns of language choice and use illustrate the globalization and adaptation in Indian rural ads. The following two patterns are rendered by the “competitive” model of communication: One, think global and act global; two, think local and act local. In both of the examples below, languages (e.g. English and Hindi) are not mixed. The following examples detail these two patterns found in commercial, social/developmental and service industry ads.

5.1 Think Global and Act Global This pattern is carried out by means of English only as illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. Here are some other examples: Coca Cola Pepsi Pennzoil Castro Gulf Lubricants: worldwide since 1901.

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Kellogg’s Frosties: The energy to win The linguistic composition of such messages is restricted either to the product name or the logo in English. The text size rarely goes beyond one word. The script chosen for the product is Roman. Content transmission beyond product name and logo is not deemed necessary. The main perception of advertisers is that villagers will process an English word as a visual image and will retain it as such. In other words, the language use is primarily symbolic and the appeal is exclusively visual in character. Only the commercial products with international product positioning seem to follow this pattern.

5.2 Think Local and Act Local This pattern represents the reversal of the “think global, act global” pattern, as evident in the following examples: kraanti

saabun

‘Kranti [revolution] soap’ apnaa

baasmatii chaaval

‘Apnaa Basmati rice’ (Pun: ‘your own Basmati rice’)

The text size (e.g. word count) in these ads is relatively large. It is three or four times more than the size of the ads employing the “think global and act global” approach. The attention-getter introduces the new product—HTM tractor. The attention-getter is followed by a slogan—‘now the strength is in your hands.’ The consideration of lexical economy motivates the deletion of the popular verb form is (Hindi: hai). The ad ends with contact information about the distributor. The following ad is for biiRii (a twist of tobacco rolled in a tobacco leaf; a favorite form of rural cigarettes). 502

pataakaa

biiRii

502

Pataka

Biri

502

kaa

vaadaa

daam

vaajib

svaad

zyaadaa

‘The promise of 502, the price reasonable [and] more taste.’

5.3 Social/Developmental and Service Campaigns Let us now consider a few social and development campaigns. Social developmental and service ads prefer the “think local and act local” approach. They depend upon

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Hindi or the regional dialects for transmission of the message. Consider the following three ads. graamiiN

vikaas

aur

rozgaar

kaa

vaaydaa

‘The rural development and the promise of employment.’

Javaahar

rozgaar

yojnaa

kaa

dohraa

faaydaa

‘The double benefit of the Jawahar Employment Plan.’

pancaayatii

raaj…

jantaa

kaa

apnaa

raaj

‘The Panchayat Rule, people’s self-rule.’

All three ads are in Hindi. Regional variations of these ads can be found in Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and other regional languages. Themes are highly local in character. An example of the local character of these ads is the rural employment plan, which is named after the first Prime Minister of India (Jawahar Lal Nehru). Given the highly local character of the ads, the natural language choice is Hindi and the Devanagari script over English. Consider some service industry ads below: gais

chuulhaa,

preshar

kukkar

ripeyar

‘Gas stove (and) pressure cooker repairs.’

minii

Tiffan

sarvis

‘Mini

Tiffin

service’

The first slogan advertises a repair service. Although all the words except for chuulhaa ‘stove’ are from English, they are assimilated into Indian languages and thus are written in local scripts (Devanagari in this case). The second advertises “the hot lunch delivery” service. Taking its cues from the renowned hot lunch delivery service in Bombay, the advertisement announces a lunch delivery service aimed at rural workers in urban areas within the vicinity. Most of the service ads (including commercial ads) are gender-neutral. The only exception is the alternative medical ad. These ads are placed by doctors (called “vaidya” or “hakiim”), who practice indigenous medicine. These messages are generally displayed on the walls near the highways or places frequented by men in a village, in contrast with social/development ads which are placed in central locations in the heart of a village such as village well and post office. An example of a gender-specific alternative medical ad appears below:

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Table 2 Codification pattern: globalization and localization Approach

Ad-type

Language

Script

Structure

Text size

Think global-act global

Commercial

English

Roman

Attention-getter (i.e. product name)

1–4 words

Think local-act local

Product

Hindi/regional languages

Devanagari/regional scripts

Attention-getter; slogans; invitation

6–8 words

Services

Hindi/regional languages

Devanagari/regional scripts

Attention-getter; slogans; invitation

8–12 words

Social/idea

Hindi/regional languages

Devanagari/regional scripts

Attention-getter; slogans; invitation

8–12 words

vaidya

ruup

kishor

raaThii

strii

purush

rog,

mardaanaa

kamzorii

svapan-dosh

viirya

kii kamii

viirya-shkraaNu

[sperm],

kii kamii

joRoõ

kaa dard

[gaThiyaa],

safed

daag

ke liye

mail˜e

‘Meet Vaidaya [Dr.] Rup Kishor Rathi for [the treatment of] female, male diseases, masculine weakness, nocturnal emission, shortage of virility, sperm [count] shortage, arthritis, [and] white spots.’ Alternative medical ads are overwhelmingly aimed at males, and the topic is male impotence. Such ads are heavily indigenous in content, appeal and approach. Within the monolingual language frame of the ad, they sometimes strive for bilingual strategies, ranging from colloquial/rural Hindi variety to Sanskritized Hindi variety. The main function of the Sanskritized Hindi to suppress the taboo nature of the nouns. Notice the paraphrasing in the concept of low sperm count, paraphrased as virya kii kamii ‘shortage of virility’ in colloquial Hindi, then by more Sanskritized Hindi (viirya-shkraaNu–[sperm]–kii kamii). In the advertisement above, the Sanskrit word is followed by its English translational equivalent in square brackets. Similarly, arthritis is first mentioned in colloquial Hindi as, joRõ kaa dard ‘pain of the joints’ and then in a rural dialectal form as [gaThiyaa]. The codification of globalization and localization themes of language use is summarized in Table 2.

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5.4 Globalization and Adaptation: Bridging the Gap With the cooperative model in mind, advertisers break the barriers posed by linguistic segregation and attempt to integrate themes of globalization and adaptation by integrating participating linguistic systems. This is an optimization strategy which subscribes to the “think and act both global and local” approach (Bhatia, 2021). The following ads are illustrative of “glocalization” by language and script mixing. We use the term “glocalization” to capture language mixing in an attempt to use the global approach but also to adapt to the local language and culture. Brook Bond A1

karak

chaap

chaay

‘Brook Bond A1…the KaRak (strong) brand tea’ ’

Philips

In service to the service TV

saalõ

salooõ

aap

ke saath

Radio

‘Philips…in service to the service…for years and years with you…TV (and) Radio.’

The Brooke Bond advertisement achieves linguistic integration by displaying a package of Karak tea (Fig. 8). On the top is the company logo; within the logo is embedded text in English Brook Bond A1. Right underneath is the Hindi text in the Devanagari script with bigger fonts appearing in a semicircular form with a picture of a hot cup of tea underneath. The Phillips radio and TV ad, on the other hand, display the company’s Roman script name in a prominent font followed by the slogan (“in service to the service”) in English with a font size smaller than the font displaying the company’s name. In the third line is the picture of a TV on the left and a radio on the right, with TV and radio written in English. Sandwiched between these two images is the Hindi text saalõ saalõ aap ke saath ‘years and years with you.’ In short, the “glocalization” in these two ads is achieved by mixing two languages and scripts within a single advertisement. The language and script allocation process is not random. It appears that the onset and termination points prefer shorter stretches of English connected by a long, content-sensitive string of a Hindi text (Bhatia, 2002). The mixing of different languages and scripts sets the stage for bilingualism, which enables the masses to overcome the problem of content transmission caused by the use of English. Furthermore, the interface of verbal and visual cues further maximizes the degree of bilingualism and, thus, yields a relatively easier grasp of the content of the bilingual ad in question. Verbal and visual mixing also has another function important in rural India. By linking the visual message with the verbal message, social campaigns in particular overcome certain limitations of understanding caused by the lower level of literacy in rural India.

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Fig. 8 Karak tea

5.5 Patterns of Commercial Discourse English is the single most important linguistic tool for the promotion of global discourse. Globalization is penetrating rural India by means of both overt and covert means: • Overtly by product names, logo and colors. • Covertly by introducing commercial rural discourse in advertising. With English and the rapid spread of globalization, the scope and intensity of branding of local brands and the availability of global brands in Indian advertising have gained new strength (see Bhatia, 2012). Consider, for example, the expressions No 1, new or super. Before the onset of globalization, the concept of being “best” was expressed by means of a native expression, avval darzaa ‘excellent/first class.’ \Today, however, the idea is almost exclusively expressed either by the English phrase “No. 1” or by the mixed expression, nambar ‘number’ ek ‘one’ (or by the numeral substitution), even in the rural advertising in India. Information about size and models is usually presented in English, although words such size and model are written in Devanagari characters. Long strings of juxtaposed nouns are another example of overt global advertising discourse through English. Consider, for example, the following advertisement: kolgate

rakshaa

dant

manjan

‘Colgate teeth protector Manjan.’

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The emerging trend of “I-generation” themes is rapidly becoming the part of the Indian society, a society once renowned for their preference for a “societal” value system over “individualistic” values. Rural advertising is no exception in this regard. The Hindi collective discourse is being replaced by more individualistic discourse. Consider the following advertisement: meraa

parivaar,

laksha

anDarwiay

evam

baniyaan

meraa

raashtra,

meraa

‘My family, my country, my Lux underwear and undershirts.’

Notice the order in the first two noun phrases: the country comes after the family. Example such as this illustrates the use of language mixing within the matrix language frame (i.e. Hindi) where the trend seems to be larger than simply borrowing words. Language mixing with Sanskrit is represented in bold, and with English is represented in italics. This advertisement illustrates the effort to portray a different set of values and norms needed to make products and services attractive to a younger, possibly more globalized segment of the Indian population. Integrating the observations, we have developed a typology of what we expect to see in the rural advertising. First, while we use Hindi, this language can be substituted by another language that is deemed more “proper” according to the circumstances. Second, the typology of the ads studies were product, services and social/ideas, which can again be modified depending on the research issues. What we observed two dimensions of language use. The first was the integration of the local and English language in a variety of marketing settings marketing. This integration ranges from the selection of the brand name, to the packaging and logo design, to the by lines and slogans. Some of the hypotheses regarding “appropriate” use of English, the local language (in this case Hindi) and a mix of languages are summarized in Table 3.

6 Ecological and Other Issues It is worth noting that wall adverting is not restricted to rural areas, it percolates to urban areas as well. Also, as pointed out earlier, wall advertising is largely unregulated. Although the government attempts to regulate the industry, the making of rural wall ads depends on local governing conditions. If local governing conditions are lax, unregulated wall advertisements can have serious impacts on the human and natural ecology of a region. In these regions, often ultimate control rests in the hand of the painter, who leaves his own mark on an ad. Advertisements for socially sensitive products with serious health risks (e.g. cancer-causing chewable tobacco ads; illegal abortion ads among others; see Fig. 9) abound with no regard to law. On the commercial side, the global marketer giants Coke and Pepsi, among others, have been furiously painting rocks with their logos, even in highly ecologically sensitive areas

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Table 3 Parameters of content and language choice Language

English

Hindi

Mixed

Hindi

Hindi

Ad Type

Product

Product

Product

Service

Social/Ideas

Product Information Name

+

+

+

+

+

Wrapper/Picture

+

+

+

+

+

Logo

+

+

+

+

+

Company Name

+

+

+

+

+

Content

−

+

−

+

+

Contact Inf.

+

+

+

+

+

Special offer

−

+

−

+

+

Properties Packing

+

+

+

−

−

Utility

+

+

+

+

+

Price/value

+

+

+

+

−

Taste

+

+

+

+

−

−

+

+

+

+

Quality Research Assurance

−

+

+

+

+

Safety

−

+

+

+

+

Guarantees

−

+

+

+

−

Evaluation Ranking/new

+

+

+

−

−

Endorsement

−

+

+

+

+

in the Himalayas along the spectacular Manali-Rohtang pass in the Northern state of Himachal Pradesh. These rocks are on the ancient Silk Road connecting Northern India, Central Asia and China. In 2002 India’s Supreme Court asked the two companies to explain why their advertisements were painted on the rocks. The court ordered the government-run National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to inspect a stretch of road to examine “the damage to the ecology caused by the advertisements of Coca Cola and Pepsi… and to suggest what remedial measures can be undertaken.“ (See Coke ‘re-paints’ Himalayas yellow, Aug Thursday, 22 August 2002, Retrieved on August 6, 2022 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/220 9763.stm) (Fig. 10). In response to control the environmental damages, the logos were removed by the companies, either by paint thinners or by painting loges over again in a yellow paint! Both companies have denied responsibility and claimed local franchisees had authorized the advertisements without head office consent. The concomitant disadvantage of India’s most individual form of advertising lies in the uniquely personal

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Fig. 9 Biri ad in Hindi

Fig. 10 Ecological endangerment in the Himalayas

methods of its creation. Because individuals create these outdoor advertisements, it is often very hard to control, and inevitable social and environmental consequences can arise.

7 Conclusions Wall advertising represents a permanent fixture on the linguistic landscape of India. It represents a microcosm of the unbroken tradition of multilingualism in India. This form of advertising has been present since the establishment of the Indus Valley Civilization in approximately 2000 (BCE). It has undergone several evolutionary changes

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in terms of the determinants of language allocation and use. The latest evolutionary stage in advertising came with arrival of the era of globalization and hyperglobalization. Wall advertising is essentially an information-based modality and is an effective way of reaching out to Indian rural consumers scattered over more than half a million villages and representing staggering linguistic diversity. The content analysis together with linguistic landscape analysis draws several generalizations and identifies complex patterns which are valid for Indian wall advertising to a great extent. Additionally, wall advertising is a valid indicator of a dominant trend of linguistic saliency. The two-pronged functional (information) appeal, in addition to persuasive and a range of other appeals and attitudes (Sachdev & Bhatia, 2013), wall advertising an uniquely attractive communication method in the Indian rural context. Because of the centuries-old tradition of wall advertising and its overwhelming presence in the linguistic landscape, this modality has come to symbolize an integral part of mental landscape of rural India. Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to Ms. Maureen Edmonds for her comments and suggestions on the earlier version of this chapter. Parts of this chapter appear in Bhatia, T.K. and Bhargava, M. (2008). Reaching the Unreachable: Resolving Globalization vs. Localization Paradox, Journal of Creative Communication, 3.1, 209–230.

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Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2006). Linguistic landscape and minority languages. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 67–80. Chandra, A., Griffith, D., & Ryan, J. (2002). Advertising standardization in India: US multinational experience. International Journal of Advertising, 21, 47–66. Coulmas, F. (2009). Linguistic landscaping and the seed of the public sphere. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 13–24). Routledge. Coupland, N. (2012). Bilingualism on display: The framing of Welsh and English in Welsh public spaces. Language in Society, 41, 1–27. Duncan, T. (2005). Advertising and IMC (2nd ed.). McGraw Hill Irwin. Gorter, D. (2013). Linguistic landscapes in a multilingual world. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 190–212. Gorter, D. (2018). Methods and techniques for linguistic landscape research: About definitions, core issues and technological innovations. In M. Pütz & N. Mundt (Eds.), Expanding the linguistic landscape: Linguistic diversity, multimodality and the use of space as a semiotic resource (pp. 38– 57). Multilingual Matters. Hult, F. (2009). Language ecology and linguistic landscape analysis. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 88–104). Routledge. Itagi, N. H., & Singh, S. K. (Eds.). (2002). Linguistic landscaping in India: With particular reference to the new states. Central Institute of Indian Languages. James, D. (2001, November 5). B2–4B spells profits: Billions of third world buyers are rich opportunity. Marketing News, Vol. 1, pp. 11–12. Jethwaney, J., & Dyal, R. (1992). Impact of the multi-media publicity campaign at Ardh Kumbh Mela 1992—An analysis. Indian Institute of Mass Communication. Kilpatrick, D. (2001). Looking for profits in poverty. Fortune, 143(3), 174–176. Landry, R & Bourhis, R. (1997). Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49. Meganathan, R. (2017). The linguistic landscape of New Delhi: A precursor and successor of language policy. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Multilingualisms and development (pp. 225–238). British Council. Mishra, P. (1995). Butter chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in small town India. Penguin Books India Ltd. Ninan, S. (2007). Headlines from the heartland: Reinventing the Hindi public space. Sage. Onkvisit, S., & Shaw, J. J. (1999). Standardized international advertising: Some research issues and implications. Journal of Advertising Research, 39(6), 19–24. Prahalad, C. K. (2004). The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. Wharton School Publishing. Razin, A., & Sadka, E. (Eds.). (1999). The economics of globalization: Policy perspectives from public economics. Cambridge University Press. Rao, S. L., & Natarajan, I. (1996). Indian market demographics: Consumer classes. Global Business Press, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). Sachdev, I., & Bhatia, T. K. (2013). Language attitudes in South Asia. In H. Giles & B. Watson (Eds.), The social meanings of language, dialect and accent (pp. 141–156). Peter Lang. Wiki. Rederived on April 11, 2021. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Villages_in_India#:~:text= As%20of%202019%2C%20there’s%20a,the%202001%20Census%20of%20India)

Understanding Quasiregularity and Continua in Language: Beyond “Words and Rules” Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris

Abstract Language is rule-governed. Language is flexible, creative and bursts with odd patterns which then demonstrate a hidden regularity when examined further—or not. Which is it? I argue: Both, and everything in between. I review examples from multiple domains of language, such as orthography, morphology, semantics and syntax, where aspects of language span the spectrum from rule-governed to exception. This is used to motivate the quasiregularity manifesto: Traditional linguistic categories and generalizations are descriptively useful but do not exist in one-to-one correspondence with a discrete brain or cognitive entity. Connectionist and neuralnetworks models can implement quasiregular systems in ways that illuminate what is easy and difficult for human language users and learners. Can we predict where and how much quasiregularity will be exhibited in a specific language or aspect of language? I propose that how the continuum of regularity is colonized depends on whether communicative pressures prioritize efficiency of message transmission or flexibility of interpretation.

1 Introduction Nothing excites as much passion and disagreement as scientific proposals for what are the foundational building blocks of a field of study. Chomsky (1965) launched the view of language as a mental module of the brain, drawing attention to the hierarchical structures and rules of language. That traditional view was strengthened and given a contemporary updating as well as popular form by Pinker (1991, 1999). In his book, Words and Rules, Pinker (1999) emphasized that a basic division in language is the vocabulary/syntax division, and that meaning is obtained by consulting rules in order to combine units into larger structures. The opposing view is that language is not divided into words on the one hand and rules for combining them (Bybee & McClelland, 2005; MacWhinney, 1998, 2010). Yes, there are words, and there are rules, but other patterns in language are quasiregular: for example, C. L. Caldwell-Harris (B) Boston University, Boston, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_10

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such as irregular grammatical forms and partially productive formulaic expressions (McClelland, 2015). In the current paper I describe three debates about continua in language and set out the quasiregularity manifesto: Many aspects (and perhaps every aspect) of language cannot be divided into the categories of rules and exceptions, but demonstrate quasiregularity. Phenomena lie along a continuum from regular to exceptional. Why does the debate about rules + exceptions versus continua occur repeatedly in the study of language? The answer may lie in the logic of domain exploration. Human’s first step in exploring any new domain is to identify the major distinctions (Case, 1991). This occurs for animals and computer algorithms (Hills et al., 2015). Dividing a problem space into two categories confers a large knowledge payoff due to cognitive ease in learning and representing dichotomies. The preference for dichotomizing continua has been termed the binary bias by Fisher and Keil (2018). In the next section I review regularities in English spelling and in English pasttense formation. Even a casual view reveals the usefulness of describing English orthography in terms of regular words plus exceptions (Glushko, 1979). Similarly, English past-tense can be described as consisting of rules and exceptions (Pinker, 1999). However, once one has noticed the basic dichotomy of rules versus exceptions, a second look reveals a middle space of quasiregularity. Yet many language researchers have ignored the middle space and proposed that the brain possesses distinct mechanisms for learning and representing these two categories of entities. Reasons for this will be taken up in the discussion. I will also review an additional element of the debate: how connectionist networks have been used to argue for how the mind works (Gibbons, 2019; McClelland et al., 1986; Rumelhart & McClelland and the PDP Research Group, 1986; see also introductions to connectionism such as Dawson, 2008; Ellis & Humphreys, 2020).

2 Quasiregularities in the English Past-Tense The English past-tense is the iconic example of quasiregularity in the cognitive science literature (McClelland, 2015; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986; Pinker, 2001). Like many languages, English past-tense morphology has a dominant regular pattern, which is to add -ed to the verb stem. Irregular patterns are common. Indeed, the highest-frequency verbs are the ones most likely to be irregular (e.g. go-went, arewere). Similarities, called “subregularities” include verb groups that share the same vowel change, like know-knew (grow-grew, blow-blew, throw-threw) and sing-sang (ring-rang). The subregularities can also have irregularities (fly-flew, sow-sowed). Rumelhart and McClelland’s (1986) connectionist model of English past-tense formation was one of the first computer models to illustrate how rule-like behavior can be demonstrated in the absence of explicit rules. The two-volume work in which this model was described has since then attained landmark status not just in the cognitive sciences, but in scholarship of the twentieth century (Gibbons, 2019). Connectionist models do not contain rules, but can generate rule-like behavior if their training corpus

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contains rule-governed patterns. Connectionist models can also learn idiosyncratic patterns, although those take longer to learn and require more processing units (or neural net layers) for the arbitrary patterns to be stored. Importantly, these models can learn any type of pattern from rules, to subregularities, to full-exceptions (CaldwellHarris, 1994). Connectionist models consist of layers of connected processing units, reminiscent of the brain’s neural networks (see Fig. 1). Units possess degrees of activation; they receive activation as input and send activation to their receiving units. For training, the network implementers design corpora which are input–output pairs to be learned. Networks are fed input–output pairs and are trained via error-correction learning algorithms to produce the output pattern when given a specific input pattern. The past-tense model was constructed to capture the classes of subregularities in the English past-tense which had been documented by linguists (Bybee & Slobin, 1982). The input and output vectors (layers) of this network contained processing units, designed to represent the phonology of a verb. These processing units could have a value of 0 or 1, indicating presence or absence of a specific phonological feature, such as a consonant or short or long vowel. The model was trained to produce the past-tense form when given a present-tense form. With increasing training, the model gradually performed well on most of the verbs in its training corpus. It could also generalize correctly to novel forms or to verbs that were withheld during training. The model received a great deal of attention by mimicking the “U-shaped learning curve” observed in children’s past-tense verb learning. This refers to children’s early correct learning of an irregular past-tense like broke, followed by subsequent production of the over-regularized form braked, with eventual correction production of

Fig. 1 Network of layers and connections between the input (representation of present-tense verb phonology) and output (representation of past-tense verb phonology); from Rumelhart and McClelland’s (1986)

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broke. Chomsky (1957) used children’s past-tense overgeneralizations as evidence that the human mind learns rules, rather than the stimulus–response patterns studied by psychologists during the behaviorist era. Chomsky’s insightful packaging of child language observations with new ideas about computation led to the demise of behaviorism within academic psychology. To produce the U-shaped learning curve, Rumelhart and McClelland (1986) introduced a developmental component by first training the model on a small set of the highest-frequency verbs in English. The most likely verbs to be heard by young children, these are also mostly irregular verbs. Early in the learning phase, the model was able to ‘memorize’ (i.e. fully store) the idiosyncrasies in these patterns, because the neural net had not yet stored any prior patterns. In a second stage, all of the verbs were introduced, with the result that the regular -ed pattern dominated the training corpus. The model extracted the -ed rule and began to over-generalize the -ed pattern to the previously correctly learned irregular verbs, resembling some children’s productions. With extensive training, the model was eventually able to generate the correct output pattern to all the classes of verbs in the training corpus. Accuracy was highest on regular verbs. Among the irregular verb classes, learning was it fastest and accuracy highest for irregular verbs from large schemas, such as those in vowel-change schema like the large ow → ew category (e.g. blow → blew). Slower learning and poorer performance occurred for more idiosyncratic verbs, especially those that were less frequent (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986). The key strength of the model was thus that its speed of learning and accuracy depended on the number of verbs in any subclass and the amount of similarity (i.e. regularity) among the patterns. The model thus showed an interaction of regularity and frequency that has come to be recognized as also a hallmark of human learning (Ellis & Schmidt, 1998). The opposing side was galvanized to reject fuzzy rules and to assert the need for two mechanisms to process rules and exceptions. Pinker and Prince (1988) agreed that the English irregular verbs are probably mediated by an associative neural network of some type, but maintained that the -ed regular forms are mediated by explicit rules. Debate on this continued for more than 20 years (McClelland, 2015). Pinker and colleagues cited 6 dissociations between irregulars and regulars forms to argue for a dual-mechanism model (Pinker, 1999, 2001). The connectionists and their allies challenged these dissociations (see review in McClelland & Patterson, 2002a); for example: the role of frequency in children’s acquisition of irregular and irregular verbs (Marchman, 1997); whether the -ed was always the default for novel verbs (Hare & Elman, 1995), and the observation that novel verbs based on nouns must take the regular -ed past-tense, but that novel verbs based on verbs can inherit their verb stem’s irregular form (Caldwell-Harris, 1993). The contemporary consensus is that connectionist models generated decades of research into understanding mental rules and quasiregular patterns (Gibbons, 2019). The original Rumelhart and McClelland (1986) model helped popularize the subsymbolic or “parallel distributed processing” (PDP) approach to cognition that is now regarded as constituting a paradigm shift in psychology and cognitive science (Dawson, 2008; Gibbons, 2019; Smolensky, 1988).

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3 English Orthography: Regulars Plus Exceptions, or Quasiregularity? Traditional accounts of reading (Coltheart, 1981; Coltheart et al., 1993) propose that two separate procedures are required for skilled reading. One is a lexical procedure to access stored representations of known words, necessary for reading irregular words. The other is a sublexical procedure to enable novel words to be decoded according to grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence (GPC) rules. Following the traditional view, Coltheart and colleagues developed the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of reading aloud (Coltheart, 2006). Fully regular words are processed using grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules. The meaning and pronunciation of all words can be accessed via a lexical procedure that accesses words stored in the mental lexicon (left pathway in Fig. 2). Once words are activated in the lexicon, their meanings can be activated in the semantic system, or their pronunciation, via the phonological lexicon. There is also a sublexical procedure in which novel words and fully regular words can be decoded, as shown by the right-hand pathway in Fig. 2. This decoding proceeds using grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rules. The major alternative to the dual-route approach is the single-system view, in which one mechanism, a connectionist network maps from representations of graphemes to phonemes. As noted in the prior section, connectionist networks learn patterns by altering the strength of connections between layers with the weighted

Fig. 2 Illustration of the dual-route theory of reading aloud (Coltheart, 2006)

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connections, this architecture was inspired by the brain’s dendrites and axons. The algorithm makes larger alterations if those changes result in larger reduction in error between the expected and observed output patterns. The result is that networks first learn the dominant regularities in a training corpus of input–output pairs and then subsequently extract partial regularities and exceptions. A number of connectionists networks of reading have been developed (see Seidenberg, 2005, 2011). The most well-known one, the “triangle model” (Plaut et al., 1996), describes mappings between the three systems most studied by psychologists and linguists (see Fig. 3). These three bundles of neural-like processing units represent the orthographic features of a word, the semantic features and the phonological features. Consistent with the logic of the human reading system, weighted connections send and receive information along three pathways, although each is bidirectional, allowing 6 routes. For example, a person can start with orthography and access a words’ meaning (the orthography-to-semantics pathway). Another pathway is for activation to flow from semantics to phonology. This corresponds to starting with the meaning of a word and then pronouncing it. The model is trained in a manner similar to the method of the past-tense model described earlier. Training corpora of input–output pairs are presented. Orthographic representations can be the input, and semantic pairs the output. The model learns to adjust its weights so that activation patterns corresponding to the output vector are reliably activated. The relationships between these vectors will be arbitrary in many ways, until the model has learned enough that similarities in morphology are extracted, such as between unwind and unlock. Different pathways for information flow are described in the triangle model, but this is nonetheless considered a single-mechanism account of word processing. The different pathways correspond to different modalities of language use (e.g. speech vs. orthography). It is a single-mechanism account because training and network architecture do not distinguish between rules and pattern. No rules are taught or explicitly embodied in the connectionist model. Instead, the learning algorithm is sensitive to the statistical associations. The result of the statistically oriented learning algorithm is that some of the weighted connections will encode regular rules, while other weighted connections learn exceptional input–output pairs, and still other connections extract the partial regularities (Caldwell-Harris, 1994; Plaut et al., 1996). If regular patterns are dominant and differ strongly from irregulars, it is possible for distinct neural Fig. 3 A connectionist network that maps between orthographic, phonological, and semantic information; modeling silent reading and reading aloud (Plaut et al., 1996)

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pathways to self-organize as a result of a network evolving during training to use the least amount of connections possible to encode these distinct types of words. Consider what will occur when networks are trained on highly regular orthographies like Italian and Turkish. The same connectionist architecture would self-organize to learn those regular mappings (see Seidenberg, 2011). The dual-route theorists have argued that their model is superior in accounting for adult normal word reading, how children learn to read, and patterns of impairment following brain damage. The connectionists have argued the same (Coltheart, 2006; Seidenberg, 2005). I have been swayed by considering what is lost when dividing a continuum into two categorical portions. No matter where the categorical marker is placed, items near each other but on opposite sides of the category marker are then treated as being as dissimilar to teach other are the items that are fully at the ends of the continuum. To provide concrete examples, consider these two characteristics which exemplify the quasiregularity in English spelling-to-sound regularities. 1. Subregularities exist within irregular words. For example, although the pattern -ite is regular and thus -ight is irregular, the -ight pattern appears across a range of words. 2. English orthography contains no true exceptions. Consider the exception word pint, with pronunciation of long i, which has many regular neighbors (orthographic neighbors are words differing by a single letter, such as hint, tint, lint). Even in this exception word, 3/4 of the letters exhibit their regular pronunciation. The i itself is not fully an exception, since many words are pronounced with a long i (e.g. hind, bind, find) These points are not parsimoniously handled by a dual-route system. When a dual-route system divides words into regulars and exceptions, the regularities within the exceptions are ignored. Indeed, a mechanisms for handling regularities within the exception needed. In the case of the English irregular past-tense, Pinker (1999) proposed that an associational network (like a connectionist network) would be a plausible mechanism to learn the irregular patterns; but not the regular patterns.

4 Summary and Preview Connectionist models of English word reading and the English past-tense described a network of weighted connections between representations of spelling units and pronunciation units. By capturing the range of partially regular mappings existing in between the extremes of rules and exceptions, these networks helped researchers think in new ways of quasiregularity in language. In the section below, I turn to the question of quasiregularity at the level of word meanings.

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4.1 The Continuum of Context Dependence and Non-compositionality of Meaning Is the mapping from sentences to meanings quasiregular? The traditional perspective, including Pinker’s ‘words and rules’ perspective, is that meaning is concatenative: Readers and listeners arrive at an interpretation by composing (or concatenating together) words’ meaning using grammatical rules (Fodor et al., 1974; Swinney & Cutler, 1979). The disadvantage of the concatenative view is the quantity of language which defines compositional rules. Most common words have a large of meanings, as attested both by intuitions and by examining dictionary entries. These are not separate, unrelated meanings, as in homonyms. Instead, the meanings exhibit a family resemblance structure (Pustejovsky, 1998). A historically important demonstration of polysemy was the work by Brugman and Lakoff (1988). Those authors used carefully constructed examples to illustrate how polysemies of the preposition over relate to each other. The central meaning of the preposition over specifies non-contact (“the plane flew over the hill”). Contact is allowed for cases of two-dimensional extent, as in “sunbathers were scattered over the beach.” Meanings can also extend from a central sense via the mapping from space to time or to from space to another abstract domain, as in the expressions “over an hour ago.” Lakoff (1987) used the term radial category structure to refer to the variability in types of extensions from a central sense. Radial categories are not restricted to prepositions but describe most common words. A radial category I explored is the case of cut (Caldwell-Harris, 1995). The object of cut can be three-dimensional (cut the apple), one-dimensional (that car cut off me off è blocked my car’s forward trajectory), a two-dimensional plane (cut across the park), or an abstract group (cut the boat from your expense account). Figure 4 shows how inferring the meaning of cut in any given context is a constraint satisfaction process integrating several information sources.

Fig. 4 Sense selection in a constraint satisfaction network from Caldwell-Harris, 1995)

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Several types of polysemy exist. “Pushy polysemy” refers to words taking on specific meanings from their context (MacWhinney, 1989, and examples in Fig. 4). An example is that way that the preposition across pushes the interpretation of cut to mean “transverse a two-dimensional space.” A different type of non-compositionality occurs with semantic shading. The interpretation of words is shaded by our conceptual knowledge. Consider how we visualize the shape of the container in apples were placed in the container compared to climbing gear was placed in the container. More extreme examples of non-compositionality occur with semantic puzzles. These are generally uninterpretable without context. For example, in the sentence, The haystack was important because the cloth ripped, identifying the meaning of the words and placing them together yields no clear interpretation. Instead, one must find an appropriate back-story. Brandsford and Johnson (1973) offered the situation in which the cloth of the parachute ripped, with death prevented when the parachutist landed in a haystack. Responding to these issues, several views of polysemy have been described. One view is that polysemy is omnipresent and indeed is the default state for words that are used in diverse contexts (Lakoff, 1987). Some theorists view words as existing in extended networks of meaning (MacWhinney, 1989). In a specific context, a word will form transient connections to other words, like atoms with different valences combining, separating and re-combining to create different molecules. A related view is that words’ polysemous senses are part of the mental lexicon, but the lexicon itself is represented via a connectionist network (Regier, 1995). An opposing perspective is monosemy. Ruhl (1989) has urged theorists to resist positing distinct senses if the intended sense is inferable from context. A monosemic view would define the meaning of cut to be “alter a physical object using a sharp instrument.” The senses of trim, slice, section, etc., are part of our general knowledge about how we act on objects with sharp instruments, and thus don’t need to be listed in the lexical entry. Mitigating against a monosemic view of cut is the observation that the physical senses of cut have nonphysical analogues. It is unclear how speakers could interpret cut to refer to the severing of spatial paths (as in, That car cut me off!) without an analogy to the use of cut to refer to physical severing of a connection. The “car cut off” expression is not an isolated example. Cut off can also mean severing a conceptual link (I was cut off from my parents) or severing the end-point of a conversation (our conversation was cut off ). Cut off has analogous meanings in the physical domain, suggesting that the physical senses such as sever are indeed part of our conventionalized understanding of the meaning of cut. Note that some theorists, rejecting monosemy, view polysemy, shading and semantic puzzles as more similar to each other (McClelland, 1991). Regardless of one’s perspective about whether polysemic meanings are mentally represented in lexical entries or are inferred by using contextual clues, the examples reviewed here indicate words’ meanings exist on a continuum of context dependence. Some words have primarily one, relative specific meanings; some have a variety of meanings depending on context.

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4.2 Discussion Two cases of quasiregularity in English were reviewed, the English past-tense, and the English word reading system. Both of these systems exemplify the continuum from fully regular to highly irregular forms. The existence of these continuums is uncontroversial. However, the underlying brain mechanisms for processing spellingto-sound regularities, or for generating past-tense forms, have been debated since the 1980s (McClelland, 2015). In each of these language systems, one set of scholars advocates for a two-route system, in which rule-governed and irregular forms are processed by separate mechanisms. Scholars on the opposite side argue for a single mechanism, claiming that an associative neural network can process both rules and exceptions. I reviewed a related situation regarding the meaning of words. One set of scholars claimed words have mostly fixed meanings (e.g. Ruhl, 1989); but with some polysemy, while other scholars claimed polysemy and context dependence are the norm for words (Lakoff, 1987; MacWhinney, 1989; Regier, 1995). The foregoing sections highlight phenomena which are inconsistent with the “words and rules” approach to language. Building on this, I write out the “quasiregularity manifesto.” The quasiregularity manifesto 1. Traditional linguistic categories and generalizations are descriptively useful but do not exist in one-to-one correspondence with a discrete brain or cognitive entity. 2. Quasiregularity and quasicomponentiality are features of all aspects of language. Below I review some of the open question, why “words and rules” has had theoretical staying power, and future research.

4.3 Objections and Qualifications: Can Connectionist Networks Learn Rules? The quasiregularities discussed are most congruent and plausible in a system with dynamic data structures. Data structures are dynamic when they are not fixed ahead of time, but are an emergent combination of the training corpus (input and expected values) and learning algorithms (MacWhinney, 1998a; McClelland, 2015; Roberts et al., 2005). Capturing quasiregularity is a strength of connectionist networks. But what about rules? Connectionist networks show considerable promise for implementing quasiregularities and continua (Bybee & McClelland, 2005; McCelleland, 2015; Roberts et al., 2005). But can connectionist models adequately explain linguistic rules? Modelers have responded to this challenge. Models can display rule-like behavior in speech

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segmentation (Christiansen, Conway, & Curtin, 2005). Neural networks have demonstrated aspects of commonsense reasoning, in a model in which both rules and similarity structures were acquired (Sun, 1992). Success has been reported in modeling rule and pattern learning tasks representative of cognitive development (Mareschal & Schultz, 1996). Models have also been shown to generalize compositional sequences (Lake, 2019), and to learn first-order logical reasoning (Mul & Zuidema, 2019). Interesting limitations have been documented on what connectionist models can compute (Marcus, 2003). For example, in a model trained to implement first-order predicate logic, the network had difficulty learning an identity-based rule; these are sometimes called “algebraic” rules (Mul & Zuidema, 2019). Such learning difficulties are usually seen as drawbacks of neural network models. Theorists have claimed connectionist algorithms cannot generalize outside the training space (Marcus, 2003), or that these models do not instantiate variables (Berent, 2012). Some theorists argue that connectionist models are useful precisely because human information processing is similarly attuned to gradience and partial regularities (Bybee & McClelland, 2005). For example, theorists have noted that rule-based learning itself may be a “…constrained and piecemeal process driven by perceptual primitives” (Endress et al., 2005).

5 Linguistic Questions and Predictions Understanding quasiregularity allows us to think in new ways about a key question in linguistics and language learning: What makes learning a linguistic generalization easy? What allows people to generalize learned patterns? The connectionist framework used here suggests the following factors, for a given expression of E: • Frequency of use, summed over all uses of E. • Number of different uses (such as distinct meanings) of E. The importance of frequency on learning is well known (Divjak & CaldwellHarris, 2015). When examining diversity of uses, one can ask: Are the uses concentrated in one conceptual domain, or sprinkled across several domains? Learning that occurs separately in time and in different contexts leads to easier learning in neural networks and longer-lasting learning in humans, as discussed in the literature on contextual diversity (Adelman et al., 2006; Caldwell-Harris, 2020, 2021). The quasiregularity approach makes novel predictions. Consider a prediction from the domain of processing unfamiliar phrases (Caldwell-Harris et al., 2012). The phrase high rule does not exist in collocation corpora. A prediction is that its recognition will be facilitated by the strength of mixed schemas such as high + noun and also the general adjective + noun schema. According to the view of ‘words and rules,’ only the adjective + noun schema will be relevant. These predictions can be tested using unfamiliar phrases which can be assimilated to either a low- or high-frequency schema. For example, text counts reveal fewer instances of low + noun phrases than of high + noun phrases. The view

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from quasiregularity and continua predicts better recognition of phrases such as high bicycle compared to low bicycle, while ‘words and rules’ predicts no difference.

6 Why Has the “Word and Rules” Perspective Remained Dominant? The division into rules vs. lists of exceptions was originally designed to prevent redundant encoding and achieve parsimony (Chomsky, 1965). It makes less sense given the contemporary recognition that the brain has vast storage resources and that redundant encodings speed processing. Language researchers today can assume massive storage, and focus on explaining the vagaries of slow versus fast language acquisition, and the generally highly rapid processing of fluent speakers. A second impetus for ‘words and rules’ was that linguists of earlier eras lacked conceptual tools for describing quasiregularity (MacWhinney, 1998). Indeed, theorists have recognized the conceptual advance offered by connectionist models (McClelland & et al., 1985; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1985). Gibbons (2019) noted that these instituted a paradigm shift in the cognitive sciences which is still ongoing. If contemporary researchers have the conceptual tools, why do theories that focus on dividing a domain into two parts (like ‘words and rules’) continue to be defended? I suggest four reasons. 1. Face validity and intuitive value. Language phenomena at opposing ends of each continuum are powerfully different from each other (MacWhinney, 2010). Words are indeed very different from rules. Sidtis (2004, 2009, 2012) has argued for “dual process” models of language via her interesting and thorough investigation into formulaic expressions. Much of her argument stems from the need to recognize that formulaic expressions are necessary in addition to novel sentences. This is summarized in one of her paper titles (Sidtis, 2004): “When novel sentences spoken or heard for the first time in the history of the universe are not enough: toward a dual-process model of language.” Sidtis’ arguments are detailed and her research articles need to be read in full to be appreciated. 2. Simplicity. Dichotomies and binaries are easy to describe and understand. Scientists, lay people and children alike frequently make their first step into a new domain of inquiry by identifying the major distinction, and labeling either the two halves of the terrain or labeling their endpoints (Case, 1991; Fisher & Keil, 2018). In contrast, continua, dimensions and complex dynamical systems are harder to describe and understand (MacWhinney, 1998). 3. Cultural preference for dichotomies. Theorists have additionally noted that Western science has preferred dichotomies and exclusive categories and has resisted fuzzy categorization, as outgrowth of Aristotle’s epistemology (Reiter, 2020). He describes how these ideas are part of “decolonizing the social sciences” (Reiter, 2020, p. 103).

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4. Historical inertia. When a theory has been powerful for a long time, it obtains priority and default status, which requires unusual evidence to be overturned and replaced (MacWhinney, 2010). Arguments about quasiregularity and connectionist networks are viewed by many theorists as preliminary, provisional and awaiting further elaboration (Marcus, 2003).

7 Future Research 7.1 Investigating Language Continua as Distribution This paper reviewed the continua of orthographic regularity, past-tense regularity and context dependence. Here I sketch ideas for the shape of these continua in English. A project for ongoing research is to verify these proposals with computerized language corpora and to investigate how the shape of continua may vary in other languages. 1. The continuum of regularity in English past-tense. Rules at one end of the continuum, exceptional patterns at the other end. For English past-tense morphology, one might expect a bimodal distribution, with a large number of verbs at the regular rule end, with only a small bump at the opposing end, given that only a handful for verbs are fully irregular. This means a distribution with a long rightward tail, with clumps representing different spots on the quasiregular continuum. 2. The continuum of regularity in English orthography. English spelling-to-sound patterns may also show a distribution similar to the English past-tense. The modal peak will be for regular patterns, but a bumping pattern of peaks will correspond to the continuum of quasiregularity. 3. Continuum of context dependence. At one end, words’ meanings vary strongly with context; at the other end meanings are context-free. This is plausibly close to a normal distribution, because most words probably have a medium level of context dependence. There may be smaller peaks on either side of the mid-way point. The meaning of high-frequency words changes greatly with context, such as the examples of cut and over discussed earlier (cut across the yard, leaves spread over the hill). But note that tens of thousands of technical and medical words are relatively infrequently used and have fixed meanings. There is thus likely a frequency peak at the context-free end of the continuum.

7.2 Integrating History and Communication into Explaining Quasiregularity Quasiregularity and quasicomponentiality appear to be general properties of human cognitive systems (McClelland, 2015; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1985; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1985). However, the relative degree of rule-conforming and exceptional

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items varies widely across languages and language domains. English orthography is exceptional because of historical borrowing of words with Germanic versus Latin roots. Spanish and Italian have relatively regular orthographies because of the hegemony of the Roman Empire and these languages’ more exclusive descent from Latin. Turkish spelling-to-sound mappings are highly regular because the Turkish orthographic system was developed by committee, when Ataturk decreed in 1929 that Turkey would use the Latin alphabet rather than traditional Arabic script (Yilmaz, 2011). How the systematicity continuum is colonized depends on whether communicative pressures prioritize efficiency of message transmission or flexibility of expression. If the goal of communication is accurate message interpretation, then regularity will be prized. An example is the manufactured languages of air-traffic control systems (Cushing, 1994). The language of air-traffic control rigorously guards against polysemy, shading and other forms of context dependence. If the goal is flexible communication, then context dependence and hence irregular sentence-meaning systems emerge. The quasiregularity thesis facilitates exploration of why and how aspects of language differ in regularity and componentiality. Indeed, future work can investigate why some aspects of language (or some languages) are more regular and less quasiregular than are other aspects and other languages. Quasiregularity facilitates fine-grain investigation of the landscape of language between the mountain peaks. “Words and rules” closes these doors and ignores or handles poor aspects of language that are not part of well-defined categories.

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Mistakes We Make and Do not Make When We Learn Language R. Amritavalli

Abstract Linguistics today invites us to consider how every human infant picks up the languages of its environment within the first three years of its life, regardless of its genetic or racial roots. Language is acquired during a time of life when the infant is not yet ready to go school for “learning” or an “education,” at a time of life that most of us have no conscious memory of. Walking and talking are human abilities that unfold according to a bioprogram. Child language data are here examined with this larger point in mind.

1 Introduction Linguistics today invites us to consider how every human infant picks up the languages of its environment within the first three years of its life, regardless of its genetic or racial roots. Language is acquired during a time of life when the infant is not yet ready to go school for “learning” or an “education,” at a time of life that most of us have no conscious memory of. If we think back to our earliest memory, it may date to around our third birthday, by which time language has been acquired. Sometimes what looks obvious is not what actually is. It looks to us as if the earth is still and the sun goes round us. We still speak of the sun rising and setting, although (as Chomsky has often pointed out) we know that it is the earth that is turning. Similarly, we say a child “learns” to walk and “learns” to talk, although we are aware that walking and talking happen before the age of three, and almost universally. They are not learnt or taught in the same sense as physics, linguistics or gymnastics are. Rather, they are fundamental human abilities that appear to unfold according to a bioprogram, given the appropriate environment. So, when we collect information about how a child speaks or understands language, larger questions about the nature of language must continually inform the way we look at the data. Chomsky has sometimes been dismissive of acquisition studies that document child data, comparing them to documenting the number of R. Amritavalli (B) The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_11

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times a fledgling flexes its wings with a view to explaining how a bird flies. But the danger of getting lost in unexplanatory detail applies equally to the study of adult language data by linguists. If the claim that the child zeroes in on the grammar of his language with minimal excursions into wrong pathways is indeed true, then child data can provide insights into the validity of our analyses and also prove a useful corrective to laborious or inaccurate adult analyses of language data. This has been our experience with acquisition research at the English and Foreign Languages University. There were at least three seminal works that I think contributed to study of language acquisition and also to our knowledge of language, that is, to the theory of language. The most recent one was on the acquisition of scrambling in Tamil (Mathew, 2017); earlier, there was work on the acquisition of negation in Arabic (Al-Shagrabi 2015); and earlier still, work in child and adult second language acquisition that showed a “noun advantage” (Vijaya, 2007). These studies have all been equally illuminating. Here I shall discuss the acquisition of scrambling in their first language by Tamil children, adding this perspective to the study of word orders in the Dravidian language Tamil.

2 Scrambling and Its Acquisition What is scrambling, and why are we interested in studying it? Scrambling is a name for word order changes speakers make in the sentences of a language. These are changes that which disturb the basic or “canonical” order of words in that language. The question is why these changes in word order occur in the adult language, and how and when the language-learning infant learns to make such word order changes. From the perspective of word order, English is what is called an subject–verb– object (SVO) language. In English, word order distinguishes the preverbal subject NP from the post-verbal object, the indirect object, and place and time adverbials. Our languages—not only the Dravidian, but the Indo-Aryan ones like Hindi as well— are subject–object–verb (SOV) languages. Not only the subject, but the object, the indirect object (if any), and time and place adverbials (if any), are all preverbal. Moreover, these arguments and adjuncts also appear to be relatively free in their word order; they do not seem to occur in a fixed order. At one time, it was thought that “free” word order means that anything goes anywhere in the sentence, and that our languages have a flat structure, with no VP (Verb Phrase). But now we know that our languages distinguish do subjects from nonsubjects, just as English does. Anaphors like reflexives and reciprocals cannot occur as subjects: the subject c-commands the other arguments. Indeed, in our grammars only subjects can be the antecedents of the reflexive ‘self’ anaphor. So, our languages have a VP; i.e. they too have hierarchic structure. There is also evidence that our so-called free word order languages have a “canonical” or neutral word order, which is subject–indirect object–direct object–verb (SIO-DO-V). This shows that our VP is the mirror-image of the English VP. What neutral or canonical word order means is the order of words in an “out of the blue”

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context, when you utter a sentence without any special meanings added to it for information structuring, such as what is presupposed because it is in the context, or what is emphasized or focused. What about the non-canonical word orders? Word order changes are a result of movement, a feature-driven movement. Movement can be triggered, for example, by a topic or focus feature. The topic and focus phenomena I discuss here are common to at least Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil, and perhaps are found in Hindi as well. An instance of movement driven by a topic feature is Jayaseelan’s (2001) Malayalam example (1). In (1a) the IO and the DO are in the canonical order. In (1b) their order is ‘reversed’: the DO has moved above the IO. This correlates with a semantic difference. The DO weLLam ‘water’ has an indefinite reading in (1a), but in (1b) it can only be understood as definite. Thus while (1a) can be uttered in a neutral, “out of the blue” context, (1b) cannot. It is appropriate only in a context where the water is the topic of the utterance, e.g. in answer to a question like “What happened to the water?” or “What did you do with the water?”. 1.

a.

ñaan

oru

maratt-in ∂

weɭ ɭ am

ozhiccu

I-nom

one

tree-dat

water

pour-pst

‘I poured water to a tree.’ b.

ñaan

weɭ ɭ am

oru

maratt-in ∂

ozhiccu

I- nom

water

one

tree- dat

pour-pst

‘The water, I poured to a tree.’

The idea that topicalization and focalization drive movements in our languages, i.e. that scrambling of the canonical word order is driven by features such as topic and focus, makes the acquisition of scrambling a matter of interest. The research literature tells us that children zero in on the OV/VO word order of their language at a very early stage: as early as at the two-word stage, i.e. as soon as they can put two words together into a proposition. In fact, word order has been claimed to be a parameter that is set “very early” (Wexler, 1998), a “basic” parameter that is already set to its target value when syntactically relevant production begins. This suggests interesting research questions. First, do children acquiring a “free” word order language like Tamil first acquire the canonical OV word order? Or do Tamil children in their earliest utterances freely put their words together in all possible orders? Second, if child Tamil word order is canonical, do non-canonical word orders also occur in child Tamil, and if so, when? Third, do non-canonical word orders show a correlation with topic/focus interpretations? These questions become relevant, because as a co-presenter at this conference has mentioned, there are two views about how language evolved in our species. One view about the phylogeny of language, i.e. the evolution of language, is that language is always full-blown; it has always been there; the earliest language was exactly language as it is today, in its structural properties. The other view is that language started as some primitive system of communication which has evolved into the system we see today. Now these same two views prevail about the ontogeny of

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language, i.e. the development of language in the individual. This is perhaps because of a well-known hypothesis about biological systems that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” For language, it means that how language develops in the individual who acquires it (its ontogeny in the acquirer) replicates the development of language in the history of our species (its phylogeny). So, there is a view that children actually have a different grammar than adults, just as early humans are supposed to have had a simpler language structure than today. If you go along with that view, you come across a problem which is called the tadpole problem. Suppose that children speak at the age of two to three years in a different way than us, maybe in two-word utterances, because at that age they do not have the same grammar as we adults do. Then at what point do they transition to the adult grammar, and how? This is the problem of the tadpole-to-frog leap: unless the frog is already somewhere “in” the tadpole, metaphorically speaking, you cannot explain the tadpole-to-frog change. For if tadpoles and frogs are different animals, how does a tadpole change into frog? There must be a bioprogram that the tadpole has, that unfolds for it to become a frog. To take a simpler example, how does a young child who has no beard and mustache grow up into a young man with a beard and mustache, unless they both are the same thing to begin with: unless a bioprogram is present at birth? This is the problem in linguistics when we study child speech. The child’s language system cannot be qualitatively or fundamentally different than the adult’s, even though she/he may (unlike the adult) utter only two-word sentences. The child must ultimately acquire the same language system as the adult. Therefore, any systematic departures from adult grammar in child data need to be theoretically explained. Equally, any systematic data that show that the child’s grammar is the same as that of the adult need to be carefully recorded and evaluated.

3 Scrambling in Child Tamil Returning to the questions about word order and its changes, or “scrambling” driven by topic and focus features, I shall show that child speech productions in Tamil overwhelmingly conform to canonical word order; but the child does have scrambling, and it is rule-governed. In particular, scrambling in child Tamil is driven by topic and focus features, as it is in adult Tamil. Interestingly, this claim about scrambling in child Tamil generalizes to child Japanese. Tamil children are at a two-word stage between the ages of 16 and 22 months. Two-word utterances, we know, can provide evidence of word order acquisition. The research tells us that already at this stage, word order errors are “virtually nonexistent” (Craine & Lillo-Martin, 1999: 106). English children, in order to say “Adam pushed the ball,” may say “push ball,” or “Adam ball;” but they never say “push Adam,” where Adam is the agent of the action (he is doing the pushing). I.e. these children know that agent are subjects, and the subject must occur before the verb. Anything that occurs after the verb is not agentive (not a subject), but a patient (an

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object). The VP is strongly head initial, already at two years of age or earlier: VO, verb–object, in children acquiring English. Tamil children must similarly know that in their language, the object comes before the verb: OV. For evidence of OV word order at the two-word stage in Tamil, we must exclude (apart from formulaic utterances) those utterances which show no difference of order between OV and VO languages. These are, for example, possessor-possession utterances such as anitaa shu, ‘Vanitha’s shoe,’ and S(ubject)– V(erb) utterances such as amma veLaaD-liy-aa? ‘Is mother not playing?’ The speech sequences that can give firm evidence for canonical SOV word order at the two-word stage, between 16 and 22 months, are OV, IO-V, adjunct or complement-V, and N-postposition, which are all head-final rather than head-initial phrases. Tamil is what is called a null-argument language. The subject can always be dropped; and even the object need not occur. This is so even in English, for verbs like ‘eat’: we can ask, “Have you eaten?” But while it is restricted to a few verbs in English, argument-drop is much more pervasive in our languages. In all our languages, including Hindi, I can ask you “Have (you/ he/ they) seen (already)?” In Tamil, paart-aac-aa? In Hindi, dekh-liyaa? And you can reply, “Seen already:” paart-aaci in Tamil, dekhaa-liya in Hindi. This means that you have to collect a lot more data in Tamil than for English, to test your hypotheses. Not all child utterances are relevant to the questions we are asking about word order. Many of them are intransitive utterances which have the order SV; and this order SV is common to English and our languages: I came, I fell, I ate, I spoke. Many of them are nullargument utterances: came, push, give. We have to look for what we call clearly head-final utterances, that is, utterances which have an overt object and a verb; or utterances which have noun and postposition, like ‘near mother,’ which in Tamil is amma kiúúe ‘mother near;’ or utterances with the verb be, complement–verb utterances. For example, for the English utterance ‘he is in there,’ we would say ‘he-in there-is.’ ‘In there’ would come after the verb in English, but in our languages, it comes before the verb. We have longitudinal data from two Tamil-speaking children for the two-word (16–22 months) stage.1 Some OV utterances at 16 months in Tamil are paappaa acc ‘baby beat’ ‘beat the baby (doll)’ (the child says this while beating the doll), mammam taa ‘food give-imp,’ ad taa ‘that give.’ Between 18 and 22 months in our data we find postpositions: un kila literally ‘you below/under,’ amma kiúúa literally ‘mother near,’ and case markers: id-la okka ‘sit in this,’ literally ‘this-in sit’ (said as the child performs the action). We find preverbal locative complements: inga irk-aa? Literally ‘Here is (it)? (= ‘Is (it) here?’), paappaa nannaa-rke ‘The baby girl (doll) nice is!’ (= ‘The baby girl (doll) is nice!’). So, even at the two-word stage, therefore, we have evidence (just as an English) that the child has correctly set the word order parameter: the Tamil child has set the word order value to head final.

1

These data were collected as part of a project located at CIEFL (now the EFL University), in technical collaboration with and financially supported by Dr. Bhuvana Narasimhan, Max Planck Institut, Nijmegen.

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After the two-word stage, we have longitudinal data from three children, 23– 32 months, running for about 54 h.2 These are weekly audio and video recordings of one-hour sessions of natural interaction between the child and the caregivers. There are around 23,000 child utterances in all, including utterances un-informative about word order (such as SV intransitive sentences, and argument-drop utterances consisting of a single inflected verb, e.g. ‘brought,’ ‘hit’). We get clear evidence for OV word order in 4485 utterances. Of them, 4143 are in the canonical word order, and 342 are in non-canonical orders. I.e. over 92% of the relevant utterances follow the canonical word order; only 7.6% of them are in non-canonical orders (OSV, SVO, OVS, and DO/IO permutation).3 This is strong evidence that children acquiring a “free” word order language like Tamil acquire primarily the canonical word order; and that non-canonical word orders do occur in child Tamil between 23 and 32 months, but are clearly seen as marked orders. Tamil children in their earliest utterances most definitely do not randomly put their words together in all possible orders. With this established, we can now proceed to a more complex question: do the Tamil child’s non-canonical word order utterances show a correlation with topic/focus interpretations? The full answer to this question is too large to present here in all its detail. I shall present instead what to my mind are the most theoretically significant findings about what drives deviations from canonical word order in child Tamil. To do so, I must briefly outline what we already know about the positions of topic and focus in Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil, dealing here with facts that are parallel in these three languages. Informally, we may say that a topic is information that is given; it is something that may be present in the context, or in the discourse (as a “continuing topic”). Focus is new information, often stressed, and it may pick something out from a set of alternatives.

4 A Preverbal Focus Position An interesting observation about Malayalam (Jayaseelan, 2001) is that in a whquestion, the question word must occur to the immediate left of the verb. This is most convincingly observed in questions where the canonical word order is disturbed, i.e. where the wh-argument does not appear in its canonical position. Consider thus the subject question in (2), or the indirect object question in (3). In (2), the wh-word, instead of appearing initially where subjects usually appear, appears “below” the object, to the immediate left of the verb. In (3), the indirect object appears to the right of the direct object and not to its left, where it should canonically appear. The 2

The third child’s data are from the Vanitha database (Narasimhan, 1981). Even at the two-word stage, about 1–2% of utterances are not in the canonical order. But given the shortness of the utterance, it is difficult to base syntactic arguments on these data. What we can say is that (i) non-canonical word orders do not appear only after the two-word stage; and (ii) canonical word order is clearly favoured, starting with an overwhelmingly large advantage at the two-word stage.

3

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wh-word is clearly not in its canonical position in (2–3); it has moved to the immediate left of the verb. 2.

ninn-e

aar ∂

aúiccu?

you-acc

who

beat

(OSV)

‘Who beat you?’ 3.

John

aa

pustakam

aar-kk ∂

koãuttu?

John

that

book

who-dat

give-pst

(S-O-IO-V)

‘To whom did John give the book?’

Why does the wh-word move, and where does it move to? Traditionally, our languages have been considered wh-in-situ languages. Wh- in our languages does not move into COMP, which is in final position, to the right of the verb. What then is the immediately preverbal position noticed above? In his analysis, Jayaseelan points out the following facts. (i) Wh-words are inherent carriers of focus (they ask for new information). In many languages, wh-words have been shown to move into independently identifiable focus positions. In Malayalam and in other languages, questions are commonly expressed by “clefting.” The cleft construction is a focus construction; and the wh-word occurs in the cleft-focus position. (ii) Following Rizzi’s (1997) articulation of the COMP-space (the “left periphery”), wh-movement to COMP has been seen as movement to the focus position in the left periphery. Given these facts, Jayaseelan argues for a preverbal focus position in Malayalam, to which the wh-word moves. (I will not here go into further detail about the syntax of this movement, resting only with the demonstration that there is a preverbal focus position to which wh-word moves.) Earlier, Tirumalesh (1996) had also observed a preverbal focus position in Kannada. Both these authors refer also to the well-known existence of a preverbal focus position in Hungarian, an SOV language. One of the drivers of movement in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada, thus, is a focus feature, which places a focused argument in the immediately preverbal position. Focus movement disturbs the canonical word order.

5 A Post-verbal Topic Position An interesting feature of our verb-final languages is that although normally the verb is the final position, some elements can occur post-verbally. These elements are required to be topics: there is a post-verbal topic position or positions. The post-verbal topic was first noticed by Tirumalesh (1996). Compare (4a-b) below. Subjects are usually also topics; the subject in (4a) is a topic, therefore. In (4b), this argument occurs post-verbally; but as Tirumalesh observes, this “does not

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take away its status as topic” (p.36). Indeed, (4b) is more common in actual speech. (I have retained the original transliteration and glosses for (4a-b).) 4.

a.

makkalu

sha:leyinda

bandidda:reye?

children

school-abl

come interr

‘Have the children come (back) from school?’ b.

1 Tirumalesh

shaleyinda

bandidda:reye //1

makkal.u? uses a double slash to distinguish the comment string from the topic in the utterance

Tirumalesh points out that only topics can be postposed in this way. Indefinite NPs cannot be topics, so they cannot appear in a post-verbal position. This is illustrated in (5). The preverbal arguments or adjuncts in (5a) are each severally postposed in (5b–d). (5b, c) are fine, as the DPs ‘to the office’ and ‘this morning’ are definite. (5d) is not OK, as the indefinite NP ‘a letter’ is not a possible topic. 5.

a.

ivattu today

bel.igge morning

a:fi:sige

ondu

ka:gada

banditu

office-DIR

one

letter

came

‘This morning a letter came to the office.’ b.

ivattu

c.

a:fi:sige

d.

?ivattu

bel.igge ondu bel.igge

ondu ka:gada

banditu //

a:fi:sige

ka:gada

banditu //

a:fi:sige

banditu //

ivattu bel.igge ondu ka:gada

Jayaseelan similarly observes the occurrence of post-verbal topics in Malayalam. Again, an indefinite NP is not acceptable in this position. 6.

aarum

kaïã-illa,

aana-ye

nobody

saw-neg

elephant-acc

‘The elephant, nobody saw.’ 7.

aar ∂

ayaccu,

ninn-e?

who

send-pst

you-acc

‘You, who sent?’ 8.

*ñaan

ninn-ooD ∂

pa¸rayaam,

oru

tamaas’a

I-nom

you.2sg- dat

say-will

a

joke

*‘A joke, I will tell you.’

Thus, another driver of movement in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada is a topic feature, which places a topicalized argument in a post-verbal position. Topic movement, again, disturbs the canonical word order.

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6 A Prediction that Stands Confirmed About Scrambling a Wh-Word We have now seen that there is a post-verbal topic position, and a preverbal focus position. Given these two facts about these languages (Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam) and their possible word orders, we can construct the following argument to make a prediction about “scrambling;” in particular, about restrictions on the “scrambling” of wh-words. We have analyzed scrambling as movement driven by a topic or focus feature. A wh-word is inherently focused: therefore, it must move to a focus position. Indeed, it does so: it moves to a preverbal position. There is also a post-verbal position, but this position hosts topic, not focus. The post-verbal position can never host a wh-word, because wh- must be focused. Therefore, we can now predict that a wh-question word must move from its canonical position to a preverbal focus position, but it never moves to a post-verbal position. This is the strong prediction we shall test in child Tamil: that the wh-word in a question scrambles, but it is never scrambled to a post-verbal position. If found to be true, this would be a strong argument that the child, who has demonstrated knowledge of canonical word order, moves arguments out of canonical positions in order to place them in positions where the topic or the focus of an utterance occurs. Before I go on to the relevant child Tamil data, let me first record here that our prediction about scrambling is in fact already met by child Japanese data, reported in an article on the acquisition of Japanese syntax in the Oxford Handbook of Japanese Linguistics by Murasugi and Sugisaki (2008). The Japanese data have not, however, been explained in the manner suggested here. The authors observe only that their finding “indicates that OV is the only basic word order even in early child Japanese and that the early setting of the word order parameter holds even for the acquisition of Japanese, a free word order language,” a point that we have already made about Tamil. Murasugi and Sugisaki (M&S) note first that Sugisaki (2005) confirms the “early setting of the word order parameter in Japanese, a free word order language” (p. 262). They then tell us: In addition to its basic SOV word order, Japanese permits English-like SVO word order, at least in matrix contexts, as shown in (33). Yet, this SVO order exhibits various restrictions that do not apply to the SOV order, which indicates that the former is a marked order, derived in some way from the latter (reference omitted). For example, the SVO order is incompatible with direct-object wh-questions, as illustrated in (34) (emphasis mine, RA). [M&S 2008: 262]

What M&S are saying is that in adult Japanese, an object can be post-verbal, but a question word which questions the object cannot go post-verbal. Their examples (33–34) that show this are given below.

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9.

(=M&S’ 33)

a. SOV:

Eri-ga

ringo-o

tabeta (yo)

Eri-nom

apple- acc

ate (part)

eri ate an apple.’ b. SVO: 10.

(=M&S’34)

a. SOV:

Eri-ga

tabeta (yo),

ringo-o

Eri-nom

ate (part)

apple- acc

Eri-ga

nani-o

tabeta no?

Eri-nom

what- acc

ate –q

‘What did Eri eat?’ b. SVO:

*Eri-ga

tabeta no,

nani-o?

Eri-nom

ate – Q

what- acc

* ‘What did Eri eat?’

Murasugi and Sugisaki go on to say: Japanese-learning children around the age of 2;5 sometimes produce utterances that contain VO order. …Sugisaki (2005) analysed two longitudinal corpora … which provide a total sample of more than thirty-three thousand lines of child speech. The results showed that both VO sentences and direct-object wh-questions occurred reasonably often, but there was never an example of an object wh-question with VO order.

As I have mentioned above, the M&S account of Japanese syntax only notes the restriction against post-verbal wh-arguments; it does not offer an explanation for this restriction. Accordingly, M&S limit their claim to the point that the two-anda-half-year-old Japanese child follows a restriction that the adult grammar shows. Our analysis of scrambling in Dravidian to pre and post-verbal positions, and our child data from Tamil, encourage me to speculate on the reason for this restriction in Japanese: that in Japanese as in Dravidian, the post-verbal position (in what M&S call the SVO order) is a topic position, which therefore cannot host the inherently focused wh-word in an object question. This is admittedly a matter for further investigation of Japanese syntax and scrambling, but the parallel with Dravidian is suggestive. We have now seen that in adult Japanese, child Japanese, and adult Dravidian, a whword cannot occur post-verbally. Let us proceed to child Tamil. Recall that we have about 54 h of longitudinal data from three children between 23 and 32 months of age: 23,000 child utterances, 4485 of them providing clear evidence for OV word order, with 4143 (over 92%) in the canonical word order, and 342 (7.6%) in non-canonical orders. Mathew (2017) documents clear evidence for a post-verbal topic in 46 of these non-canonical word order examples. Among them, there are 22 OVS utterances and 24 SVO utterances that topicalize the subject and the object respectively. For example: 11.

ãak

paakka-r-di

enn-a

duck

look-nonpast-3sg.n

I-acc

SVO

age 2;02.01

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‘The duck is looking at me.’ 12.

foú

eã-tiïã-irk-aa

anukkaa

photo

take-vbp- be- 3.sg.f

annu elder sister

OVS

age 2;02.29

‘Elder sister Annu is taking photo.’

In the examples above, the numbers at the end indicate the child’s age in years, months, and days. So, at the age of two years, two months and a day, a Tamil child uttered a sentence as he pulled a toy duck on wheels along with him, commenting that the duck was looking up at him, and putting the word that referred to himself after the verb, because he himself was the topic of the sentence; he was given information, not new information. Again, at the age of two years, two months, and 29 days, a Tamil child commented on the activity that the researcher, Annu akka, was doing; and he put the doer after the verb, because she was part of the given context, and it was what she was doing that was the information he wanted to communicate. So, at this age, the Tamil child is using a post-verbal topic position. Considering now wh-questions, there are 630 wh-questions in these data. In all of them, the wh-word is immediately preverbal. There are no utterances where a wh-word, which necessarily carries focus, is not at the immediate left of the verb. When we exclude utterances that do not clearly demonstrate wh-movement to the preverbal focus position (e.g. utterances consisting solely of the wh-word, or of the wh-word plus the verb, such as yenna païãre/ sollre ‘what (are) (you) doing/ saying,’ we are left with 47 wh-questions. Of these, 25 are subject questions. They are in the OSV, adjunct-S-V, or complement-S-V order, giving clear evidence of wh- occurring in the immediately preverbal focus position, a non-canonical subject position. 13.

a.

co piis

taatti

kut-t-aa

chalk piece

who

give-pst- 3pl

OSV

age 2;03.20

Adjunct SV

age 2;03.26

‘Who gave (the) chalk piece?’ b.

idU

yaari

kuã-t-aa

this

who

give-pst- 3pl

‘Who gave this?’ 14.

a.

idi peen

aari

poo-v-aa

this plane

who

go-fut- 3pl

‘Who goes in this plane?’ b.

ii elapeen

aari

poo-v-a

this plane

who

go-fut- 3pl

‘Who goes in the aeroplane?’

There are also 20 wh-questions where wh- is in the preverbal position, and there is also a post-verbal element. These questions have the word orders whO-V-S (10

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questions), whadjunct-V-S (6 questions), whS-V-complement (1 question), and whLoc-V–O (3 questions). 15.

enna pad.raan

ivan

VS

age 02;01.18

OVS-Dative

age 2;03.04

OVS

age 2;04.03

Adjunct VS

age 2;03.20

Adjunct VS

age 2;07.10

SVComplement

age 2;06.26

Loc-VO

age 2;04.03

what do-nonpast-3m.sg- he.prox ‘What’s he doing?’ 16.

enna

veeïo ~

una-kki

what

want

you-dat

‘What do you want?’ 17.

enna tolla-r-a ~

avi

what say-nonpast-3sg.m

avi

‘What is Avi saying?’ 18.

enga

poora

nii

where

go-2sg

you

‘Where are you going?’ 19.

ammaa, eppãi okkarmuãiyum naa? mother how

sit-able-mod

I

‘Mother, how will I be able to sit?’ (in the toy train) 20.

enna

iri-kki

idi-la

what

be-nonpast.3n.sg

this-loc

‘What is in this?’ 21.

edla

pooãïo ~

ida

which-loc

put.mod

this-acc

‘What should (I) put this in?’

The point to note is that in 47 wh-questions, there is not a single instance of a post-verbal wh-word. Overall, there are 66 utterances with a post-verbal element: 46 declaratives in the SVO/ OVS orders, and 20 wh-questions. But not once is a wh-word found post-verbally. Recall what Murasugi and Sugisaki say about child Japanese: “both VO sentences and direct object wh-questions occurred reasonably often, but there was never an example of an object wh-question with VO order.” As Mathew (2017) puts it, in the child Tamil data, “(i)n all the permuted word orders with postverbal elements the wh-word never occurs in the post-verbal position. It is always a non-wh word that is postposed. In other words, new information or constituents carrying focus interpretation are never postposed.” Children acquire scrambling early, and they scramble constituents in a principled way right from the outset. It appears that it is not only the putative word order parameter that is set very early, but also that the topic and focus positions discussed here are acquired early; and movement into these positions is both early acquired and error-free.

7 Children Do Make Creative Errors Now the interesting thing is that we know that children do make errors when they acquire language. In fact, the earliest discussions on child language used the creative

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error as an argument that children do not simply imitate adults when they learn language; they recreate it. So, it is interesting to contrast the error-free acquisition of scrambling across the “free” word order languages Tamil and Japanese, with a type of error found in Tamil children, Japanese children, and English children as well. These are errors in the use of causative verbs. The errors below, cited from the work of Bowerman (1974), are in the English utterances of two-year olds. 22.

Creative errors in children a)

How would you flat it?

(intended: How would you make it flat/flatten it?)

b)

Down your little knee

(intended: Put down your little knee.)

c)

Don’t eat her yet

(intended: Don’t feed her yet.)

d)

I’m singing him

(intended: I’m making him sing.)

e)

She came it over here

(intended: She brought it over here.)

It is obvious that no adult speaker of English would utter these sentences, so these sentences could not arise from imitation. The children use an intransitive, or even transitive, verb where a causative verb is required. It is as if the English-speaking two-year olds assume a rule of causativization that can make causative verbs out of adjectives like flat, prepositions like down, transitive verbs like eat, and intransitive verbs like come and sing. As they learn more English, they realize that English has no such rule, and the errors disappear. Other languages, of course, may have such a rule. In Hindi, for example, we have causative verbs khilaana ‘feed’ and bhagaana ‘make run, drive away,’ based on the transitive verb khaana ‘eat’ and the intransitive verb bhaagna ‘run.’ Japanese and Tamil, too, have a way of making causative verbs by adding a morpheme to a transitive or intransitive verb. Interestingly, causative verbs are an error-prone area in child speakers of Japanese and Tamil as well. Japanese children between the ages of 2 and 4 show a “late” developmental error of using an intransitive verb instead of its transitive or causative counterpart (Murasugi et al., 2007). Murasagi suggests that children do not have the little v projection; that is why they use the intransitive verb. What is perhaps surprising is that similar errors in child Tamil can be found in the Vanitha corpus (Narasimhan, 1981) on the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 2000; MacWhinney & Snow, 1985), and in our own CIEFL-Max Planck database. This means that this kind of error goes across languages; and therefore, it requires an explanation in terms of Universal Grammar. Here are a couple of examples from child Tamil. 23.

nii

oonj-

uúú-

a

you

break-intr

completive.pst

2sg

Vanitha, age 2;4.05

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‘You got broken’ [intended: nii oã-acc-uúú-e, ‘You broke (it).’]

From the context of the utterance, we know that the child is referring to a broken bangle that pricks her; she accuses her father of breaking it. But she uses an intransitive verb. 24.

vand- uúú-

een

naani

AV,

age 2;1.10

come-completive.pst-

1sg

I

‘I have come (up)!’

[intended: vara-vacc-uúúeen ‘I’ve made it come (up)!’]

The context of this utterance is that AV, playing with a toy, has managed to make the toast pop up. Errors of causativization in our languages remain to be systematically studied. If Murasugi is right, the transitive-causative projections, or perhaps the morphology associated with them, may be late acquired. However, a potential problem with Murasugi’s explanation is that if little v is projected by transitive verbs as well as causative verbs, we should expect these children, at the stage when they are making mistakes with causatives, to not productively use transitive verbs at all. If they do use transitives, but fail at causatives, the explanation for causative errors lies elsewhere. Acquisition studies of causatives may thus inform the syntax of causatives as well.

8 Errors and Grammatical Conservatism On the whole, researchers now argue, errors are few and far between in child language. Early, anecdotal evidence may have exaggerated the incidence of error, because for the adult, the child’s errors stand out; they are noticed, while the child’s normal usage is not remarked on. Snyder (2007) has therefore argued for a hypothesis known as the child’s “grammatical conservatism.” Careful examination of child data shows that children’s errors are overwhelmingly errors of “omission,” in syntax, morphology and phonology; they are not positive errors of “commission.” For illustration, Snyder analyzes the error-patterns, potential and actual, in the acquisition of the verb-particle construction in English. This construction allows the two-word orders shown in (25a) and (25b). However, if the object is a pronoun, it allows only (25a) and not (25b), as seen from the ungrammaticality of (25c).

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25.

197

Verb-particle construction: word order a.

She ate up her rice

b.

She ate her rice up

c.

*She ate up it

The construction also has other restrictions. It does not allow the particle to occur before the verb (*up-ate), or to be marked for tense (*upped-eat), or to occur in both places (*ate up her rice up), and so on. One can imagine a number of such possible errors of word order and tense marking that a child could potentially make. Snyder analyses one child’s corpus of utterances to show that the child begins to use transitive verb-particle constructions at the age of 2;06, in the order verb-NPparticle. Over the next four months, she produces 32 errors, of which 29 (over 90%) are errors of omission (of a verb, NP or a particle). Of the remaining three errors, one is the wrong choice of particle (took on instead of took out), and one marks tense on the particle (go downed). The third error is unclear: it could be the wrong placement of a pronoun him (put back hm), or the hm could be just an interjection. The child’s errors in the verb-particle construction are overwhelmingly errors of omission, not of commission; and many imaginable types of error are never attested.

9 Conclusion Careful analysis of systematically collected acquisition data for Tamil suggests that language appears full-blown in the child, in so far as word order and its variations that reflect information structuring in terms of topicalization and focalization are concerned. Even at the two-word utterance stage, when the child’s productions superficially differ from the adults, the word order appears to be set, and departures from it are clearly rare. The documentation of mistakes we make and do not make during language acquisition may, if analyzed with care and insight, inform theories about language in the human mind.

References Al-Shagrabi, S. (2015). On the acquisition of the syntax of negation in Yemeni-Taizzi Arabic (Doctoral Dissertation) The English & Foreign Languages University. Bowerman, M. (1974). Learning the structure of causative verbs: A study in the relationship of cognitive, semantic and syntactic development. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 8, 142–78. Google Scholar. Craine, S., & Lillo-Martin, D. (1999). An Introduction to linguistic theory and language acquisition. Blackwell.

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Natural Language Processing Meets Deep Learning Pushpak Bhattacharyya

1 Introduction: Nature of NLP/CL Natural language processing (NLP) also known as computational linguistics (CL) is concerned with the question of how to endow computers with the ability of analyzing and generating language. Language analysis (Bhattacharyya, 2012) as a process involves many sub-processes like morphology, i.e. breaking up the words into their lemma and affixes, obtaining the syntactic structure in the form of dependency tree and constituency tree, doing word sense disambiguation, getting semantic roles— all these and many more are natural language analysis problems. Natural language generation (Perera & Nand, 2017) problem (NLG), on the other hand, is concerned with producing word forms to capture different speech acts like tense, focus, attention, etc., and also to create the correct syntactic order as prescribed by the language. Many times, producing non-canonical forms is necessary for speech acts like emphasis, e.g. I like cakes ßà Cakes, I like: the second sentence being non-canonical. Then, there is the question of register too. Register is concerned with language generation in a context for a set of users. For example, a leave application must have a formal tone. Hence if the reason for asking for leave is one’s mother being indisposed and thereby needing taking to doctor, one cannot use “Amma not feeling well” in the application, as that expression will be considered informal for the setting in question. All the above tasks are well-studied problems in linguistics. But the question is: How does one embed such knowledge and insight obtained from linguistics, cognition, philosophy and even natural science research in a computer? Advancement in Internet has given rise to a new opportunity in NLP. Availability of huge quantity of electronic data has brought machine learning (ML) (Shalev-Shwartz & Ben-David, 2017) into the picture. Many NLP algorithms can be created through machine learning as we will soon see. AI is concerned with drudgery reduction, the P. Bhattacharyya (B) Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_12

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motto being: mundane to machine and creative to man. NLP too has components better done by machines. This is where ML plays an ever more important role in NLP. The need for NLP is real. Any situation requiring a machine’s interaction with people can make use of NLP. For example, banks are increasingly employing chatbots for interacting with customers. E-commerce companies are interested in knowing customer sentiment. Tourists and call center employees use online translation services, and the need for automatic translation also called machine translation (Bhattacharyya, 2015) is ever-growing (37-billion-dollar industry by 2020).

2 NLP and Machine Learning (ML) The above examples of man–machine interaction need robustness, coverage and scalability, at the same time being highly accurate. Language experts can create high precision systems (low error of commission), but such systems founded on human created rules are typically low recall, i.e. have high error of omission. This happens because human engineered systems are limited by limitations of their creators. Data on the other hand—if sufficiently rich—covers all the nuances of a task. Take for example, automatic sentiment analysis of students undergoing a course, as evinced in their feedback in text form. The language employed by the students is varied and nonstandard. Traditional grammar and idioms cannot completely capture these language constructs. So human created rules to detect sentiment will naturally be unable to process large number of cases correctly. On the other hand, ML-data combination will be able to accommodate both standard and non-standard expressions (see, e.g. Abu Bakar et al. (2020) for sentiment analysis from noisy text in Malay as a case study). Data mirrors reality, ML absorbs and uses that reality. The happy situation for NLP-ML is the availability of huge amount of unstructured data in the form of free-flowing text. This data is supposed to be growing to about 40 zeta bytes by 2020. Like many other fields of AI, NLP is now a combination of neat rules and rote learned patterns. In hybrid AI, rules are typically used for pre-processing training data and postprocessing the output. Patterns are learnt from data along with probability values. To give an example, a machine produces Hindi to English machine translation. The parallel sentences for training the machine are given linguistic embellishments by rules—e.g., suffixes are separated from lemma. Then the translation output is improved by postprocessing rules—e.g., ensuring correct gender marking on the verb as dictated by the long distance subject or making the output more idiomatic. For example, in Indian languages, participial constructions (Subbarao, 2012) are more natural than clauses, e.g. “mei us dilliwaale ladke ko jaantaa huM,” instead of “mei us ladke ko jaantaa huM, jo dilli me rahataa hai: I know the boy who lives in Delhi.” There is always this moot question of when to use ML and when not; “do not learn when you know” is an old adage. In French to English machine translation

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Fig. 1 Instances of the concept to be learnt “table”

(MT), we would like to incorporate a rule to ensure that mostly adjectives are prenominal (le ciel bleu ß{the sky blue}gloss à the blue sky). However, we need probability here, because there are exceptions to this rule (le grand palais ßà the grand palace). Such rules are manually created and should not be learnt from data. This man– machine synergy is important. We need hybrid systems that are combinations of human engineered rules and ML models trained on data. In ML, we would like to arrive at a concept from the instances of the concept (Mitchel, 1997). For example, we would like the ML model to learn the concept of a table the way a child learns the concept. Pictures of table are presented to the child, telling the child “this is a table” (positive example) and picture of other objects saying “this is not a table” (negative example) (see Fig. 1). What is important is that we most likely do not actually store these pictures of tables, but arrived at the concept of table-ness, the essential elements of being a table. This acquired capability of recognizing table-ness is invoked to decide if a new object is a table or not. In ML-based NLP, the modus operandi are learning patterns in text, making use of these patterns in decision-making and then applying probability-based scores for these decisions which are typically multiple in number. Probability is used because in any situation a number of possibilities exist. For example, for a question like “what is the capital of India?,” the answer is unique; but for a question like, “what makes a city a capital?,” the answer is complex and non-unique, and for automation one has to resort to complex question answering techniques (Ren et al., 2011). These answers will have different degrees of semantic and syntactic propriety depending on context, register, speech act, etc. Probability based scoring is employed to capture such propriety.

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3 Language Modeling and Word Embedding Language modeling (LM) (Manning & Schütze, 1999) which deals with predicting the next piece of text based on the current window of text has been very successful in many NLP tasks. Essentially, LM gives probabilistic ranking of next-text possibilities. Thus given “In the evening, I will …,” the next text will be a verb certainly (except for adverb like slowly), since verb auxiliaries almost invariably are followed by main verbs. But which verb? There is an enormously large number of possibilities like “dine,” “play,” “exercise,” etc., all of which are plausible, but not so much as the verbs “curvet” or “germinate” or even “procrastinate.” How do we determine these possibilities? We simply make use of a rich corpus. We see what follows “In the evening, I will…” in the corpus. Since, there may be many possibilities in the corpus too, we will count the frequency and give the highest probability to the most frequent, then to the next most frequent and so on. These probabilities are essentially ratio of frequencies and are founded on the principle of maximum likelihood estimate (MLE). MLE has led to well principled NLP methodologies. A particular form of LM is word embedding (Bengio et al., 2003) created through the now famous word2vec (Mikolov et al., 2013) system wherein either the context is predicted for a given input word—the so-called skip-gram model—or the target word is predicted given the context—the so-called continuous bag of words (cbow) model. As a side effect of this prediction—done through a deep neural network—we get a vector representing the target word, which is put to great use in many downstream NLP applications like machine translation and sentiment analysis. Word embeddings and other deep learning-based methods have been built with layered deep network of neurons orchestrating complex flow of information back and forth, up and down, left and right accomplishing tasks and achieving accuracy levels hitherto unattained. Speech, image processing, automatic translation are cases in point. Machine learning deep learning (MLDL) is here to stay!

4 Importance of “Features” When machine learning is applied to natural language processing, the crux of the matter is the set of features and the set the properties of text that serve as signals to decision-making. A machine is trained with labeled text and its features and properties along with decision labels. For example, to decide if the sentiment expressed in a piece of text is positive (this online delivery company is really efficient), negative (this delivery company sucks!) or neutral (this delivery company has 80 delivery boys), we employ a pre-trained machine learning model which during training made use of the actual words, word sequences, properties like parts of speech (adjectives are important for sentiment analysis) and features like if the sentence is canonical or not.

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Machine learning models need annotated data for training. To annotate a piece of text means that the text is embellished with various information (Hovy & Lavid, 2010). For example, if the task is to do automatic part of speech (POS) tagging, then each word is annotated with the POS tag before feeding into the ML model. If the task is to do machine translation, the annotation is in the form of parallel corpora of translations often with suffixes and lemma separated, POS embedded, dependency information added and so on. The key point that remains, however, is that these machines fundamentally learn patterns, and learn them with probability.

5 Cognitive NLP These days, there is also a lot of effort at creating systems that are cognition based. This field of natural language processing is called cognitive NLP which captures not only the properties of the text but also the properties of the behavioral data of the reader who is reading this text (Mishra & Bhattacharyya, 2018). So, there is a combination of features coming from the text as also extra-linguistic features based on the cognition of the reader who is reading the text. The reason why cognitive NLP works is that text data is not just data; text is a manifestation of thought and emotion that gives rise to cognitive processes in the brain. So, the idea is to capture the features of the cognitive process which goes on in the brain while processing text in the brain. When a reader reads a piece of text, she experiences emotions, stances, nuances, subtleties, inferences, suggestions and much more. All these are very difficult to find as such directly in the text. These features have to be uncovered and this uncovering is done by man–machine–text synergy. The reader–text interaction reveals a part of underlying reality. The reader’s response to a text by staying the eyes (called fixation) or moving them (saccade), putting together fixations and saccades to form what is called the scanpath, capturing brain waves and ace and body movements–all these are capturable by modern-day technology of eye-tracking, EEGs, EOGs and EMGs. AI is actually making use of these inputs obtained in the form of signals from different devices stuck to different parts of the body. So, the question which is asked in cognition-based natural language processing is: Cannot ML-NLP be made more effective by capturing the reader’s behavior when she is reading the text? That is the main goal of CNLP (cognitive natural language processing). For example, take the case of sarcasm. In automatic sarcasm detection, the key point is that the surface information on the text is in contradiction with the intended meaning, a linguistic–cognitive phenomenon called incongruity (Joshi & Bhattacharyya, 2018). Incongruity is manifested in the frustrated utterance of a neglected guest in a party to her host, when on being asked how she liked the party, she says “Oh, I love being ignored!.” This is a sarcastic sentence wherein the surface meaning is in opposition

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to the intent, “I have been ignored and I have not liked it!.” The signal of incongruity comes from the simultaneous presence of “love” and “ignored.” This is a case of overt incongruity. The incongruity could be covert too, as in “I liked the research paper so much that I made a doggy bag out of it!” (a research paper turned into a doggy bag is not exactly the purpose for which the paper was written!). Sarcasm is greatly helped by multimodality. Multimodality refers to exploiting multimodal signal like the volume, intensity and tone of speech and facial expression, body language, etc. In sarcasm, tone and body language are often giveaways. Sarcasm, our experience shows, leads to at least 10–30% accuracy degradation when general sentiment analysis algorithms are used on text mixed with sarcastic text. Eye tracking-based NLP makes use of what is called scan path-based analysis. In scan path-based analysis one tracks fixation—the staying of the eye on a particular word or phrase—and saccades—eye transitions. The properties of the scan path augmented with properties of text produce high-quality machine learning systems for language processing. Here is an example of the scan-path. Take the first sentence in Fig. 2, “I will always cherish the original misconception I had of you.” This sentence is not an ordinary sentence: “I will cherish” is a positive sentiment text, while “misconception” is a negative sentiment bearing word. This combined presence of positive sentiment bearing text and negative sentiment bearing word indicates that the sentence is out of the ordinary and actually is sarcastic. The rest of the two sentences also are sarcastic. The eye movement of all the four subjects reading the three sentences is zigzag, going left and right, i.e. doing regress–progress. This behavior has been found to be typical in reading and comprehending sarcasm and has been exploited in computational sarcasm detection. Sarcasm detection falls under the general problem of sentiment analysis which in turn is a kind of text classification problem. We will now discuss text classification which is a very important problem of NLP.

Fig. 2 Examples of scan paths

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6 Text Classification Text classification (TC) is at the heart of many NLP tasks—like sentiment analysis (positive, negative, neutral), question classification (yes–no, wh), text entailment (supports, contradicts, independent) and so on. Text classification is also a hotbed of ideas for machine learning techniques, and techniques like support vector machine (Drucker et al., 1997) have been successfully applied on TC (Thorsten, 1998). An important point here is: “soft decisions” are needed. Soft decisions allow multiple possibilities. For text classification, soft decisions allow the fact that the text may belong to multiple classes—in fact ALL classes—with varying probability. A sentence like, “Recent curb on H1-B in US visas- promised in Trump’s election speeches- are causing IT industries to reorient their business plan,” belongs to both economics and politics. The probability of belongingness to a particular category is found from the corpus evidence. If the exact sentence is not found in the training corpus, the probability can be constructed from the probabilities of the constituents. The trump-speech sentence above belongs to both economics and politics, but more to the former. We need an instrument to capture this phenomenon of belonging to multiple classes with different degrees. A practical example of text classification application is automatic SMS complaint handling. The complexity, diversity and in particular the scale necessitate automation. In the complaint shown in Fig. 3, the language is very informal (fridge go to sleep), noisy, spelling and grammar-wise incorrect and employs colloquialism (khat-khatkhat). There are numerical entities (80 L, 4 months) too. All these challenges need to be tackled on the way to deciphering the sentiment of the complainant, its intensity and the intent. Real-life language produced by people is characterized by all the challenges mentioned above, viz. error of spelling, grammar, idiomaticity and departure from

Fig. 3 SMS complaint about refrigerator

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Fig. 4 Neural net to do SMS classification

norm. Now, actual processing of text begins by removing stop words, i.e. words that are not significant information bearing. Articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc., are stop words. What remain after stop words removal is the real deciders for classification. For the refrigerator complaint above, “4 months old,” “fridge goes to sleep,” “khat-khat-khat” are the clues to show that the customer is unhappy. Important information-bearing units in the text are called keywords or key phrases. They are extracted from the text by natural language processing pipeline. These features are passed to a classifier. The machine shown in the Fig. 4 is a neural network, and this machine already has been trained to detect sentiments and required action based on a piece of text. In the current machine shown, this neural network has 3 output neurons standing for three decisions: The input SMS is a complaint or not, it is an emergency or not and is it asking for an action. An input SMS can belong to multiple categories. It can be both a complaint and emergency with different probabilities. Such probabilistic decisions can be made by computation through neural nets. We proceed to give a quick glimpse of important neural net models.

7 Basic Neural Network Models The field of the neural networks started in the sixties and progressed with upsand-downs through prominent models like perceptrons, multilayer perceptrons (MLP) and backpropagation, recurrent neural net (RNN) like Hopfield net, Boltzmann machine, self-organization and Kohonen’s map, neocognitron (Anderson & Rosenfield, 1998) and now deep neural nets (DNN) (Goodfellow et al., 2016). The perceptron model (Fig. 5) is the simplest where the input vector is multiplied (dot product) by the weight vector to get the input activation and the decision is made

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Fig. 5 Perceptron machine

by comparing the input with a threshold. If the input, i.e. the dot product of weight and input vectors, exceeds the threshold, then the output is 1; otherwise, it is 0. This achieves binary classification like “does the text have positive or negative sentiment” or “can this loan application be approved or not” (for a bank) or “Is the legend for this picture consistent with the picture content” (automatic image captioning) and so on. In case of multiclass decision-making (“does the customer response indicate anger or sadness or disgust or happiness?”), multiple neurons can be in the output. The power of a neural network increases manifold when many neurons are organized in multiple layers (see Fig. 6). A single perceptron cannot solve problems that are not linearly separable; i.e. the positive instances cannot be separated from negative instances by a hyperplance. An example of such a situation is the following: Accept a candidate for a job if and only if she is EITHER an athlete OR a swimmer.

Notice that both situations of (a) being neither athlete nor swimmer and (b) being both athlete and swimmer will make the candidate unacceptable. Technically, such a situation is identical to solving the XOR problem, which the perceptron cannot do. But a deeper network with one hidden layer trained by backpropagation will be able to solve this problem. Feedforward networks with full connection—called dense networks—wherein connection weights are trained using gradient descent are very powerful and can tackle very complex tasks. The output layer of the network computes what is called softmax and each neuron representing a particular class gets a probability value, by which the winner neuron(s) can be decided. In the SMS complaint example above, both “complaint” and “action” decisions will likely get high values and “emergency” will likely not. Use of probability in neural nets in not new. In a well-known model called the Boltzmann machine, the measure of how well the machine has learnt something (a task or a concept) is obtained by the distance between the desired probability distribution of classes and the obtained probability distribution. The distance is measured by

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Fig. 6 Multilayer neural net

what is called the KL-divergence or cross-entropy. Notice that such distance measures are inevitable since all outcomes are possible and with different probabilities. So the only way of measuring distance from target behavior is by computing the distance between the probability distributions. An example will make it clear. The sentence, “the movie was good” definitely has positive sentiment. So for the 3-class problem of positive–negative–neutral the target values from a 3-neuron output layer is 1–0–0. Since the values sum to 1, these set of values can be looked upon as forming the target probability distribution. Now suppose the output values obtained by computation—also called the softmax values—are 0.3–0.5–0.2, indicating that the sentiment expressed in the sentence is most likely negative, which is wrong. Therefore, the parameters of the neural net will have to adjusted to push the probability distribution toward large-small–small. This can be achieved by gradient descent applied on the error—also called the loss—function in terms of the distance between the target and observed probability distributions. Botzmann machines worked on these principles. The reason for using the term “Boltzmann” is that the probability distribution at the output layer is thought to obey the famous Boltzmann distribution of thermodynamics. Modern day’s softmax function is very similar to the Boltzmann distribution. All these distributions are members of the exponential probability distribution family. Another model that was proposed in 1982 is the self-organization map (SoM) (Fig. 7). SoMs are neural networks in which there is a winning neuron giving decision on an input object as to which class it belongs to (picture shows dog or cat?), and this neuron’s weight is influenced by neighboring neurons’ activities, as also by the development of activities in the neural network over time through an iterative algorithm called self-organization. Yet another model called Neocognitron (Fig. 8) is really the closest to today’s deep neural nets. Neocognitron came in the 1980s with layers and layers of neurons to solve complex computer vision tasks. The inspiration was that perception tasks

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Fig. 7 Kohonen net, also called self-organization map

like language and vision and speech happen in layers, with each layer feeding information into the next higher layer which does a more complex pattern matching and recognition activity. There is, however, an important difference between language processing and vision. The former is fundamentally a sequential “one-dimensional” task—sentences are linear sequence of words, while the latter is fundamentally a two-dimensional “all-processing-in-one-shot” task; the visual information is most of the time obtained from two-dimensional pictures with gray scale values on pixels, all information being available together. This has given rise to use of recurrent neural nets (RNNs) in NLP and convolutional neural nets (CNNs) in computer vision (CV).

Fig. 8 Neocognitron

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Fig. 9 Recurrent neural net (sequence processor, output at every step)

8 NLP as Sequence Processing Text consists of sentences, and sentences are sequence of words. NLP tasks therefore map naturally to sequence labeling operations (Hochreiter & Schmidhuber, 1997; Ma & Hovy, 2016). As Fig. 9 reveals, in recurrent neural nets (RNN) the same neuron assembly goes through the whole sentence encountering word after word and making decisions on the words. For example, we may be asked to give parts of speech in a sentence like, “purchased Videocon machine” which is tagged as VBD (past tense verb), NNP (proper noun) and NN (common noun). Such decisions are produced by a recurrent neural network which is a single neural network going over the words one after another in a temporal manner. At every word, the decision made is a function of the input word and the state of the network at that point. Another kind of decision-making is not at every word, but at the end of the sentence. The information of each word is accumulated in the state of the network, and at the end of the sentence, the decision comes out. This, for example, is the case in sentiment analysis. In the sentence, “I like the camera,” the sentiment is output at the end as positive, based on the accumulated state information obtained from inspecting each word (Fig. 10).

9 NLP Meets DNN: An Example Application We will take an application to show the effectiveness of deep neural networks in NLP. This application is a very challenging one called numerical sarcasm detection (Dubey et al., 2019). In the tweets, space sarcasm is very common, and about 17

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Fig. 10 Recurrent neural net (sequence processor; output at the end)

percent of the sarcastic tweets have origin in number. The sentence, “this phone has an awesome battery backup of 38 h” is a non-sarcastic positive sentiment one; 38 h of battery backup is a good feature of the phone. Similarly, “this phone has a terrible battery backup of 2 h” is a non-sarcastic negative sentiment sentence. But “this phone has an awesome battery backup of 2 h” is sarcastic, because a positive sentiment bearing word awesome is combined with the negative situation of backup of 2 h. Figure 11 shows more examples of numerical sarcasm. There are many such examples of sarcasm of numerical kind. “Waiting 45 min for the subway in the freezing cold is so much fun” is one such. So much fun is positive, but waiting 45 min in freezing cold is a negative situation.

Fig. 11 Numerical sarcasm examples

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We have created numerical sarcasm detection system tested on standard benchmark datasets. We have tackled the problem using rule-based, classical ML-based and deep learning-based approaches. In the rule–based system, there are two repositories: sarcastic and non-sarcastic which serve as the training data. The data is in the form of tuples. Each tuple in the repository has the format: tweet number, noun phrase list, the number causing sarcasm and the unit of the number. We illustrate with an example. Consider the tweet, “this phone has an awesome battery backup of 2 h.” We pass the sentence through a dependency parser, get the dependency tree and the noun phrases are phone awesome battery backup and hours. So, we create a structure which is tweet number phone awesome battery backup and hours the numerical unit is 2 and the unit of that number is hours. Such structure is created from training data. Now when a new sentence comes, “I love writing this paper at 9 am,” its structure matches closely with that of a sarcastic tweet, “I love writing articles at 3 am.” Since the “distance” between 3 and 9 is “large,” the distance of this given sentence is also large from a sarcastic sentence, making it a non-sarcastic sentence. This simple rule-based approach gives pretty high accuracy. However, the mechanism of relying on the “distance” between two numbers is inherently ad hoc. Let the data say what the threshold of this “distance” should be in classifying sarcastic and non-sarcastic texts. Machine learning and data were used to train a classifier. Classical ML algorithms like support vector machine (SVM) were used. SVM is essentially a feature aggregator and classified by setting up a hyperplane (Drucker et al., 1997). As the final approach, even feature engineering was minimized and the training data was used to train a deep neural network consisting of convolution neural network (CNN), filters, dense layer and a softmax output layer, which gives probabilistic scores to the two classes of sarcastic tweet and non-sarcastic tweet. Such DNN gave the highest accuracy for numerical sarcasm detection.

10 Summary, Conclusion, Future Work In this article, we have described the nature and need of natural language processing. Ambiguity at all levels is the main challenge of NLP. Machine learning steps in to choose the right option, the option that has the highest probability. Probability has become the de facto scoring or ranking function for choosing correct option at any stage of NLP pipeline. ML-NLP became feasible because of the availability of huge quantity of text data in electronic form. The form of ML that is without feature engineering- the so-called end-to-end system—built out of many layers of neurons, is the deep learning framework in its purest form. Neural nets solve optimization problems, trying to minimize an error or loss function. Deep neural nets (DNNs) are extremely data intensive. They are very robust too. However, there is lot of inscrutability about DNNs. Their actions are not explainable, because of the large number of connections and weight values (the parameters). In DNNs, the onus of doing feature engineering is on the machine itself.

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Fig. 12 Comparison of representative power and operations in neural net vis-à-vis language

We end on a philosophical note (Fig. 12). A language is an extremely rich system of representation and operators. The repository of fundamental units available to language is huge: characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, emojis, punctuation, syntax trees, meaning graph, silence, disfluency, modulation. But when we use neural networks, we have to work with only vectors and matrices. Vectors and matrices are no match for the rich repository of building blocks that a language has. When it comes to operators too, neural nets are found wanting. As operators in a language, we have concatenation, reversal, reordering, implicatures, irony, metaphor, sarcasm and so on. In neural networks, on the other hand, we only have vector and matrix addition and multiplication and passing quantities through nonlinearity. Therefore, can deep learning ever capture language completely?

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Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep learning. MIT Press. Hochreiter, S., & Schmidhuber, J. (1997). Long short-term memory. Neural Computation, 9(8), 1735–1780. Hovy, E., & Lavid, J. (2010). Towards a ‘Science’ of corpus annotation: A new methodological challenge for corpus linguistics. International Journal of Translation 22(1). Joachims, T. (1998). Text categorization with support vector machines: Learning with many relevant features. Machine Learning: ECML-98, Lecture notes in computer science (vol. 1398, pp. 137– 142). Springer. Joshi, A., Bhattacharyya, P., & Carman, M.J. (2018). Investigations in computational sarcasm, Cognitive Systems Monograph Series, Springer Nature, ISBN:978-981-10-8395-2. Ma, X., & Hovy, E.H. (2016). End-to-end Sequence Labeling via Bi-directional LSTM-CNNs-CRF, CoRR, abs/1603.01354. Manning, C., & Schütze, H. (1999). Foundations of statistical natural language processing. MIT Press. Mikolov, T., Sutskever, I., Chen, K., Corrado, G.S., & Dean, J. (2013). Distributed representations of words and phrases and their compositionality, Neural Information Processing Systems. Mishra, A., & Bhattacharyya, P. (2018). Cognitively inspired natural language processing- an investigation based on eye tracking. In Cognitive intelligence and robotics series, Springer Nature Singapore, ISBN:978-981-13-1515-2. Mitchel, T. (1997). Machine learning, McGraw Hill. Perera, R., & Nand, P. (2017). Recent advances in natural language generation: A survey and classification of the empirical literature. Computing and Informatics, 36(1), 1–32. Ren, H., Ji, D., Teng, C., & Wan, J. (2011). A web knowledge based approach for complex question answering, Asia information retrieval symposium AIRS 2011: Information Retrieval Technology (pp. 470–478). Shalev-Shwartz, S., & Ben-David, S. (2017). Understanding machine learning, Cambridge University Press. Subbarao, K.V. (2012). South Asian languages, Cambridge University Press. Yoshua, B., Holger, S., Senécal, J. S., Fréderic, M., & Jean-Luc, G. (2006). A neural probabilistic language model. Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, 194, 137–186.

Language Evolution: Theories and Evidence Pritha Chandra

1 Introducing a Hard Problem Evolution is a hard problem, and language evolution even more so. There is no easy algorithmic answer to the problem of how language evolved and developed to its present state in the human species. In the absence of direct archeological evidence for language in earlier forms, the subject matter of language evolution becomes an almost intractable problem. Conjectures on this matter are at best, inferential, drawing upon data from ancient tools and cultural artifacts, brain sizes and the varied shapes and positions of the larynx in the vocal tract. The Victorian period in the late nineteenth century witnessed a number of language evolution hypotheses emerge from the fields of comparative philology and linguistics, anthropology, psychology and philosophy. There were two prominent viewpoints. The theological hypothesis was that language is a divine product. Its existence in humans is a clear indication of the higher nature and reasoning power of the species. A strong advocate of this approach was the German linguist Friedrich Max Müller who undercut the existence of any alternative, anti-theological explanation for the evolution of the phenomenon by suggesting ‘no process of natural selection will ever distil significant words out of the notes of birds and the cries of beasts.’ (1861: 1:22–3, 354). The significance of this comment becomes clear when one looks at another emerging trend during those times that suggests a gradual, adaptationist, natural selection account for this peculiar trait of human beings. This other account, which found supporters among the philologists Hensleigh Wedgwood, August Schleicher, William Dwight Whitney and the liberal Anglican scholar Frederic Farrar, was that human language directly emerges from animal modes of communication, and its evolution is primarily driven by natural laws and processes. Another dominant voice in support of this approach was that of P. Chandra (B) Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_13

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Charles Darwin. Writing in the Descent of Man (1871), he underscored the similarities between human language and other animal modes of communication, taking these as indicative of a shared ancestor for humans and non-humans. Language ‘[…] owes its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries. When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primeval man […] used his voice largely, as does one of the gibbon-apes at the present day, in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing’ (p. 59). Darwin considered language use to brain stimulation and growth, which is also attested by archeological records of increased brain size in the species. Language development gave an additional evolutionary advantage to humans, by helping out in forming complex thoughts and in advancing technology. In effect, there was thought to be a continuity in the modes of animal communication and human languages, but the latter’s unique features were able to help humans achieve higher goals than other animals. It was around this time, when the Société de Linguistique de Paris banned the publication of works dealing with language evolution in the second article of its charter: La Société n’admet aucune communication concernant, soit l’origine du langage, soit la création d’une langue universelle. (The Society does not accept any contribution concerning either the origin of language or the creation of a universal language.) The London Philological Society is also said to have followed suit (Kendon, 2002: 42). These incidents are generously mentioned in recent books and articles dealing with the subject, since they heralded an era where language evolution studies hit a never-before witnessed low. So great was the impact of this decision that it took almost an entire century to give the field back its due credibility. The field then saw a re-emergence in the twentieth century with Hockett’s (1960) study defining the design features of human language vis-à-vis animal modes of communication, Liberman and Crelin’s (1971) first use of a computer model to examine the evolution of the vocal tract, and that by Pinker and Bloom (1990) trying to reconcile the results of Universal Grammar with the question of language evolution. Where does the field stand now? What are the main achievements since its reemergence? Does the problem of language remain a hard problem, or do we now have enough evidence from multiple fields to generate better and solid theories of how language came about in humans? These and some other questions will be addressed in detail in this chapter.

2 Language—The Object and Its Nature The nature of language—the primary subject matter itself—is central to the question of language evolution. Unless we understand the object ‘language,’ we cannot fruitfully answer the question of its evolution. Perhaps as expected, due to its extremely complex nature, language finds no such fixed definition. The existence of multiple

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perspectives in the discipline for its primary subject matter makes the investigation for language evolution very difficult and challenging, and yet at the same time, equally interesting. Some of the prominent views on language are elaborated upon below. One position is located in Hockett’s (1960) ‘Design Features for Language.’ Hockett, whose work has been iterated over the years in multiple textbooks, provides a comparative and cumulative approach to language through an enumeration of sixteen design features. These features are as follows—duality, productivity, arbitrariness, interchangeability, specialization, displacement, cultural transmission, vocalauditory channel, broadcast transmission and directional reception, rapid fading, total feedback, semanticity, discreteness, prevarication, reflexiveness and learnability. Drawing upon a comparison between human language and other animal modes of communication, the design features highlight the continuity and similarities that human language has with other animal modes of communication, as well as the differences between the two. This comparison however commits itself to a positivist (or externalist or empiricist)1 understanding of language, where its physical properties are given more prominence over other properties, with a marked neglect shown for features relating to the cognitive and linguistic competence of human speakers. From Hockett’s perspective, language is what its expression is, and an evolutionary study of language would mean studying the evolution of these physical properties, and their similarities and differences with other animal modes of communication. The positivist outlook has many advocates in the field of linguistics. A famous quote due to the structuralist linguist Andre Martinet is: “nothing may be called ‘linguistic’ that is not manifest or manifested one way or another between the mouth of the speaker and the ears of the listener” (1960: 1). Positivism also defined American structuralist research of the 1920s and 1930s, especially the works of Leonard Bloomfield, who viewed linguistics as an objective discipline, where useful generalizations can only be inductively drawn from the external data (cf. Bloomfield, 1933). In present times, American structuralism continues to exist through Corpus and Computational Linguistics, where externalism and inductive methods are still very prevalent. In the field of Computational Linguistics, language is studied through automatic analysis of large swathes of data or corpora, with the objective to learn more about the structure of language and apply it to the non-human, inanimate world of computers (see Sampson, 2001, Chap. 1, for discussion). Departing from the externalist approach, is the functionalist or emergentist approach which takes language to be integrally related to the acts of communicating and interacting in different milieus. Support for this approach can also be found in the research of Edward Sapir, who puts it thus: “Language is primarily a cultural or social product and must be understood as such… (1929: 214). This approach also finds resonance in current sociolinguist work (Eckert, 1989; Labov, 1966), where language is studied in relation to social use and variables of region, age, gender etc. Usage-based models also include those proposed by Langacker (1987, 1988, 2000), Bybee (1985), Croft (2000), Tomasello (2003) among others. The core 1

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/.

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focus of these models is on the actual usage of language and the communicative events. Linguistic knowledge for a speaker—that constitutes a structured inventory of symbolic units such as words and utterances—results directly from her accumulated experience and her participation in past events. This experience is further entrenched by repeated usage of expressions across events, especially during the early years of language learning. A child’s linguistic competence is therefore a direct consequence of her conversational experience with other speakers of her community. There are no language or grammar-specific properties that define this competence. What are generally thought to be language-specific properties such as phrase structure rules or constraints on long-distance dependencies are all emergent properties of conversational processes that facilitate accurate information-tracking and perspective-switching (also see MacWhinney, 2005a, 2005b). A third prevalent view on language is the Humboldtian approach, which takes it as a generative system capable of churning out infinite strings from finite means. Viewed from this perspective, language is a cognitive ability in humans; a competence, that in due time and with suitable exposure to linguistic data, will allow them to identify all and only grammatical structures in their languages. Underlying this competence is a set of universal and innate rules and constraints that speakers are born with (aka Universal Grammar) and that ultimately help them converge onto different mental grammars of specific languages. This line of thought about language has been dominant since Chomsky’s seminal work in the 1950s (cf. Chomsky, 1957) placing human language competence in the Chomsky-Shützenberger hierarchy of classes of formal grammars and automata theory. At that time, it was a novel understanding of human language, in conformity with the Humboldtian vision, and paved the way for a paradigmatic shift in the study of languages. Since then, generative studies have yielded many interesting results for the nature of language and the architecture of the mind. This approach is also known as the essentialist approach to language. Within the field of generative grammar however, there are multiple perspectives on the concentration and distribution of generative power among different modules related to language. While Chomsky’s system argues for the computational system to be confined to syntax, other researchers such as Jackendoff (2002), and Cullicover and Jackendoff (2005) have disbursed the generative power over multiple modules or components including the phonological, syntactic and semantic components. Unlike the conventional Chomskyan system, where the syntactic computational system generates strings using primitive formatives and operations and ships off its outputs to the components dealing with sound and meaning, in the Jackendoffian system, each component has its own set of primitives and combinatorial rules to generate structures. Relations between the modules, in the latter approach, is mediated through interface components, and therefore a sentence is an n-tuple of structures from different components. To summarize, there are three ways to study language—(i) as a purely external, physical phenomenon, (ii) as an emergent phenomenon in usage-based events, and (iii) as an internal, cognitive ability of an individual. These views are important indicators of the directions that studies on language evolution may take. More details

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on evolutionary theories on language, as influenced by these varied understandings of language, are provided in the next section.

3 Evolutionary Accounts 3.1 The Gestural Origins In the history of evolutionary linguistics, multiple speculations have been made about the origins of language, which are heavily influenced by the researchers’ own understanding of human language, and possible inferences one could make from the available data. One prominent hypothesis is that the earliest form of human communication was in the form of visible gestures. Human speech subsequently developed from that original gestural communication system (Hewes, 1973, 1976, 1996). Two research trends primarily contributed to the founding of the gestural theory of human language evolution (see Armstrong 2008 for more details). The first trend began in the mid-1950s, with the research of William C. Stokoe at Gallaudet, heralding a change in perspective toward human sign languages while recognizing them as bona fide human languages. Similar support for sign languages was also made in the 1970s by researchers working at the Salk Institute (see Klima & Bellugi, 1979). These studies marked a departure from previous ones that assumed sign language as a very simple and primitive communication system, quite inferior to current day languages. When the status for sign language changed, researchers started considering the gestures found in humans and non-human animals very seriously while answering questions regarding the origins of human language. Stokoe himself was an ardent supporter of language evolution studies and made a strong pitch for the revival of the gestural origin theory for human languages. Around the same time, a burgeoning interest in animal (modern ape) behavior led many to take up comparative studies between ape and human behavior, with a view to better understand the special communicative trait in humans. This trend picked up especially during the Postwar period when primatologists (Goodall, 1965; Schaller, 1965 among many others) were collecting a considerable body of data about the anatomy and behavior of modern apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos), both living in the wild and in captivity. A strong consensus in the field about a common ancestor for humans and modern apes helped to further strengthen the comparative approach. Researchers argued that if modern apes could be shown to learn the same signs as humans, then the results could be taken to infer that the common ancestor of both apes and humans must have originally used signs and gestures. This possible linking encouraged a number of primate behavioral researchers to train apes learn sign languages. Allen Gardner and Beatrice Gardner were among the first to teach chimps (the famous chimp Washoe being one of them) in normal human-like conditions, and their results were widely publicized in the 1970s, with claims that these experiments have been highly successful in teaching these animals

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learn signs as efficiently as human kids. Apparently, Washoe and his conspecifics were not only learning individual signs, but also combining them to create short, meaningful phrases (see Gardner et al. (1989) for a summary). From the beginning however, there were many apprehensions regarding such studies. One was the unresolved issue of human intervention required to teach sign languages to apes. Unlike human children who involuntarily acquire languages when exposed to the right kind of data (within a certain biological timeframe), chimps could learn only with extensive training from their human researchers (also see Terrace et al. (1979) for a strong critique of a similar attempt called the NIM Project). Even more worrying was the issue of preadaptation, underlain by the idea that unused capacity becomes expressed under appropriate environmental conditions. Gestures, by this account, would have been there in prehominids as well but came to realization only in humans when the ideal environmental situations arose. Modern apes therefore can learn signs, but only when raised in human homes, directly under the care of human themselves. The assumption here is that the presence of a capacity in modern apes is a direct inference for the existence of the same capacity in their ancestral form that they shared with humans. The problem with this assumption is that evolution does not have a single pathway; there are multiple paths leading to multiple possibilities at any given point of time. Under such circumstances, it remains a premature conjecture that the gestural capacity, once it developed in prehominids, stayed on in its original form in the multiple descendants over such a huge time span. The other issue to consider is that the grammar and structure of sign language, which forms the basis on which gestural comparisons are being drawn, have been studied very closely in recent years. Their similarities and differences from human languages have also been recorded extensively. As Lillo-Martin and Meier (2011) among many others have shown us, while these systems bear resemblance to the oral languages especially in terms of their combinatorial powers, they also have some unique features that are possibly linked to the different modalities involved in their expression—more specifically the motor (face, hand) modalities as opposed to the sound modality used for oral communication. To assume therefore, that studying sign language will yield fruitful results for the evolution of oral languages is incorrect. The gestural theory has found a prominent position in more recent works as well, such as that of Michael Tomasello (see Tomasello (2003) for a detailed picture). His research too takes as its point of departure the idea that current day chimps possess most features that our common ancestors had, and a look at their kind of communication will enable us to understand the uniqueness of the human communicative system. Most particularly, Tomasello hypothesizes that the human communicative system has developed only after the development of prosocial motives and cognitive skills. In other words, motives and skills were evolutionary prerequisites for both cooperative activities and communication. Once motives and skills were in place, collaborative activities developed, and this forced the development of a cooperative communication. According to Tomasello, the original cooperative communication and the first initial attempt as conventionalization of signs must have been gestural, and not oral.

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One strong evidence for this claim lies from the differences one finds in the vocalizations and gestural communication used by modern apes. While their vocalizations remain genetically constrained and related to emotions, and here and now activities, the gestures that apes learn from the troop members, are varied, voluntary signs, deployed only in response to the intended recipient’s attentional states. The functions of these two systems are radically different. Tomasello argues that gestures allow for better referential communication as they enable the users to point to specific objects and direct attention of other members toward those points of reference. Keeping this feature in mind, gestures must have been a more suitable candidate as a communication system, since they enable users to collaborate with other members of the group. It is highly likely therefore that our ape-like ancestors would exploit a gestural system to bring in more cohesion and understanding among the members of the troop. Tomasello then directs our attention to chimp behavior in naturally competitive situations. It turns out that these animals are aware, to a certain degree, of the goals and perceptions of the other chimps, which are then used in deciding and shaping their activities and interactions. In contexts of food competition, for example, chimps adjust their behavior in response to the perception and therefore possible future behavior of a competing chimp. The system of gestures however is not enough to give apes the capacity of shared intentionality similar to that of humans. Shared intentionality arises when group members think and plan together; this ability cannot be achieved through a gestural communicative system, which in its initial stages, must have been very basic and iconic. The movement to vocal languages must have been a dire necessity at the point when social interactions became stronger, and collaborative activities required a communicative system that was not as iconic as gestural communication (also see Bates et al., 1979; Deacon, 1997; Corballis, 1999).

3.2 Language as Adaptation Tomasello’s theory of language evolution places language as part of more general cognitive abilities, such as general intelligence, symbolic capacity, mimesis, which are all entrenched in social interactions. More precisely, language is an ‘adaptation’ along with these general cognitive capacities. The word ‘adaptation’ signifies the process underlying the development of a trait or behavior in order to adjust to the surrounding environment. Language, as viewed from Tomasello’s perspective, is an adaptation to already evolved, advanced social relations and interactions among humans. A number of behavioral traits therefore must precede language’s development. Researchers have variously pointed out the difficulties involved in evaluating such conjectures on language evolution, or on evolution in general. The primary difficulty, as Pinker (2003) puts it, is in framing a mechanistic theory or model of ‘general intelligence’ or ‘cultural learning.’ Abilities pertaining to intelligence, learning, symbol

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comprehension and so on are each very unique in nature, and characterized by separate mechanisms and computations. Research on general purpose learning models such as connectionist neural networks have not been very effective in replicating language capacities (see Pinker, 1979; Pinker, 1999/2011; Prince & Pinker, 1988), without increasing the working load of the system itself. Pinker on the other hand, believes that like other complex organs which evolve to address specific functions, language too evolved in response to its functionality. The end product of language is what it is used for. Its function cannot be sidestepped when examining possible hypothesis for its evolution. However, the word ‘function’ has a different connotation in his work. It does not imply the actual use of language as seen through oral (or signed) performance or as embedded in societal interactions. Rather, it is a question about its ‘engineering design’—the purpose it meets in the mental space, while working in consort with other systems. In his words, ‘What is the machinery of language trying to accomplish? The system appears to have been put together to encode propositional information—who did what to whom, what is true of what, when, where and why—into a signal that can be conveyed from one person to another’ (Pinker, 2011: 27). Humans achieved the ‘informavore’ niche (as coined by George Miller, 1983) or the ‘cognitive niche’ (Tooby & Devore, 1987) once they were able to put together individual concepts into larger strings or propositions. This ability gives a distinct advantage to humans by allowing them to share their knowledge with other members. Knowledge dissemination is a low-cost operation that enables cooperative thinking but is equally beneficial for the individuals as each may learn from the other’s experience (say, of catching a rabbit or fish) without undertaking the task themselves. Pinker therefore is of the opinion that language co-evolved with sociality and knowledge. An evolutionary order cannot be established among these abilities, since each affects the other in equal measure. Without sociality and cultural transmission, language would not fulfill its function of connecting propositions that denote complex thoughts and ideas. Knowledge likewise is enriched by increased sociality and with the development of a communicative system with compositional powers. Tied together with this hypothesis that these three abilities evolved coevally, is his other hypothesis that language is a product of natural selection. Function being integral to the ‘engineering design’ of language, it is natural that the form and structure of current day language must have been shaped by how well it was able to string words together to form propositions. What is the theory of natural selection? The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin’s book ‘On the Origin of Species’ in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time, in an attempt to adapt better to the changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. These changes increase the chances of the organism’s survival and its fecundity—the better placed it is in the environment vis-à-vis other organisms, it produces more offspring that carry forward its lineage. The theory of natural selection therefore is underlain by two primary ideas—‘descent by modification’ and ‘survival of the fittest.’ Language, like many other adaptive traits, must have evolved to help humans adapt better to their environments. Once language developed in a certain group of

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individuals, selective advantage set in, and helped that specific group to prosper more vis-à-vis other groups. Their progeny also prospered, and that’s how, language helped in the survival of the fittest of humans.

3.3 Language as Exaptation In contrast to the understanding that language evolved by adaptation, there are many who believe that it developed when an already existing trait (either functionally defunct or directed to some other use or function) got exapted for a completely different ability such as language. In genetic terms, this would be possible via a macromutation. Exaptation, as a theory of evolution, was proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Elizabeth Vrba in 1982, to describe traits that are co-opted for a use that is different from the one for which it was originally developed through a process of natural selection. A famous example is that of wings, which are now used for bird flight but were originally designed as natural thermostats (possibly in dinosaurs). In a similar vein, language origin, from the exaptation perspective, cannot be sought in its current day use or functionality, whether that is for composing meanings or using it to increase our sociality and greater community-level collaboration. The proposal that language is a trait exapted from a previously existing one, is based on the generative account, which proposes that language is essentially a computational system, creating infinite strings out of finite elements. This machine, which is human-specific and found among all typical people of all communities and tongues, is the reason why language users are creative in language production. In technical parlance, the machine is termed as I-language or Internal language and is a defining character of human language (oral, and to a large extent, sign language). This machine is different from those underlying other modes of communication adopted by other non-human animals, including modern apes. There is of course, another aspect to language—the E-language—which is the actual expression of the abstract, mental linguistic representations. It is a compendium of the communicative acts that a human speaker performs. However, E-language is too broad a domain to study language objectively and scientifically. In direct contrast, I-language evidence is easy to come by in the form of linguistic data and the grammatical constraints they are seen to obey. Scientists working within the Humboldtian approach to language assume that the best bet in finding out its origins is in explaining how I-language came about. Most particularly, how did the property of recursion that hides within itself the possibility of creating infinite strings from finite means, emerge in language? The question becomes more puzzling since communication and information sharing can happen without recursion as well. The latter’s emergence must have been caused by some event not related to survival needs. In a now famous article called ‘The Faculty of Language: What is it, Who has it, and How did it evolve?,’ written by Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch in 2002, two different faculties for language are identified. The first is the Faculty of Language in the Broad sense (FLB) which includes a computational system (more on that later), as well as

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two other absolutely essential, organism-internal systems, namely the sensory-motor and the conceptual-intentional systems. These two systems are crucial in linking the abstract linguistic strings to systems that are designed for thought, and for oral articulation. A lot of speculation has been made regarding the exact nature of these systems, especially on the question of whether they are unique to humans or shared with other animals. If one sidesteps these variant views on the interfacing modules, what one finds is a strong consensus among the group of researchers espousing the exaptation view that linguistic ability is a biological capacity bestowed to humans. FLB is that capacity. The Faculty of Language in the Narrow sense, on the other hand, is the computational system alone. This generative machine is part of FLB, and its operations are a subset of the ones in FLB. The computational system, however, can be studied alone, delinked from other organism-internal systems of thought and speech. What is that computational capacity of FLN? It is recursion, a feature that seems to uniquely define language and set it at a completely different dimension from animal modes of communication. This ability, being so specific to human language, should be examined in more detail, if our understanding of the origins of human language has to improve (also see Di Sciullo and Boeckx (2011)). This particular group of researchers hypothesize that while most of FLB may be a shared trait with some non-human animals, FLN is unique to humans, and is a more recent ability. The computational system of recursion imposes hierarchical structures to language, while much of the complexity manifesting in language derives in the peripheral components of FLB, especially those underlying the sensory-motor (speech or sign) and conceptual-intentional interfaces, combined with sociocultural and communicative contingencies’ (pp: 1573). Furthermore, the FLN is taken to be a “spandrel” or an epiphenomenon of preexisting constraints, one of them being conditions of computational efficiency. FLN is a minimal design constituting only a recursive operation that has probably been exapted from other domains such as number, and navigation. This minimally construed computational system serves as an optimal system generating legible strings that can be read off by the systems dealing with thought and speech. The exaptation view to language evolution has invited many criticisms, the most notable of them being a series of papers by Jackendoff and Pinker (2005). These researchers present multiple arguments against the idea that recursion is the sole trait that defines human language, and that it is not found anywhere else in the mental space, but in the domain of language. As per the Parallel Architecture for language that Jackendoff (2002) proposes (see Sect. 2 again for the details), the combinatorial prowess of human language is distributed across multiple modules—syntactic, morphological, phonological, etc.—that generate their own strings and then share them via interfacing modules. If that is true, then the answers for language evolution cannot be sought in the search for FLN in the syntactic component alone. The second part of the counterargument is that recursion is not restricted to human language; it is also found in other domains such as visual cognition. Therefore, recursion and by extension, FLN, are not defining traits of language. If language origins must find answers, then it is best not to restrict oneself to questions about recursion. An

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adequate evolutionary story for language lies in figuring out how multiple abilities associated with language came about, while also interfacing with and influencing each other. The social and cultural factors that facilitated their expression also need to be addressed.

4 The Evidence or the Lack of It? It is evident from the above discussion that just as there is no consensus view on the true nature of language, there is also no concurrence among researchers about language origins. While evolutionary theories in general are discomfortingly many, with little or no consensus on the interpretation of fossil records, cultural artifacts, etc., language evolution presents a particularly hard challenge to meet because of the absence of direct evidence in the form of fossils and genetic materials for language. This rather pessimistic state of affairs aside, we must acknowledge that the field has been enriched in recent years by results coming from multiple disciplines dealing with human evolution, most specifically paleontology, anthropology and genetics, not to mention linguistics itself which has given us some very valuable perceptions into language. In this section, I discuss some evidence that linguists, and all researchers working on language evolution use to make generalizations about the origins of human language.2

4.1 Paleontological and Genetic Evidence One consensus on which to build theories of language evolution, is that extant Homo Sapiens and modern apes shared a common ancestor. That common progenitor is assumed to have belonged to an ape-like species found during the Middle Miocene Epoch (roughly 16–11.6 mya) or the Late Miocene Epoch (11.6–5.3 mya). The range of possible ape ancestors however being long (which includes Kenyapithecus, Griphopithecus, Dryopithecus, Graecopithecus, Samburupithecus, Sahelanthropus, and Orrorin, all existing roughly around mid-Miocene Epoch), it is difficult to make any direct connection to any one of these ancestral beings. However, it is believed that in the latter part of that epoch, climatic changes and consequently, an increased diversity of fauna triggered a number of radical adaptations in the ancient apes, leaving an indelible mark on their phenotypic traits. Bipedalism associated with locomotion was one of such very prominent features, and would eventually lead

2

A full enumeration of all available materials for evolutionary studies is beyond the scope of this paper. I advise the reader to refer to works listed in the reference.

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to the evolution of Hominins, the first in the genealogical line leading to modern humans.3 Multiple Hominins have walked the surface of the earth, before Homo Sapiens (from whom modern humans draw direct lineage) appeared. These include Australopithecus, K. platyops, Paranthropus, and it is unclear if they were in any way, directly related to the Homo Sapiens who were to emerge later. Homo rudolfensis has been linked to the later species of Homo Sapiens sometimes, based on absolute brain and body sizes, and lower limb morphology. There is also some research that proposes a closer relationship of Homo Sapiens with H. ergaster. However, each connection presents more challenges than answers. One particularly telling problem is that any such purported relation invariably falls short of explaining the vast morphological variability found in today’s human population. In short, paleontologists differ even among themselves on the question of the immediate ancestor of Homo Sapiens, which makes it even more difficult to deduce theories of language evolution in Homo Sapiens from the fossil records of extinct hominins. However, fossil records of Neanderthals have been used extensively to answer language evolution questions. It is generally accepted in the field that Neanderthals, whose fossil remains have been found in parts of Western Europe, were not ancestral to modern Humans. They must have traversed a different branch of the evolutionary tree, either before, after, or coevally, with the Homo Sapiens. It is also come to light recently that Homo Sapiens, who were present on the earth as early 200,000 or 300,000 years ago, may have, for a short period, co-existed with the former.4 The temporal proximity with Neanderthals makes for an interesting comparative case study to examine the origins of human language. Paleontological evidence from Neanderthals is useful to explain whether language was unique to Homo Sapiens, or whether it predates the origin of the genus that now claims to be its sole proprietor. Two particular anatomical structures—the bony roof of the upper vocal tract and the preserved anatomy of the hard portion of the hyoid bone—have been particularly useful for comparison. Based on their apparent similarities with those found among Homo Sapiens, some researchers have claimed that Neanderthals possessed the ability of speech. This ability is also tied to their aural capacity to process sound frequencies generally associated with human speech (cf. Martinez et al., 2004, Dediu & Levinson, 2013 among others). Hauser et al. (2014) observe two problems with these inferences. The first problem is that acoustic perception cannot be taken as a strong diagnostic for speech. Research over the last many years has shown us that humans and apes have similar acoustic perception but have different speech production capacities, owing partly to the differences in their oral track apparatuses. This is a clear indication that the evolution of sound perception and speech production did not happen concurrently. The second problem is that these studies make an oversight when considering the organs needed for speech. As Lieberman (2011) points out, speech production is possible with 3

https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/Background-and-beginnings-in-the-Mio cene. 4 https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/The-emergence-of-Homo-sapiens.

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approximately equal proportions of the horizontal and vertical sectors of the vocal tract. However, only Human have this property, due to the autopomorphic retraction of its face below the neurocranium. Neanderthals lacked this essential apparatus for speech. Genetic materials have also been used in comparing Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. The central focus is on the common FOXP2 gene that both genera share. FOXP2, an autosomal dominant transcription factor, has been linked to the verbal dyspraxia SPCH1. The evidence that this gene is linked to language and speech is drawn from a family, where almost half the members are inflicted with this language disorder. This had led to a widespread belief in the field that the gene directs language abilities in humans. Some researchers however vociferously deny this strong association, stating that the gene is only a necessary, but not sufficient condition for human speech. The human variant of this gene, as Enard et al (2002) show us, differs from that of chimps and gorillas in just two amino acid coding positions. Comparison with Neanderthals shows that they do not differ at all. However, chimps have not been able to show any linguistic abilities at the same level as humans. Similarly, if the common FOXP2 gene was enough to generate speech in Neanderthals, they should have also displayed concurrent anatomical features, consistent with humans. Both kinds of data are so far missing, and so the genetic similarities do not add any substance to the claim that Neanderthals (or for that matter, ancient apes) had language of the same type as today’s humans.5

4.2 Archeological Evidence A commonplace perception is that language and cognitive abilities are intregally linked to each other. In ancient humans, the development of language is said to have aligned with the moment they achieved a “cognitive niche,” giving them the capacity of abstract thinking, and the subsequent ability for technological advancements. In the early epochs when this cognitive niche came about, deliberate stone-making would also be considered as a great feat. Stone-making required careful and complex thought, which piggy-backs on the compositional nature of language itself. While one cannot deny that language profoundly impacts our cognitive skills (see Shusterman et al., 2011), no strong claim of an inherent connection can be made just based on available archeological data. As d’Errico et al. (2003) point out: ‘Since language and cognition do not fossilize, theorists are forced to rely on evidence from archaeology and paleoanthropology to corroborate their models. This approach becomes flawed because, unable to test their evolutionary models adequately through a direct analysis of the archaeological evidence, many of these theorists accept dominant archaeological paradigms as established facts, without first sufficiently researching the pertinent debates surrounding the interpretation of primary archaeological and anthropological data’ (pp: 2). 5

For modelling studies on language evolution, see Nowak et al (2002).

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Ruhlen’s (1994, 1996) work is important to mention in this regard, as it pushes a hypothesis on the evolution of human language, based on the same incorrect assumptions and methodologies that d’Errico et al., worry about. Using a compendium of archeological, paleoanthropological and genetic evidence, Ruhlen claims a single proto language for all currently used human languages. This process, according to him, starts approximately around 40,000–50,000 years ago, and has the following three supporting pieces of information. The first is that this date coincides with the date marking the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era in Europe—an era which saw a significant increase in symbolic activities. The second event that goes with this date is the arrival of modern humans in the region. The third event marks a dramatic and qualitative leap in human activities demanding higher cognitive skills all over the world (cf. Klein, 1999). To Ruhlen’s strong claims about the connection between the emergence of human language (in Homo Sapiens), and an exponential increase in cultural and symbolic representations, d’Errico et al., present a number of counterevidence that suggest Neanderthals in possession of some of these symbolic and ideational capacities as well. As has been claimed by Bar-Yosef (1998), Mellars (1998) among others, symbolic revolution started in Europe with the arrival of modern humans around 37,000 years ago. However, there is also evidence that the late Neanderthals produced a wide collection of personal ornaments and some other such artifacts. The form and function of ornaments indicate the presence of symbolic representations in the members of this genus that are generally known not to have possessed language. Corroborating the claim that Neanderthals had symbolic representations, the level and extent notwithstanding, a number of many such tools and objects dating back to the Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites have been found from the Near East, Europe and in Middle Stone Age sites from Africa. An earlier dating for the Neanderthal burials has also been proposed, which further supports that symbolism may have existed earlier than the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe. These overlaps indicate that language evolution may not have been linked to the development of symbolic activities. Granting that Neanderthals did not possess language, as also evidenced from the anatomical differences they had from the modern humans, it seems that human language as a combinatorial system may indeed a by-product of some other event, a macromutation or genetic exaptation, rather than as a product adapted for communication and survival fitness.

4.3 Comparative Animal Behavior Studies The last kind of information very critical for studies on language evolution comes from behavioral patterns of animals, especially birds and apes. People are generally enthralled by the ‘linguistic capacities’ or ‘human-like linguistic behavior’ of birds such as parrots, but these too are restricted to mere mimicking of human sounds, rather than a creative process of language production. Dogs too are often thought to display speech perception and comprehension, but these observations fail to take

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into account the multiple other modalities (hand and facial gestures, body language etc.) which often accompany language production and serve more as iconic cues for communication between humans and domesticated animals. In short, commonplace assumptions about animals and birds displaying the same level of linguistic competence are not sound enough to be given enough scientific credence. Having said that, there have been some very useful studies on bird songs. Birdsongs display interesting properties that lead some researchers to claim analogies with human languages. The songs are mostly species-typical songs; a lark’s song cannot be learnt by a starling, and vice versa. This suggests that each type of songbird has an innately specified song template for itself, which is different from the template of another songbird. This template must be put to use in a given timeframe, failing which the bird will be song-deprived for the rest of its life. A bird must receive a particular acoustic input and auditory feedback during a sensitive period of development, which is around 80 days after hatching. During the learning phase, songbird babies progress through different stages. They begin with a babbling phase, and then enter a phase where they learn to string together syllable-like structures, before mastering the birdsong and using it to full articulation (Doupe & Kuhl, 1999; Petkov & Jarvis, 2012). On comparison, it is found that birdsongs and human languages share many of these properties. Human languages, despite non-trivial morphological differences, have many common traits, which some researchers take to indicate the presence of universal principles dictating language in general. There is a critical period to acquire human languages too, the upper end of which coincides roughly with the age of gaining puberty. Language development also happens in stages, starting with cooing, and proceeding to babbling, one word stage, etc. before finally culminating into a full-fledged adult form. Striking as these similarities may seem, Hauser et al. (2014) however raise two objections on the suggestion that birdsongs and human languages are analogous systems. The first is that unlike human languages, birdsongs are highly specialized and finite systems, with the acoustic signal remaining unchanged once acquired. There is no creativity involved in the production of birdsongs since they are the exact replica of the species’ songs. The function also is restricted, with one-to-one mappings drawn between a specific song and its semantics. Finally, the birdsong system is computationally restricted. Even in the stringing of syllables to create larger structures, only limited computations are used, and they do not enable the creation of new meanings. In summary, while birdsongs present interesting cases of communication, comparisons drawn between them and human languages have not brought in successful results. The two systems have some core differences which cannot be overlooked. An evolutionary story for human language cannot be based on the incorrect assumption that humans share their communication system with the birds. Similarly, studies on chimp communication have been fruitful in understanding whether human linguistic capabilities are found—though currently in a dormant form—in their close relatives, the apes. In the past too, multiple efforts were made to teach human sign language to chimps and gorillas, but the results were not strong enough to suggest that both shared the same abilities. More recently, Fitch and

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Hauser (2004) tested if the three levels in the Chomsky- Shützenberger hierarchy could be evidenced in Cotton-top Tamarin monkeys. More specifically, they set out to ask if these animals were able to process patterned sequences that map to different generative levels of the language. Their experiments showed that the monkeys spontaneously discriminated the simplest of structures at the lowest level and failed to move to higher levels with more complex structures. In response, there have been other studies by Gentner et al. (2006), van Heijningen et al. (2009), Abe and Watanabe (2011), Rey et al. (2012) that focused on the monkey’s abilities to discriminate complex embedded structures. Interestingly, these experiments build on extensive training periods with innumerable rounds of reinforced trials. The animals had to be sensitized to language-like structures. The comparison with human language is therefore misleading, since the basic premises are not the same. To summarize, there are three kinds of data that researchers working on language evolution generally work with—paleontological and genetic data, archeological data and comparative data on animal communication. All three kinds have increased substantially in recent years with more and more research being undertaken in these disciplines. Language evolution researchers have enthusiastically turned to these results and proposed hypothesis as best suits their theory of language and their interpretation of the data.

5 Conclusion Evolution is a hard question, not just because every detail is not fossilized and archived for the consideration of future generations of researchers. There is also the additional problem of multiple interpretations of the same empirical facts, as a result of which, there are multiple theories of evolution. Questions of human language evolution similarly, do not have easy answers. For all researchers working with questions of language evolution, there are existing theoretical assumptions about language that ultimately shape these questions. The starting point is the understanding of language itself—as a computational system or as a constituent of a larger cognitive space or as an emergent phenomenon to meet the needs of social beings. Evolutionary accounts of language, even when they hinge on the same empirical facts, will be as varied as these different views on language themselves. This is perhaps unavoidable in scientific enterprises, and so, the lack of definite answers should not be viewed as a setback for evolutionary studies of language. Another ban of the kind imposed by Société de Linguistique de Paris will be highly detrimental for our scientific understanding of not just language, but all other complex biological behavior.

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A Grammar of Endangerment Udaya Narayana Singh

Abstract In modern times, it is perhaps inevitable that smaller or numerically weaker and indigenous languages will face the problems of debasement, obliterations and endangerment. It is discussed here if modernity demanded universalisation and fusion of cultural canons. But since no two languages reflected the same social reality, any theory built upon universalisation of canons could only be viewed sceptically as a new way of establishing hegemony. Even though diversity poses a challenge for governance and political managers, there is no reason to think that modernisation of languages or language development must be viewed as a ‘homogenising’ process. On the contrary, the inherent linguistic and cultural diversity in human societies may rather encourage blooming of a large basket of varying styles and speech varieties.

1 Preliminary Remarks: Where Lies the Danger? In old English, there used to be an expression—pliht which meant “risk” or “danger”—perhaps related to the modern-day ‘plight’ which had an 8th to sixteenth century associated expression in old Frisian: pl¯e ~ pl¯ı in the sense of “danger.”1 In the mid-13th Century, says the Online Etymological Dictionary, its precursor—an Anglo-French expression—daunger was primarily used for “arrogance” or “insolence” of the powerful had the mastery of causing harm by using one’s authority. The prefixal en- + danger is a much later creation, dated around the fifteenth century. The Meriam-Webster Dictionary says: ‘Endanger’ is to be defined as “to bring into danger or peril.”2 A related word, dungeon, which derives from old French donjon standing for “great tower of a castle” (dated twelfth century)—arising out of GalloRoman *dominionem (from Late Latin dominium) showing solitary confinement of 1 2

Online Etymological Dictionary at https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=danger. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/endanger.

U. N. Singh (B) Amity University, Gurugram, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_14

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a punished in the underground caller—perhaps makes sense of danger much clearer. There seems to be an undesirable state or a state of being punished, and there is isolation or desocialization—eventually. An interesting fall-out of being in the dungeon is that one begins to look at the world differently. As Huntington (1996) would remind us in his’ Clash of civilization’ thesis, the tiny minorities lying at the bottom of the pyramid where they see their region turning into perpetual poorhouses, shrinking in economic terms, but large in terms of size and discontent, and of course, rich in people. This coexistence of many discontented people on the margins of a majority community makes their existence a dangerous proposition. One could take a deep breath and utter a few words of consolation for those in the dungeon so far. But what we notice is that “the predicted and promised development did not happen in many underdeveloped countries, resulting in trouble and turmoil” in the post-cold war period. Later, “the trouble began to be exported to the western world, making the lives and living of the people in the developed country difficult and unsafe” (Singh & Singh, 2017: 410). That adds a new dimension to the sense of danger. Being cut off from the rest of the world in another sense is indicated in the etymological exploration. Here, the ‘criticality’ of endangerment is that the species or objects (including languages and cultures) are at very high risk of facing extinction—just as the Penn State University researchers say that “as of 2014, 2464 animal species were critically endangered, and 2104 plant species were critically endangered.”3 Thus, ‘extinction’ or no longer being in active use is the ultimate threat that endangerment pushes one too.

2 Endangerment and Linguistic Identities When a language or a culture is in the ‘endangered’ category, one could assume that its use has shrunk in terms of all four parameters: space (i.e., ‘spatially delimited’), time (i.e. used infrequently—mostly replaced with other forms of expression), value (i.e. social price or utility) and vitality (or limited lifespan). The area of occupancy or habitat fragmentation can both contribute to this state. It is often the case that its speakers do not occupy a contiguous space but live in a scattered manner over a few districts or states with no direct everyday connection. Their number of matured individual speakers dwindle, and the occasions to use the mother tongue become more and more limited in a multilingual context. The annual and decadal decline in its population could mean the death of disappearance, or it could also mean a shift of identity tag by the new generation of people. The financial gain or loss in retaining the mother tongue and remaining loyal speakers also drives its speakers toward a change in their identity. Such shifts in identity tags happen very frequently in the South Asian context (cf. Sumit Guha, 2003). It would be wrong to assume that such drastic changes occur mainly or only 3

https://sites.psu.edu/chatangki/2017/02/10/what-exactly-does-it-mean-to-be-critically-endang ered/

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in Asian countries. A recent report from the FactTank News in Numbers4 claimed that based on decadal variations in the US Census, such identity shifts happened there. In fact, “millions of Americans counted in the 2000 census changed their race or Hispanic-origin categories when they filled out their 2010 census forms…Hispanics, Americans of mixed race, American Indians and Pacific Islanders were among those most likely to check different boxes from one census to the next” (Cohn, D-Vera 2014, PEW Research Centre). If one now looks at the demands for autonomy and power at the level of nations, we notice that after the World War II, there had been many such demands, as a result of which 50 new pluricultural nation-states sprang up. That was when the issue of majority–minority relationship became more and more complicated. But there is no doubt that WW II crushed the biggest threat to pluralism. As for India, she began her journey in 1947, when there existed a few policy options. One option was to leave all speech groups to fight it out on the street or stage and in the market, rather than creating an integrated system as India had done with her political instrument. If that was done, the ones with greater vitality and sustenance power (read, also with greater numbers on their side) would have emerged as victorious. The other viewpoint was focused as Chatterji (1951) described the Indian situation as ‘the harmony of contrasts’ where systemic unities bind people from diverse cultural groups together in functional bond. Being a more eclectic and more practical strategy, this has seen India through for a long time. In this context, one could recall the statement of Pt Jawaharlal Nehru who spoke in Shillong on 19 October 19, and I quote: “Behind India’s unity, there is an enormous and magnificent variety. If you had traveled with me, you would have gone, say to Kashmir, right on the northern tip of India and would have crossed the high Himalayas, the glaciers, and the snows. Now, all that is India.” It is obvious that Nehru had been watching the whole linguistic scenario from a perspective that allowed him to make decisions not easily appreciable from other positions. In another context, he claimed: “I am, perhaps, in a better position than you, to understand and appreciate all-India problems, because that is my job, that is my function…. And I see India from a thousand viewpoints. I see this enormous variety of our people, and their different problems, and then try to piece them together to think about them as the problems of India as a whole. It is a fascinating prospect and because of its, if I may say so, intricacy and complexity, poses a challenge to all of us.” In India, where the sense of nationalism in the pre-colonial period grew out of the spirit of freedom and liberty for one’s kingdom, or principality or empire—the identity formation during the British rule was guided by (i) British Colonial Census operations between 1868 and 1872, and again in 1881—after which it was a decadal operation until now), (ii) drawing and re-drawing of maps and boundaries and (iii) institutions that protected, preserved, displayed and researched on heritage. In fact, in this context, Benedict Anderson’s (1983) term ‘Imagined Communities’ fitted very well in our case, as the politically definable concept of ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’ began 4

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emerging as a cultural idea only after the freedom movement gained grounds in the Indian sub-continent. As it happened in many comparable places, many people made contributions to the creation and propagation of this idea, including artists, authors, thinkers, politicians, and the group that could be described as ‘Cultural brokers’ (Jezewski, 1990). The concept of ‘cultural broker’ is either loosely defined or left undefined, but in a multilingual and pluricultural context, their role becomes crucial for facilitating intercultural exchanges. They are supposed to bridge, link or mediate “between groups or persons of differing cultural backgrounds to reduce conflict or produce change” (Jezewski & Sotnik, 2001).5 Helping communities to maintain or obliterate their own identities and, at the same time, be in touch with other groups is made possible by them. Such persons could themselves be from the indigenous speech communities as they have a clearer understanding of both speech groups’ worldviews and belief systems. Many others, such as ‘cultural mentors,’ community elders, social service personnel, or researchers, could also leave a profound impact on their decision-making. Let us turn to the pre-colonial era, especially about a kind of stock-checking that was a common practice for various communities and their identity question by the rulers of pre-British times. In this context, Sumit Guha (2003: 149–50) mentions that the identity grid imposed by the Census after the 1850s used the earlier labels created by the managers of various kingdoms for the preparation of tax rolls and levy lists. The attempt to quantify cutting across all regions was a new move by the British government, but the labels were taken from the earlier attempts to keep track of identities. His argument, quoting Anderson (1983) was that if the members of a group were expected to “renew” their identities of one kind (such as renewing religious affiliations—through “daily ritual, styles of rules of marriage, periodic gatherings at festivals and obligations of pilgrim”), how was it that other kinds of identities were assumed to be fixed and not necessary to be renewed.

3 Endangerment and Language Surveys It may be recalled that the original Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) conducted by the British government under the direction of Sir George Abraham Grierson (1903–23) between 1898 and 1928 had covered “the whole of India except Burma, Madras Presidency and Hyderabad,” where under the first division, the local authorities sent the list of labels, showing the languages and dialects spoken in each area, and under the second division, collection of specimens of each of these types were prepared by the local officers. Grierson had edited the specimens, publish selections from them and prepared a narrative identifying languages and dialects in terms of six broad language families, including the Indo-European (the Indo-Aryan and Iranian), 5

Jezewski, Mary Ann and Paula Sotnik (2001) in http://cirrie-sphhp.webapps.buffalo.edu/culture/ monographs/cb.php; Also, Jezewski, M.A. (1990).

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Dravidian, Austric (Austro-Asiatic), Tibeto-Chinese families and the unclassified languages, etc. Since the geo-political boundaries of the South Asian region underwent many changes with new nation states emerging (Burma, Pakistan or Bangladesh being examples), and since Hyderabad and Madras presidencies included most of the southern states as on this day, it was thought necessary to revisit the ground through fresh surveys. Also, Grierson’s survey had attracted criticisms from professional circles of linguistics because of its overly simplified questionnaire and its dependence on untrained local officials. The new series of LSI activity was conceived of in the 80 s by the ORGI, and it covered Orissa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Sikkim, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh. The major languages and mother tongues of these states and union territories were covered in this fresh LSI, and some state-specific reports were also published or drafted. Yet, the biggest challenge was to take up a project to survey the unclassified mother tongue returns found in the Census to decide if these mother tongues were local names or dialect labels of already rationalized and classified mother tongues or these need to be accepted as independent language labels. In the recent times, a total of 541 out of 1957 unclassified mother tongues were taken up to start with, and reports were written for about 230 of them under a project titled MTSI, or Mother Tongue Survey of India. The remaining 1416 mother tongue identity labels were left out for the present because of their meager speaker strength. Although it appeared alright in terms of a working strategy, it must be mentioned that potentially these 1416 could qualify as mother tongues or languages that were endangered should they turn out to be important additions to our languages list. Although the new series of LSI (Grierson, 1903–23)activities had been going on since the 8th plan period, the MTSI or Mother Tongue Survey of India activity was a new idea that began being operationalized by August 2010 when its first Technical Advisory Meeting was held to consider the methodological issues related to the Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) and the Mother Tongue Survey of India (MTSI) being conducted by the Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI) in New Delhi, through its ‘Languages Division’ establishment at Kolkata. By May 2013, the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, under the MHRD was asked to initiate a project titled Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India (SPPEL). Under the SPPEL, CIIL’s plan was to document nearly 500 potentially endangered languages in the country, each spoken by less than 10,000 people, with an objective to bring out dictionaries and also document and preserve the ethnic knowledge system enshrined in these languages, including their folklore. For this, it planned to start with a 2500–3000 word list and a list of basic sentences and intended to frame grammar rules, make efforts in revitalization of these languages. Initially, the Ethnologue (Gordon, 2005) of the SIL International6 —had contributed significantly by proposing a 10-point scale of Vulnerability. The Scale 6

SIL is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages; See: http://www.sil.org/

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was known as Expanded GIDS Scale, where the acronym stood for ‘Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale’ (Lewis & Simons, 2010). Originally, Fishman (1991) had postulated an Eight-Point Stage for assessment of language loss or disruption: Step 1: The language is used in education, work, mass media, government at the nationwide level Step 2: The language is used for local and regional mass media and governmental services Step 3: The language is used for local and regional work by both insiders and outsiders Step 4: Literacy in the language is transmitted through education Step 5: The language is used orally by all generations and is effectively used in written form throughout the community Step 6: The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language Step 7: The child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it with their elders but is not transmitting it to their children Step 8: The only remaining speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation Fishman had argued that in order for an endangered language to bounce back like other vital languages, one needs to move bottom-up, i.e. transit from Stage 8 to Stage 1. It is also possible that some languages fall from the first stage to others down below in course of time. Obiero (2010) had offered a different comprehensive explanation to reverse language shift. For the last stage, we may prescribe the language apprentice model where fluent elderly speakers are teamed with young adults. Going backward, the seventh stage would see establishment of language nests, where the adults with fluency in mother tongue could teach their mother tongue at pre-school level, or hold an immersion program. At the sixth stage, we could identify the domains in which their mother tongue is protected as well as used. At stage 5, the promotion of literacy in the schools and other community institutions would improve the prestige and use of the language. At a still higher stage 4, one could think of improved instructional methods if the language is already in school along with a regional or national language. At stage 3, a campaign to promote the language throughout the community should do the trick. Obiero (2010: 204) says that at “Stage 2 takes the form of promoting the use of a written form of the language for government and business dealings/records,… in newsletters, newspapers, radio stations, televisions and so on. Finally, Stage 1, at which the tribal language is used to teach the subject matter at college level, in publications and in dramatic presentations. At this stage, national awards can be organized in recognition of indigenous language publications and other notable efforts to popularize the language.” Earlier, Landweer (1998) offered another eight-point scale, the measurement of which has certain problems, and unlike Fishman, the factors used by her seem more static than dynamic. Her concerns for endangered languages were as follows: 1. The extent to which such languages can resist influence by a dominant urban culture;

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The number of domains in which the endangered languages is used; The frequency and type of code switching in this community; The distribution of speakers across social networks; The internal and external recognition of the group as a unique community; Its relative prestige, compared with surrounding languages; Its access to a stable economic base; and The existence of a critical mass of fluent speakers.

Lewis and Simons (2009) had shown how five key questions could help evaluate and diagnose the situation vis-à-vis endangerment. First, what is the current identity function of the language? To that, the four possible answers are historical, heritage, home and vehicular functions. Secondly, what is the level of official use? Again four possible answers which corresponding to EGIDS levels 0–3. Thirdly, are all parents transmitting the language to their children—which is basically a yes–no question. If the answer is in the positive, then the fourth question follows: What is the Literacy status? Check if the community is at EGIDS levels 4, 5 or 6a. If the answer to question 3 is negative, the key question will be the fifth one; namely What is the youngest generation of proficient speakers? This will tell us if the community is at EGIDS Level 6b, 7, 8a or 8b.

4 Endangerment, Othering and Assumptions The general agreement in the Indian initiatives, including in the other kinds of surveys such as Ganesh Devy’s (2013) People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) or UGC’s CFEL7 Project, was that the paradoxical issues in the society which neglected the indigenous communities by “otherization” of these communities as well as their languages and culture should be carefully considered and the world view of the “Other” should also be recognized. It is sure that “these others” are relevant to institutionalized forms of language or religion. There is a need to look in to the paradigm of man–nature relationship. Indigenous people are relevant in the contemporary scenario as we are dealing with living human beings. It is obvious that the impersonal classification of people on the basis of physical and anthropometric features should be modified about which Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan had spoken in several places. The government may take immediate steps to introduce as many of these Indigenous languages as possible into the school system as nothing else can arrest the high dropout rates among tribal children from schools where they are forced to speak in “mainstream” languages. Further, it was noted that many a times a speech community’s demands are put off on the argument that it did not have a script of its own. Ideally, any policy that may lead to alienation of the so-called indigenous people or “tribals” from their own language, culture and traditions should be modified. There is a need to devise new educational models for indigenous and minority children, 7

Centre for Endangered Languages-Project in nine central universities and scores of state universities.

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because the questions of Indigenous languages and endangered languages are closely related. For revitalization of languages, especially those under threat, language technology can be of great help. In addition to creating structures, it is also necessary, from a long-term perspective, to take steps to create awareness and opinion among the people speaking major languages in our country that they must support the development of indigenous languages, cultures and knowledge systems. Support may be given to the production of awareness literature—informative and readable knowledge literature—on the subject, among similar activities. Only then could we do our bit to help preserve these smaller and marginalized speech varieties—or mother tongues. It is clear from our earlier discussions that ‘language endangerment is a matter of scale, rather than belonging to an all-or-none category’ (Singh, 2021). Further, different authors and surveys categorize these stages slightly differently. Two of the most popular and widely referred surveys/resources are Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger 8 and the Ethnologue.9 The first one adopted a 5-point scale (six degrees) of language endangerment based on “intergenerational transmission”: Safe:

language spoken by all generations—uninterrupted intergenerational transmission.

Stable yet threatened (Level 5-): language spoken in most contexts by all generations with unbroken intergenerational transmission, but usurpation of certain important communication contexts by one or more dominant language(s). Vulnerable (Level 4):

language spoken by most but not all children or families of a particular community as their first language, but restricted to specific social domains (such as at home).

Definitely endangered (Level 3): language no longer learned as mother tongue by children at home—parental generation being the youngest speakers. Severely endangered (Level 2):

language spoken only by grandparents and older generations—no use of that particular language among parental generation.

Critically endangered (Level 1): language spoken by great-grandparental generation and not used for everyday interactions. Extinct (Level 0):

no one to speak or remember the language.

10

Ethnologue, on the other hand, categorized a five-level scale (Lewis & Simons, 2010, Fig. 2) for assessing language vitality—the main parameter for such categorization was the number of first-language speakers: Living: Significant population of first-language speakers Second Language Only: Used as second-language only. No first-language users, but may include emerging users. 8

Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. 3rd Edition. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2015. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnol ogue.com. 10 Gordon (2005), Grimes (2000). 9

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Nearly Extinct: Fewer than 50 speakers or a very small and decreasing fraction of an. ethnic population. Dormant: No known remaining speakers, but a population links its ethnic. identity to the language. Extinct: No remaining speakers and no population links its ethnic identity to the. language.

An integrated approach could be seen in the suggestions of Lewis and Simons (2010) who had proposed an Extended Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) harmonizing all the different assumptions on language endangerment (Table 1):

5 The Social Grammar of Endangerment There is a widespread agreement that by the end of this century, about 90% of world’s languages will disappear or become extinct entirely, replaced by more widely used and economically “more viable” and “more productive” languages. If that is so inevitable, a question may arise as to why worry about them anyway. Nancy Dorian (1998 [also in Singh, 2021]) says that says it is rare to expect a human language to achieve a position where the ordinary people will be in awe to speak it, or claim to speak it, and distance themselves from it. The language custodians preventing the ordinary people from using it is a rare thing. On the contrary, it is often seen that a language has become so exclusively associated with the masses of low-prestige people that the gentry and the upper class as well as potentially creative people begin to distance themselves from it and adopt another, a more prestigious language, for both creativity and identity. The ‘Why worry?’ question could be easily replied to. We consider the endangered species index in terms of a biodiversity map, the threat to multilingualism is similar to the threat to biodiversity, not just because most languages are like disappearing “species,” but also because there is an intrinsic and causal link between biological diversity and cultural diversity. Like plant and animal species, endangered languages are confined to small areas. As we know, more than 80% of countries with great biological diversity are also the places with the greatest number of endangered languages. This is because when people adapt to their environment, they create a special stock of knowledge about it, which is mirrored in their language and is available only in such languages. Many of the world’s endangered plant and animal species today are known only to certain people whose languages are dying out. As they die, they also take with them all the traditional knowledge about the environment. There had been of course periods during which a large number of species have gone extinct in the same blink of geological time, but nothing is comparable to what has happened in the modern times, when the ecosystems are threatened with destruction due to human actions. Because of a massive growth of human population, roughly half of the world’s forests have been transformed, degraded or destroyed by man, and almost half of the world’s net primary productivity is appropriated for

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Table 1 Expanded graded intergenerational disruption scale (Lewis & Simons, 2010) Level Label

Description

UNESCO

0

International

The language is used internationally for a broad range of functions

Safe

1

National

The language is used in education, work, mass media, government at the nationwide level

Safe

2

Regional

The language is used for local and regional mass Safe media and governmental services

3

Trade

The language is used for local and regional work Safe by both insiders and outsiders

4

Educational

Literacy in the language is being transmitted through a system of public education

5

Written

The language is used orally by all generations Safe and is effectively used in written form in parts of the community

6a

Vigorous

The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language

Safe

6b

Threatened

The language is used orally by all generations but only some of the child-bearing generations are transmitting it to their children

Vulnerable

7

Shifting

The child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves, but none are transmitting it to their children

Definitely endangered

8a

Moribund

The only remaining active speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation

Severely endangered

8b

Nearly extinct The only remaining speakers of the language are Critically endangered members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language

9

Dormant

The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community. No one has more than symbolic proficiency

Extinct

10

Extinct

No one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language, even for symbolic purposes

Extinct

Safe

Table- EGIDS Classification (Lewis 2009), as it appears in

human use with most of available fresh water being disturbed by us, and virtually all of the available productivity of the oceans is affected. Over-hunting, and especially commercial hunting or pollution due to chemical waste and invasion of non-native space are some reasons but as Wilson (1992) had suggested, among all human actions, perhaps habitat loss presents the single greatest threat to world biodiversity. That is

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equally applicable to loss of a whole speech area for a variety of speech—whether we may call it a language or a dialect. One must also be aware that as we engage ourselves in the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages and their culture, we must understand that there will always be agencies that would like to color our perception and blur our vision. This is because any advocacy in favor of diversity may cause immense harm to several agencies that may have a stake in continuance of only a few languages as the media of trade, commerce, tourism, education and entertainment (Singh, 2021). That seems to be one of the biggest dangers for the smaller indigenous languages. The danger could also come because of the ‘perception’ of one’s language universe. The members of a smaller linguistic group will often have to negotiate with some of these questions: How do you see yourself, and how do others look at you? Which of these two evaluations do you accept and why? (Singh, 2021). How deep is your commitment to your ‘own’ tags of identity—the attachment for your own land, flora and fauna, dress and food, life and living, speech and writing system or creative and re-creative texts? There is this second type of tension in smaller linguistic groups which was pointed out long ago by Dell Hymes in his paper ‘Two Types of Linguistic Relativity.’ We are told how a relatively smaller-size speech group survives the onslaught of the forces of globalization, whereas how a larger group that accepts a negative evaluation of others force their own members to ‘flee’ from their own tags. Then there is also a great tension between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’—growing out of the issue of identity declaration. It is not only the numerical strength (or weakness) of a speech group that matters. Nor is this applicable for those societies that face some biological problem (even if it is triggered by their marital patterns and endogamous behavior) in terms of reproductivity. The danger is that even a speech community with a substantial membership may disappear after a while if they all decide to change their natural ‘being’ of a bilingual (or multi-lingual) identity to ‘becoming’ members of a larger linguistic entity—for various reasons, ranging from higher education, better job prospects, or more social prestige (Singh, 2021). Thus, identity shift could lead to language shift as well.

6 Concluding Remarks All these positions could be questioned by some who would say that debasement, obliterations and endangerment are changes that are inevitable in modern times. One could argue that modernity demanded universalization and fusion of cultural canons and a resultant proximity of linguistic structures. But I would also like to remind ourselves what the well-known Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (cf. Hoijer, 1954) said about such ‘false’ universalization. They would argue that no two languages reflected the same social reality. In other words, human languages simply did not have different labels attached to the same/similar set of categories. If they were so, translation could be reduced to a search for mere equivalence. In fact, one could

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extend this position further and say that’our aesthetics will derive from the canon of our worldview’ which in turn, is’determined by our own languages’ (Singh, 1990). If, following them, one argues that our languages and cultures (stated in plural because more often than not a person in our civilizations is split between at least two cultures and is almost surely two languages) constrained our perception as well as are constrained by it, any theory that is built upon universalization of canons could only be viewed skeptically as a new way of establishing hegemony. Although many politicians of the world would think otherwise—because diversity always poses a challenge for governance and political managers, I do not think that modernization of languages or language development must be viewed as a ‘homogenizing’ process brining in linguistic uniformity. On the other hand, the inherent linguistic and cultural diversity in human societies may rather encourage blooming of a large basket of varying styles and such other speech varieties. Such positions have only contributed to death and destruction of what Suniti Kumar Chatterjee (1951: 3) had stated as an important characteristics of Asian civilization. In his now famous ‘harmony of contrasts’ description, he had stated the following: The unity in diversity that is so characteristic of Indian civilization presents as its own consequence a Harmony of Contrasts—the harmony being based more or less on the following matters: a sense of unity in all Life as an expression of an Unseen Reality which is both immanent and transcendent; a Desire for Synthesis, to combine apparently disconnected or discordant fragments in life as well as experience in their proper place in an Essential Unity; a rigid Adherence to the Intellect, while seeking to harmonise it in the higher plane with Emotion, with Intuition and with Mystic Perception; a recognition of the Sufferings and Sorrows of Life, and an Attempt to go into the Root Causes of these Sufferings and Sorrows; a Feeling for the Sacredness of all Life; and, above all, a great Tolerance for all other Beliefs and Points of View.

References Anderson, B.R. O.G. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso. Chatterji, S.K. (1951). Kirata-Jana-Krti: The Indo-Mongoloids, Their Contribution to the History and Culture of India [Based on Pratibha Devi Lectures, 1947; Jorhat, Assam]. The Asiatic Society. Cohn, D.V. (2014). FactTank news in numbers. PEW Research Centre, retrieved from Devy, G. (2013). Peoples’ linguistic survey of India: The being of Bhsha: A general introduction. Orient Blackswan. Dorian, N. (1998). Western language ideologies small-language prospects. In L.A. Grenoble, & L.J. Whaley (Eds.) Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects. Cambridge University Press. Fishman, J.A. (1991). Reversing language shift. Multilingual Matters Ltd. Gordon, R.G. Jr (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/15. Grierson, G.A. (1903–23). Linguistic Survey of India, 11 Vols. in 19 Parts Delhi. Guha, S. (2003). The politics of identity and enumeration in India: 1600–1990. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 45(1), 148–167.

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Hoijer, H. (Ed.). (1954). Language in culture: Conference on the interrelations of language and other aspects of culture. University of Chicago Press. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84441. Hymes, D. (1966). Two types of linguistic relativity (with examples from Amerindian ethnography). In W. Bright (Ed.) Sociolinguistics, (pp. 114–67). Jezewski, M. A. (1990). Culture brokering in migrant farmworker health care. Western Journal of Nursing Research., 12(4), 497–513. Jezewski, M.A., & P. Sotnik. (2001). Cultural brokering: Providing culturally competent rehabilitation services to foreign-born persons. Retrieved from Centre for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange (CIRRIE) at http://cirrie-sphhp.webapps.buffalo.edu/ culture/monographs/cb.php. Landweer, L.M. (1998). Indicators of ethnolinguistic vitality case study of two languages: Labu and Vanimo. In N. Ostler (Ed.), Proceedings of the second FEL Conference: Endangered Languages— What Role for The Specialist? The Foundation for Endangered Languages (pp. 64–72). Lewis, M. P., & Simons, G. F. (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (with C.D. Fennig; SIL International, Dallas). Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com Lewis, M. P., & Simons, G.F. (2010). Assessing endangerment: Expanding Fishman’s GIDS. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 55(2), 103–120. http://www.lingv.ro/RRL 2 2010 art01Lewis.pdf. Accessed 11 January 2021. [As it also appears in: Andrew Deere (2011) Measuring Minority Language Presence on Wikipedia - Towards the Measurement of Minority Language Presence on the World Wide Web. PhD Dissertation. Faculty of Advanced Technology University of Glamorgan Pontypridd, Wales, UK. https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/3305416/A._Deere_ 2011_2059600.pdf]. Moseley, C. (Ed.). (2010). Atlas of the World’s languages in danger (3rd ed.). UNESCO Publishing. Obiero, O.J. (2010). From assessing language endangerment to vitality to creating and evaluating language revitalization programmes, Nordic Journal of African Studies, 19(4), 201–226. Online Etymological Dictionary at https://www.etymonline.com/. Sallabank, J. (2010). Language endangerment: Problems and solutions. eSharp, Special Issue: Communicating Change: Representing Self and Community in a Technological World, pp. 50–87. Singh, U.N. (1990). On language development: The Indian perspective. In Bahner, J. Schildt, & D. Viehweger (Eds.) Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Linguists (pp. 1460–71). AkademieVerlag. Singh, U. N., & Singh, R. (2017). View from below: Utopia and change. In A. Thakur (Ed.), India now and in transition (pp. 409–422). Niyogi Books. Singh, U. N. (2021). After the Deluge: An action notebook for a responsible sociolinguist. IARS’ International Research Journal Victoria, Australia, 11(1), 44–50. https://doi.org/10.51611/iars. irj.v11i1.2021.155 SPPEL—Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages at https://www.sppel. org/sppel.org/sppelinnews.aspx. Wilson, E. O. (1992). The diversity of life. W.W. Norton & Co.

Engaging with a Classical Text from a Linguistic Perspective: A Study of “Bad Language” in Sarala Mahabharata B. N. Patnaik

Abstract This paper is concerned with the use of “bad language,” in Sarala Das’s Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata, which is a highly creative retelling of Vyasa Mahabharata in Odia. It was composed in the fifteenth century. Incidentally, Sarala Das is the first poet who retold all the eighteen parvas (cantos) of the canonical text in a local language (“regional language” in contemporary terminology), and he is also the first non-Brahmin to retell this highly celebrated ancient text. In the dark world of the text, there are numerous verbal engagements among the characters where bad language is almost aggressively used. The existing scholarship on Sarala Mahabharata contains no study of the use of bad language in this text, to the best of our knowledge. To that extent, this paper tries to fill a gap in Sarala scholarship.

This paper is concerned with the use of “bad language,” in Sarala Das’s Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata, which is a highly creative retelling of Vyasa Mahabharata in Odia. It was composed in the fifteenth century. Incidentally, Sarala Das is the first poet who retold all the eighteen parvas (cantos) of the canonical text in a local language (“regional language” in contemporary terminology), and he is also the first non-Brahmin to retell this highly celebrated ancient text. Sarala Mahabharata, as any version of the ancient story, is a narrative of greed, deceit, jealousy, hatred, manipulation, intrigue and the like, and there is a great deal of violence in language, thought and action. In Sarala’s retelling, the characters are not sanitized; as such, there are no purely virtuous or completely vicious characters. They are thus intensely human with all human limitations. It is through the lives of these ordinary mortals that profound questions of dharma and adharma have been raised and explored in the narrative. In the dark world of the text, there are numerous verbal engagements among the characters where bad language is almost aggressively used. The existing scholarship on Sarala Mahabharata contains no study of the use

B. N. Patnaik (B) Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_15

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of bad language in this text, to the best of our knowledge. To that extent, this paper tries to fill a gap in Sarala scholarship. The paper is organized in two parts. The first explicates the concept of bad language and analyzes some examples for illustrative purposes. It also provides an outline of H. P. theory of conversation, which is used here as reference for analysis. The second part analyzes some select interactions between characters in Sarala Mahabharata that contain the use of bad language. The contexts of the interactions discussed here are given in some detail so as to bring more clarity to the discussion. This has been felt necessary because the story of Sarala Mahabharata is not exactly the same as that of Vyasa Mahabharata, which is familiar to many and Sarala’s work has not been translated into English and is unfamiliar to the non-Odia knowing readership.

1 Bad Language: An Explication Language, as is well-known, is used for self-expression and communication; this paper is concerned with the latter function of it. Communication is most often purposive and takes place in a sociocultural context. One interacts (“interact,” “exchange” and “converse” are used in free-variation here) with another for a variety of purposes, such as to share information, ideas, thoughts, concerns, feelings, experiences, among others, and to gossip, slander, tattletale, bluff, pass time, etc. From another point of view, one interacts with another to relax, let off steam, transact business, express solidarity, show empathy and goodwill and even make him (cover term used here for “him,” “her” and “them”) feel uncomfortable. Long is the list of things one can do with language; one can hurt and heal, inform and misinform, persuade and dissuade, deceive and expose deception, bully and cringe, be assertive or evasive and the like. One aim of the study of language use is to explicate what linguistic resources and strategies—words, sentences, discourses, intonation, suggestive observations and questions, plain speaking or speaking indirectly, using metaphors and innuendos, etc.—one uses, as one interacts with another, to achieve one’s communicative purpose in that specific context and how the hearer protects oneself or pursues his interests, if he feels there is a need for the same. Needless to say, content is part of the study of interaction; there can be no interesting study of language use that would exclude content. All this is well-known and needs no discussion. What we propose to do here is analyze some interactions between some of the characters in a particular puranic text (roughly “epic”), namely Sarala Mahabharata to show how they try to achieve their communicative goals. The interactions under study here use bad language and the Gricean model of conversation, as articulated in Grice (1975), is used for the purpose of analysis. The interactions here are dyadic, which is the simplest form of an exchange. Utterances, irrespective of their number, are viewed here as discourses; as such, a discourse may contain a single sentence or even a single word, just as in the so-called sentence grammar, a sentence may have only a single word. The characters in each of the examples discussed here are engaged in a face-to-face exchange,

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and these exchanges are artistically constructed so as to give the flavor of natural interaction. Cambridge dictionary defines “bad language” as “words that are considered offensive by most people”; in terms of Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is “offensive or vulgar language.” In a conversational situation, we can think of bad language as the language that embarrasses, hurts or humiliates the hearer. Consider a situation where the hearer has been ill-treated with such harshness over a considerable period of time that he has lost his self-confidence and become insensitive to abuse; he would swallow much insult without feeling humiliated or even embarrassed. In such a case, just because the hearer is indifferent to what he receives, one would wonder if it could be said that the speaker’s very unkind words to him during their interaction would not count as bad language. Conversely, the hearer could be over-sensitive, who would take umbrage at the most innocuous words of the speaker. In such cases, one might suggest that the non-participant listener’s evaluation of the speaker’s contribution in the relevant respect would be important; that is, if he evaluates the speaker’s language as bad, then it must count as bad. However, the present paper does not subscribe to this view; from its point of view, the facts suggest that evaluation of the speaker’s contribution is relative to the hearer. No hearer’s view, participant or non-participant, is more highly valued. This view is in consonance with Grice’s theory. Now, going beyond words, phrases and such linguistic resources, the paper regards as bad language such forms of interaction as slander, gossip, loose talk and the like, which in our culture has always been regarded as unacceptable. These types of conversation are among what Buddhism rejects in its characterization of “right speech” (Radhakrishnan, 2010, p. 20). In these exchanges, the hearer is generally not the target of the speaker but an absentee individual is, and except in special circumstances, such as when the absentee person is the hearer’s friend or the hearer considers the speaker as a habitual slanderer or he is the kind of person who does not like to hear bad things about anyone, etc., the hearer may not feel offended by the speaker’s derogatory remarks about the absentee other. Vulgar and abusive words, harsh and crude terms, expletives, dysphemism, extremely impolite expressions, calling names, derogatory address and reference terms, etc. are commonly viewed as among the characteristic features of bad language. Ambiguous words or sentences, long sentences with multiple embeddings, jargon that is unfamiliar to the hearer, words from a language that he does not know, speaking indistinctly or loudly or in a shrill tone, and making irrelevant responses, among others become features of bad language when they are used by the speaker deliberately to confuse the hearer or be unintelligible to him. Showing off in any form, linguistic or otherwise, has been traditionally considered to be very impolite and has been frowned upon. Use of bad language is often allied to power. Power talks down to the powerless and uses words, syntactic constructions, intonation, allusions, sarcasm, metaphors and the like to belittle him. When the interactants are evenly poised in terms of power, their language shows the way they assert their authority. In an interaction, the power relation between the interactants can sometimes fluctuate, which is evinced in their language.

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As an instance of bad language in an interaction, consider the following from Albert Camus’s (1958) play “Caligula”: CALIGULA: We are going to make a complete change in our economic system… Every patrician, everyone in the Empire who has a capital—small or large, it’s all the same thing—is ordered to disinherit his children and make a new will leaving his money to the State. INTENDANT: But Caesar… CALIGULA: I have not yet given you leave to speak. As the need arises, we shall have these people die; the list will be drawn up by us fixing the order of their deaths. When the fancy takes us, we will modify that order. And, of course, we shall step into their money. (p. 12).

This represents the way absolute power speaks. Caligula controls the exchange. He does not allow interruption when he speaks and chides the intendant for speaking without his permission. The tone is arrogant and demeaning to the hearer. What is great deal more demeaning is the content of Caligula’s message. He intends to instill the fear of him in the citizens’ mind. He does not merely want to usurp the money of the citizens; he humiliates them by demanding that they give their money to him on their own. He humiliates them even more by declaring that they have no right to their life and they would live according to his fancy. As another instance of bad language, consider the following from Sonia Faleiro’s novel Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance bars. It describes a possible conversation, which has the unmistakable ring of a real-life one. A policeman could grab Leela and with the force of his legs and lathi propel her into an autorickshaw. ‘Paisa nikal kutiya,’ he might say, calling her a bitch, demanding hafta for not arresting her. ‘Arrest me for what?’ might have asked for the first time. ‘For being a randi,’ he would have replied. (p. 17). The policeman’s terms—kutiya, randi and bitch—for Leela, the bar dancer, whose profession is held with considerable disdain by the society are crude, vulgar and abusive. The imperative construction in the second sentence embodies a veiled threat. The power equation here is titled in favor of the policeman, but the relation is not like between Caligula and the intendant—the all- powerful monarch and his subject. Taking advantage of the societal attitude toward women like her, he makes a baseless charge against her and tries to rob her of money. He humiliates his hapless victim in his language and action both. Consider the following as yet an instance of bad language, although rather sophisticated. This extract is from Kazuo Ishiguro’s (2005) novel The Remains of the Day. ‘Mr. Stevens, this is the incorrect Chinaman, would you not agree? ‘Miss Kenton, I am very busy. I am surprised you have nothing better to do than stand in the corridor all day.’ ‘Mr Stevens, is that the correct Chinaman or is it not?’ ‘Miss Kenton, I would ask you to keep your voice down.’ ‘And I would ask you, Mr. Stevens, to turn around and look at that Chinaman.’ ‘Miss Kenton, please keep your voice down. What would employees below think to hear us shouting at the top of our voices about what is and what is not the correct Chinaman?’

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‘The fact is, Mr. Stevens, all the Chinamen in this house have been dirty for some time! And now, they are in incorrect positions!’ ‘Miss Kenton, you are being quite ridiculous. Now, if you will be so good as let me pass.’ ‘Mr. Stevens, will you kindly look at the Chinamen behind you?’

Stevens is the butler of Darlington House and Miss Kenton is the head housekeeper there. The reference is to Steven’s father who has been working in the house for a long time. He had grown old, has become infirm and is no more able to do his work well in the said House. Here Miss Kenton is complaining to Stevens, her superior, about the shoddiness of his work, but does not refer to him by name. Stevens does not like her critical reference to his father’s work but cannot deny the fact. His irritation is evident from the rather haughty tone he uses. Although Miss Kenton is his subordinate, in this specific context, the balance of power is not tilted against her because of the validity of her complaint. In their confrontation, they are rude to each other, each trying to hurt the other. Miss Kenton’s objective throughout their interaction is to embarrass Stevens and accuse him of being unprofessional by deliberately turning a blind eye toward his father’s carelessness and being intolerant of just criticism of the same. The tone of each is aggressive and offending toward the other but neither is being plainly abusive, nor is either trying to belittle the other. Miss Kenton’s language throughout the exchange is insinuating and the irony of her opening utterance is mildly insulting and thereafter, throughout their exchange, she accuses Stevens more directly. But it is Stevens who uses rude expressions against her: the language of command (“ask you to keep your voice down”), of censor (“you have nothing better to do…”) and of mild reprimand (“you are being quite ridiculous”). This interaction is an example of bad language coated with some sophistication. Turning to H. P. Grice’s theory of conversation, as articulated in his influential paper “Logic and Conversation” (1975), briefly speaking, it offers an account of how hearer assigns meaning to utterances in a conversation; for instance, how the hearer understands the speaker’s utterance, “That man is a fox” to mean that the person under reference is clever and manipulative. Grice assumes that conversation is a cooperative and purposive activity. And assuming that humans are rational, it would be polite and helpful. On the basis of linguistic and non-linguistic considerations, Grice constructs an idealized notion of conversation, which can be thought of as the norm of verbal interaction, in terms of which real-life conversations can be studied. Real-life conversations do not mimic this idealized conversation; neither does the theory expects them to. These digress from the norm in many ways. Sometimes the speaker knowingly flouts the norm; sometimes, unknowingly. When the hearer thinks that the speaker had violated the norm deliberately, he thinks that for whatever reason, the speaker did not want to say what he wanted to say in explicit terms; in other words, his utterance has an underlying meaning and he believes that the hearer would be able to figure it out. As the hearer tries to do so, he uses his knowledge of the language concerned, the non-linguistic knowledge (such as the knowledge of the world, his knowledge of the speaker, among others and a kind of logic, which may tentatively be called “common sense reasoning”). He takes the underlying meaning

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to be the intended meaning of the speaker. From the point of view of communication, which is essentially about the sharing of the intended content with the hearer by the speaker, it takes place when this happens. When the speaker and the hearer (in the context of the entire communication, the more appropriate term would be “speaker-hearer,” but following convention, we use “speaker” and “hearer” instead, to refer to the role of the interactants at different times during the act of communication) interact, by virtue of that, they are said to be observing the “Cooperative Principle” as Grice puts it. Grice constructs the norm in linguistic and non-linguistic terms both. He posits four maxims: Quantity, quality, relevance and manner. Manner requires the speaker to use a style of presentation which is organized, brief, clear and unambiguous. This involves making stylistic choices with respect to language on the part of the speaker. The remaining three are information-based requirements. Quantity requires that the speaker provide as much information as is needed at that point of the interaction, neither more nor less, quality requires him not to say what he believes to be false and say only that for which he has proper evidence; in essence, to be truthful with respect to the information he provides and relevance requires him to provide relevant information—“relevant” in the specific context—to the hearer. Although the maxims are stated in a speakeroriented manner, these are actually neutral between the speaker and the hearer in the sense that in assigning interpretation to the speaker’s contribution, the hearer applies the same maxims. It is possible that on occasions the hearer might think that the speaker’s contribution had violated, say, the maxim of quantity when the speaker had thought that he had observed it. In other words, both apply the same maxim, the speaker, while making his contribution and the hearer, while interpreting it. We do not intend to discuss such issues of theoretical significance here because the same are not crucial to the concerns of the paper. Turning now to the question of the hearer’s interpretation of “That man is a fox,” the hearer evaluates it as violating the maxim of quality—a human cannot be a fox, a non-human. Thus, there is a contradiction. But the hearer feels that the speaker was sincere in saying it; that is, he hadn’t said it as a joke or he was not in a highly inebriated condition at that point of time, etc. So he expected him to work out the implied meaning. In Grice’s terms, when one or more maxims are violated by the speaker who has not opted out of the conversation, that is, he is observing the Cooperative Principle, conversational implicatures are generated. The hearer resolves the implicature, which amounts to his assigning a coherent interpretation to the utterance. This means that that he has successfully figured out the intended meaning. In the example under discussion, in that specific context, the hearer interprets “fox” in terms of a certain feature associated with that animal and arrives at the meaning that the man under reference is cunning, which is the information that he had given him. Grice does not say how of the several associations of fox, the hearer chooses a particular feature; that is whether the interpretive system matches each feature one by one with the rest of the sentence or uses a more economical device. This would relate to the question of how the features associated with the fox are organized in the mental lexicon. We set these questions aside here because the same are not relevant for our present purpose.

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2 Bad Language in Sarala Mahabharata: An Analysis Like the other major puranic texts, Sarala Mahabharata has a narrative-dramatic structure. In a puranic narrative, a venerable individual—a god, a sage or a suta (storyteller)—tells an ancient story to one or more of listeners. But it is not a monologue. The listener interrupts the narrator, asks for clarifications, more details, raises his doubts and seeks explanations and the like. Thus, it is actually a dialogue, reminiscent of a dialogue between a guru (preceptor) and his shishya (disciple) in the gurushishya tradition. Therefore, the text can be said to have a conversational structure. This is at the outer layer. Now, once the story starts and the inner layer projects, characters appear and they interact among themselves. The narration by the narrator and the conversations go together, happily blended. Thus, a purana has a distinct conversational structure, and it is therefore not out of place to study it from a conversational theoretic perspective. In Sarala Mahabharata, unlike in Vyasa Mahabharata, which is the canonical text, the narrator is sage Agasti (named so in Sarala Mahabharata, but is more known as Agastya) and the listener is Vaibasuta Manu, the Lord of the world and of the eon. Consider the conversation between the two with which the narrative begins. Vaibasuta Manu offers worship to Agasti and then prays to him to tell him how to attain moksa (“release from the cycle of life and death’): (moksakayin karana mote kahiba agasti mahamuni “O great sage, pray tell me the way to moksa”). The sage says, “Listen, O lord of the eon. In the beginning there was Void, from Void was born Wind, from Wind was born Jogapurusha sunya, Disembodied Yogapurusha (literal rendering: “Yogic Cosmic Being” who does not, as far as my understanding goes, correspond to “Aadi Purusha of the Vedas). From Yogpurusha emerged Gayatri, and he goes on with the creation narrative and finally comes to king Shantanu, the great grandfather of the Kauravas and the Pandavas (Adi Parva I, 9: 1–21). Now, nowhere does he mention moksa, let alone how to attain it. Therefore, in the Gricean framework, the sage’s response could be viewed as not having satisfied the maxim of relevance. The hearer had no reason to suspect that the wise and venerable sage was insincere in his response. Therefore, he would try to resolve the resultant implicature in order to arrive at a coherent interpretation. But there is no evidence in the text that Vaibasuta Manu tried to arrive at the underlying meaning. There is no evidence that suggests that he was uncomfortable with the sage’s response in the first place. Had he felt so, he would have interrupted the sage and requested him to clarify how the account of the origin of the creation was an answer to his question. Later, many times during the narration, he would interrupt the sage’s narration. This would mean that he did not think that the narrator had violated the relevance maxim. But a reader—the non-participant listener—might find the sage’s contribution irrelevant or obscure (that is, violative of the manner maxim). This is unproblematic for the theory; there is nothing surprising if two listeners do not share the same knowledge repertoire and as such, do not evaluate the speaker’s contribution in the same way. Now, for the one who finds that no maxim is violated, there is no implicature to resolve; for the other who thinks that a maxim is violated, there is an implicature to

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resolve. He may fail to resolve it at that point of time and wait for further contribution from the speaker as the interaction proceeds. The question that may be of interest is what Vaibasuta Manu knew on account of which he did not think that the sage’s response was irrelevant. As mentioned earlier, the text is silent about it. It is possible that it was not a matter of his knowledge but his trust on the narrator—that he knew best with respect to how to answer his question. When the speaker credibility is very high, the hearer accepts his contribution even when he does not fully understand them; that is, without resolving the implicatures and arriving at the underlying intended meaning. The way the credibility of the speaker governs conversation is a matter not explicitly addressed in Grice’s theory. Before turning to the question of how bad language is conceptualized and treated in Sarala Mahabharata, an observation on Sarala’s style of making knowledge-based observations is in order. The poet does not deal with the philosophical issues in a scholarly manner. There are no philosophical deliberations, as there are in Vyasa Mahabharata. It is through the narration that the poet explores a philosophical or conceptual issue; the narrative explicates the thought. Sarala’s work is an excellent example of the use of the “objective correlative” as a stylistic strategy in a work of art. Now, to turn to bad language, consider the following episode. Kunti and Gandhari happened to worship Lord Shiva in a certain temple on the banks of the sacred river Bhagirathi but neither knew about this. Kunti used to offer her worship well before daybreak and Gandhari used to go the temple after the sunrise. One day it occurred to Gandhari that someone had already worshiped the Lord before she did, and she found out that it was her sister-in-law Kunti who was the culprit. One day, soon after, Kunti was a little late and as she was returning, she ran into Gandhari. Gandhari shouted at Kunti. She told her that she had no right to offer worship there and that it was her right alone to do so: muhin je linga pujibaku atai bhajana (I am worthy of worshiping the Linga -that is Lord Shiva) said Gandhari (Adi Parva II, 886: 46). Kunti protested. She too was worshiping the Lord there, she told her, and told her that she should not be upset about that. Soon they started shouting at each other and Gandhari’s language was harsh: aneka jhinghasi gandhari boile ((she) said many harsh and insulting words to her) (Adi Parva II, 886: 48). Kunti felt very humiliated. The poet does not mention what particular words were uttered. He does not narrate the quarrel. The paper considers Gandhari’s verbal attack bad language even without such details. Her extremely egoistic assertion that she alone had the right to worship at that very temple is sufficient for the purpose; Sarala Mahabharata condemns “I-centric” behavior, be it verbal or non-verbal, and in the specific context of the interaction between the two sisters-in-law of the same family, it would be evaluated as even more condemnable. Kunti had lost her husband, the virtuous Pandu, who had abdicated the kingdom of Hastinapura for his elder brother Dhritarastra and chosen vanavasa (living in the forest) for himself and his family when he came to know that his elder brother was extremely unhappy that he had ascended the throne with the support of the venerable elders of the Kuru family. Gandhari was well aware that she was the queen because of her younger brother-in-law’s generosity. Even otherwise,

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she was the elder and Kunti, the widow, was her dependent and it was her bounden duty to be considerate toward her. Instead, she was jealous of her because her children were more accomplished that her own and she was afraid that Kunti’s eldest, not her eldest, might become the king. For humiliating Kunti, she was divinely punished, the details of which are irrelevant here. What is worth noting is that the narrative denounced her attitude and language. On a certain occasion Lord Krishna advised Arjuna to praise himself in front of Yudhisthira, saying that that would amount to his killing himself. Ignoring details, in a fit of anger, Yudhisthira had blasted Arjuna in the harshest of terms and condemned both his charioteer Krishna and his divine weapons, given him by the great god Shiva. He had used bad language. Arjuna was bound by oath to kill anyone who disparaged these divine weapons and Krishna in his presence. If he failed to do so, he would kill himself. This was known to everyone. So as he unsheathed his sword to kill Yudhisthira, Krishna told him that killing one’s elder brother was a grievous in. Besides, he should not think that he was capable of killing Yudhisthira: gobinda boile jebe jujesthinki lodu mari/tohara bale tahanku hoai ki sanhari (Govinda said if you wish to kill Yudhisthira/With your might can he be killed (Karna Parva, 2378: 99). Arjuna then went on telling him what spectacular victories he had won: he had killed the demon Sahashraksa, who the gods could not kill, the demon Subahu and had protected the abode of Shiva, he had defeated Balarama, Shiva, the entire Kaurava army with Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Ashwasthama, Duryodhana and all his brothers and had vanquished countless others—gods, demons and humans. Krishna interrupted him and laughed loudly. He did not have to kill himself now, since he had already done so by self-praise: atma prasansa ye tora atmaku marana samana (This self-praise of yours is like death to your soul) (Karna Parva, 2378: 116). If boasting kills one spiritually, it demeans the hearer, even when it is not targeted at the hearer, unlike in the present case, where it is. Yudhisthira was listening to Arjuna’s declaration of his spectacular achievements, which were directed to Krishna and not to him. But all the same, he must have sensed the import of his brother’s assertions, which was that he was a mere non-entity for him, when it came to punish him. What makes someone feels terribly small and utterly insignificant and thereby virtually destroys his self-respect is an abuse of the worst form. If in Sarala Mahabharata, self-praise kills the speaker within. It would be perfectly reasonable to say that in the context of this work, abuse of this sort kills its victim within. Bad language of one sort, namely self-praise, thus canceled out the bad language of another sort, namely abuse. One might argue that Arjuna was not really boasting but only stating facts, the authenticity of which was not in question. He didn’t dramatize or exaggerate any of his achievements. Besides, he enumerated his achievements in the first place because Krishna had virtually tricked him into it, by almost challenging him to assert his capability to kill his eldest. Now, one might argue that a distinction has to be made with respect to stating facts and boasting. Unlike the former, boasting is it is an act of arrogance and pride. One shows off to impress, belittle others, frighten and subdue others, which may, sometimes, include the hearer; so, one exaggerates one’s deeds and states their significance to increase its value in the eyes of others. As mentioned

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already, Arjuna’s assertion was free from these. But for Krishna, Arjuna had indulged in self-praise. One can argue that being somewhat upset by Krishna’s skepticism about his ability to punish Yudhisthira, Arjuna’s listed his stellar accomplishments in a tone that smacked of arrogance, which is lost in the written form. One might rebut it saying that the written form does have ways of representing features of speech such as pitch and tone, etc. The author uses stylistic devises such as appropriate epithets, descriptive expressions, expressive terms to capture the features of speech and examples are galore in Sarala Mahabharata to show that Sarala made artistic use of these strategies. In sum, in the absence of clear evidence from the text, one would be very hesitant to accept that the tone of Arjuna’s speech was arrogant. One may then argue that for Krishna, even a statement of one’s amazing achievements amounts to boasting because it might belittle the hearer in the manner indicated above. Later during the war, Arjuna himself was terribly upset at Bhima’s bragging. On the Kurukshetra battlefield, Bhima had thrown Dussasana on the ground and was sitting on him raining blows. He was in a frenzy. He had lost control over himself completely and was shouting hysterically at the mortals, including his own brothers and the Pandavas, and the gods as well, challenging them to save from his clutches the miserable Dussasana, whom he was going to kill. As he challenged them, he named them: Karna, Duryodhana, Indra, Brahma, Rudra, Arjuna and Yudhisthira. Then he challenged Krishna again and again. Unlike Arjuna in the episode discussed above, Bhima simply announced his might. His challenge was a deliberate act of insult to each one of those whose names he called out. Arjuna lifted his divine bow and was going to invoke the infallible divine arrow, Pashupata, to punish Bhima. He told Krishna that in bragging, the ignoramus and the low (pamara agyani) Bhima had crossed all limits. He told him that he would cut off his head: bhimara munda mu pakaibi hani ((I) will cut off Bhima’s head) (Karna Parva, 2389: 52). If that would mean Dussasana to escape, he had no problems with that. Krishna saved that situation, the details of which are out of place here. However, we wish to mention that Krishna’s intervention did not mean that he justified bragging. Arjuna was deeply offended that in his arrogant bragging, Bhima belittled the gods and insulted them, the virtuous Yudhisthira and him. He decided that Bhima’s act was totally reprehensible and deserved punishment. It is thus clear that Sarala’s narrative strongly condemns bragging. At the same time, it is a matter of speculation whether he would have thought of the ultimate punishment alone as just for Bhima had he not insulted Krishna by repeatedly challenging him. In Sarala Mahabharata, boasting is condemned as not merely equivalent to killing oneself spiritually, and at the same time hurting the hearer emotionally, it is a papa (sin). When Arjuna fell to his death, Yudhisthira told Bhima that his boastfulness was the cause of his death: apanara shourjya apane kahuthai/bolasai yekaye mu jinili rudrakain//bolai ekachhatra kalaka medini/apanara pratangya kahai phalaguni (He kept boasting about his own achievements/Said he all alone defeated Shiva//Said he brought the whole world under one rule/Phalguni (i.e. Arjuna) kept talking about his own achievements//) //) (Swargarohana Parva, 2734: 1712–13). In the specific context in the narrative, Yudhisthira’s pronouncement must not be taken as the opinion of an ordinary mortal; his is the voice of god Dharma himself.

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Only one I-centric pronouncement is not censored in Sarala’s narrative; it is Krishna’s. The war was over. Gandhari, who had lost all her sons, was completely devastated. She held Krishna solely responsible for the fratricidal war and cursed him that his clan would perish, fighting among themselves. Krishna rejoiced; he told her that she had given him a good curse and that he had accepted her curse. Then he declaring his “Narayanatwa” (being the Supreme god, Narayana), he said that He being the giver of death, no one could cause Him harm: (muhi je anaku karai nasa antakale/mote kehu pramada chintiba rabitale (I destroy the others when the time comes/Who under the sun can give Me trouble) (Nari Parva, 2518: 175). This assertion is as I-centric as Krishna’s pronouncements about the true nature of Himself in the Chapters Ten and Eleven of Srimad Bhagavad Gita. The I-centric pronouncements of the Supreme god have generally been accepted (for a different view, see Thompson, 2008, p. xlv. He calls these pronouncements “aatmastuti, assertions of self-praise… blatant boastfulness that would seem like crude arrogance in a mere mortal.”) in the tradition as revelation, which is spiritually enlightening and elevating. Sarala had the same attitude; therefore, in his retelling, Krishna’s words are not taken as boasting. We now turn to abusive language, which is a form of bad language. One can be overtly or covertly abusive. The following is an example of the latter. Krishna told Duryodhana in his royal court when he went there as Yudhisthira’s emissary of peace that his kingdom was like the kingdom of Kurala, the capital of which was Babarapuri (Udyoga Parva, 1976: 250–286). Bhishma hadn’t heard of that kingdom; so he requested Krishna to tell them about it. Krishna said that Bhandeswara lorded over that kingdom and Baibhanda was his minister. People worshiped a naked deity and they themselves, both men and women, moved around openly with only their heads covered. Their sacred texts recommended unethical acts, such as lying and their system punished those who spoke the truth. Their language was vulgar. People were prosperous and they lived irresponsibly and extravagantly. They observed no sexual taboos, engaging in sex whenever, wherever and with whosoever they liked, without considering even blood relationships. Since sex was not a responsible act, it did not lead to the institution of a stable family. Barbarapuri had no fear of attack from outside, but it perished comprehensibly all the same. One day people started talking about kokua, which was a creature of imagination but it became real to them. Some said they had seen him. Some said it had many eyes and some said it was so huge that it covered the sky. Still others said the terrible creature devoured whosoever it saw. The inhabitants lived in fear, anxiety and tension. One day the tension became unbearable and for no reason, they fought among themselves and many were killed. This was followed natural calamities and soon no trace was left of the city. Krishna did not explicitly compare Duryodhana’s kingdom, Hastinapura, with Babarapuri, but it was clearly suggestive. In his long harangue, he used only three words which could be considered abusive: Babarapuri, Bhandeswara and Baibhanda. These names literally meant “the city of madmen,” “the Lord of the cheats” and

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“mad cheat” respectively and the same in this context can be taken as his insinuation that the court of Duryodhana, Duryodhana himself and his minister—probably Sakuni—were like Babarapuri, Bhandeswara and Baibhanda. In his suggestive naming, Krishna was extremely insulting, sarcastic and provocative. His tone was aggressive. His tired strongly violated the maxims of quality and manner. It violated the former because Duryodhana’s court was not lacking in virtuous people as Babarapuri. There were in his court Bhishma, Drona, Bhurishrava, Karna, Vidura and Aswasthama, among others, and Krishna was aware that they were virtuous, despite their silence during Draupadi’s humiliation. Venerable sages, including Vyasa and Durvasa often graced his court with their presence. King Duryodhana was not an oppressive ruler and adharma (unrighteousness) was not prevalent in Hastinapura. As for the maxim of manner, Krishna flouted it blatantly: the suggestiveness of his verbal onslaught was extremely demeaning to Duryodhana, although formally speaking, he was not his addressee; it was Bhishma. But everyone in the court knew that the target of his diatribe was Duryodhana. Babarapuri was a vicious metaphor and the entire discourse, which is an example of indirect speaking, is an instance of bad language. Consider Sakuni’s words to Bhishma and Drona as instances of bad language. Sakuni abused them. Duryodhana’s royal court was in session and Krishna was about to arrive there. He was coming to meet Duryodhana as Yudhisthira’s emissary for peace. In the court, Sakuni advised the Kaurava king not to invite him to the assembly of royals and sages because he was low born and had committed grave sins as a child, such as killing a woman (Putana) and a bull (Sandhasura), and had corrupted cowherd women, etc., on account of which he did not deserve a seat in the court of distinguished persons: janmena ajatika abara dosakari/kujane gosthi hoile narkagati sari (low born and guilty of many sinful deeds/If one spends time in bad company, one is doomed) (Udyoga Parva, 1972: 103). When Bhishmma vehemently protested, he abused him in the court and silenced him. He said that he himself did not deserve a place in the Kaurava court. He had no children and seeing his face in the morning was inauspicious. He was in the court at all for the magnanimity of king Duryodhana, who respected his age. He went on and on but the poet does not mention what all he said and leaves it at that. Those days, it was believed that seeing one without any issue, be it a man or a woman, in the morning, even by accident, would bring one misfortune. But it was a very cruel thing to tell one that he was the bringer of misfortune. It was an ultimate insult. Sakuni’s abuse did not contain any crude or offensive word as such, but the content of his discourse, i.e. the meaning of what he said in that specific cultural context, was highly insulting. When Drona protested against the treatment being meted out to Krishna, he abused him. He said he was a beggar who could not look after his wife. Because of him, she died of childbirth. In the seventh month of her pregnancy, she had fallen sick and in utter wickedness and cruelty, he tore open her body and extracted the baby. Thus, he was guilty of killing a woman. Although he was a pataki (sinner), they tolerated him and accommodated him in the court because he was the preceptor of the princes. He used harsh words: bhiksabasi (beggar), pataki and manda buddhi (wicked) and he humiliated him by calling him a murderer. He belittled him by telling him bluntly

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that he was in the court because of Duryodhana’s considerateness for his preceptor, not because he deserved to be there: tirihatya dosa tora sarire rahiachi/bidyaguru boli tote ame na bolu ho kichi (your body carries the blemish of the murder of a woman/We do not say anything because you are the preceptor) (Udyoga Parva. Incidentally, Sakuni’s language was much harsher against Drona than Bhishma. One reason could be that the former was an outsider to the Kuru family, unlike the latter. A certain invective of Kunti in “Gada Parva” is a striking example of bad language. She was extremely frustrated when she learnt that Duryodhana had not been killed although seventeen days had passed since the beginning of the Kurukshetra war. She gave vent to her feelings by abusing each of her children and Krishna. She condemned her womb for giving birth to jackals. She then used the jackal metaphor for her sons when she condemned Bhima for escaping when he faced the lion in the form of Duryodhana. She told them how she had suffered hunger day after day during long years in the forest so that her children survived. Now they had disappointed her. She went to the extent of saying that she wished the demon Baka had devoured Bhima, which would have lessened their suffering as Bhima used to consume half of the food prepared for them all. She denounced Bhima’s maces of which he was proud. She condemned Arjuna and Yudhisthira. At the end of her long and bitter tongue lashing, she damned Krishna. She told him that she had depended on him but he had badly for having let her down. She condemned him wishing that his reputation as the savior be tarnished: jagannatha nama tora jagata bandhabapana/sehi tohara dhika heu he Narayana (You bear the name “Jagannatha” for being the friend of all in the world/May that reputation be befouled) (Gada Parva, 2439: 112). In twenty-five couplets (Gada Parva, 2438–39: 88–112) that embody Kunti’s disappointment and bitterness, she used the curse word “dhika” (be damned) sixteen times: for herself, Bhima and Krishna. When she condemned herself, as in couplet 97, she actually condemned her sons: dhika dhika muhi je tumbhara garvadhari/dhika dhika hou muhin tumbhanta je jata kali (May I, who bore you in my womb, be damned/May I be damned who gave birth to you). She used extremely degrading words “pamara (sinner),” “hinamati (low-minded)” and “modha (ignoramus)” for her sons. In the world of Sarala Mahabharata (as in other versions), calling a kshatriya (“one belonging to the warrior caste”) “coward,” which the jackal metaphor suggests, is being extremely abusive. When the mother said that she wished her son, Bhima, to have been devoured by the demon and was disappointed that that did not happen, she was being extremely harsh and condemnatory toward Bhima. Bhima responded with a sharp reprimand, telling her that raining from her mouth were words which were like stones. In Sarala’s narrative, there is a vicious quarrel between Draupadi and Hidimbaki (Hidimbi, in Vyasa Mahabharata), Bhima’s demoness wife (Sabha Parva II, 1191– 93: 73–85), and the language they hurled at each other was extremely brutal. They uttered curses and in terms of the belief system of those days, curse would count as an extreme form of bad language. On reaching the site of the rajaswiya jajna (“sacrifice named Rajaswiya”) Ghatotkacha, Hidimbaki’s son, paid obeisance to Bhima, who was his father, then to Krishna, then to sage Vyasa and then his father’s elder brother, Yudhisthira. Though Draupadi was sitting with Yudhisthira, he did not pay respects to

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her. There were many there who were relatives, royals and venerable sages. Draupadi felt extremely insulted. She charged him of grave misconduct. She told him that she was no ordinary woman. She was one with a high pedigree, unlike his mother who was a demoness and a pamari (“low and degenerate”); she was born a princess and after marriage, had become the queen of Yudhisthira. She was far more deserving of respect than the Pandavas and yet he had dared slight her in public. She cursed him that he would be short-lived and that he would fall in the battlefield without a fight: mata pameri bakye mote tuhi hinsa kalu/bina judhdhe tohara hrude bajra sakati padu (obeying your degenerate mother you disrespected me/May a terrible weapon fall on your chest in the battlefield when you are not fighting). Hidimbaki, who was standing outside the jajna shala (“site of the sacrifice”), not having been invited to the event, barged into the site and let loose a volley of abuses at Draupadi. She had nothing to fear. She knew she had lost her son owing to the curse. And in terms of the power equation, she was not at a disadvantage with respect to Draupadi. She was, after all, the first daughter-in-law of the Pandava family and although she belonged to the asuric (“demonly”) culture, after her wedding, she had followed the Arjya (Aryan) culture and had brought up her son in that culture. Her son was the king of a forest kingdom and he had been anointed king in the Arjya ritual system. If Draupadi was the queen, she was the queen mother. In the presence of all, she called Draupadi an unchaste woman (asati) and a pameri (“low and degenerate”), who lived in sin with five men and such a woman, she said, was entirely unworthy of her son’s respect. She told her that her son was a mere boy and that she was like his mother. It was therefore highly deplorable that she cursed her child to suffer untimely death. She said that since Draupadi was issueless at that time, she could not harm her the way she had harmed her. So, she cursed her unborn children that they would be killed during their very childhood. From the cultural point of view, her curse was much worse than Draupadi’s. Ghatotkacha would die in the battlefield, hit on the chest rather than on the back, which was considered a highly desirable death for a kshatriya. In contrast, it would be extremely unfortunate for one, not just of the kshatriya caste, to have to die when still a child. Both used extremely harsh and abusive words against each other. Draupadi called Ghatotkacha dusta (“wicked”), papistha (“sinner”), chhara (“extremely low”), pamara, and referred to his mother as pameri and nilaksani (“ill-mannered and uncouth”). Hidimbaki called Draupadi pameri, asati and anthukudi (“issueless”). In terms of the value system of those days, living with more than one man at the same time, even within wedlock, was considered sinful and in terms of the the-then belief system, an issueless man and even more a woman, was considered so ill-fated that seeing her face in the morning was believed to be extremely inauspicious. Calling a woman asati and anthukudi was extremely insulting. When Hidimbaki told Draupadi that her curse, terrible though it was, had a silver lining in that her son would die an honorable death, she suggested that wicked though Draupadi was, fate was against her when she uttered her curse on account of which she could not be vicious enough. The tone of the interaction was aggressive, abusive and foul in the extreme. To conclude, this paper has tried to explicate the notion of bad language through an analysis of some of the more important verbal engagements in the most celebrated

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of the classical texts in Odia language. It characterizes bad language as basically the language that hurts and demeans the target. In the process of the analysis, the paper has shown how bad language is allied to power and how it reflects the relationship between language and culture.

Notes 1. “The” is used before “Mahabharata” only when it refers to Vyasa’s composition. “Mahabharata” is used here ambiguously to refer to a text with that name and to an “abstraction,” a story which has been retold by many, including Vyasa and Sarala Das. When used in the latter sense, it is not preceded by the definite article and is not italicized. The definite article has not been used before Sarala Mahabharata because it is a proper noun. Words from Indian languages which have become part of the mythological discourse in English have not been italicized. 2. All references to Sarala Mahabharata here are to the text edited by Artaballav Mohanty (2007), published by Sarala Sahitya Sansad, Cuttack. 3. “Swargarohana Parva, 2734: 1712–13” is to be read as “Swargarohana Parva, page 2374, couplets 1712–1713.

References Camus, A. (1958). Caligula and 3 other plays. Vintage Books. Faleiro, S. (2011). Beautiful thing: Inside the secret world of Bombay’s dance bars. Canongate Books Ltd. Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J.L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics Vol. 3: Speech acts. Academic Press. Ishiguro, K. (2005). The remains of the day. Faber and Faber Limited. Mohanty, A. (Ed.) (2007). Sarala Mahabharata. Sarala Sahitya Sansad. Patnaik, B. N. (2012). Introducing Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata. Central Institute of Indian Languages. Radhakrishnan, S. (2010). The Dhammapada. Oxford University Press (Twelfth impression). Thompson, G. (2008). The Bhagavad Gita: A new translation. North Point Press.

Structure of Language in Multilingual Settings: Some Issues Shreesh Chaudhary

1 Introduction Human beings are not the only ones who have “knowledge.” Markandeya Purana,1 also known as Durgasaptashati, says all living beings have systems of knowledge, but they manifest differently. Gerald Durrell has written extensively about the ways in which some animals communicate. Douroucouli monkeys, found in the British Guiana, can engage in “long and complicated conversation…while they feed,” says Durrel.2 We need to know more about animals and about how they communicate. They too seem to have a “language.” But what is “language”? Much attention has been given in the last few decades, particularly since Chomsky came up with his proposal for a universal generative grammar,3 to the structure of language. It might not be an exaggeration to say that during the last half a century there has been more work in phonology, phonetics, morphology and syntax of languages, in the structure of language generally, than almost all the earlier work put together. Beginning 1960s, study of meaning became fashionable once again; but after generative semanticists lost, the study of meaning has received relatively

1

…gyaanino manjua satyan kintute nahi kewalam…“Human beings have (a system of) knowledge, but they are not the only ones (who have it) …” Verse:49, Chapter 1, Markandeya Purana. http:// aranyadevi.com/aranyadevi/pdf/Durga_Saptashati.pdf. 2 Durrell (1958: 30) For books of Durrell, see https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/gerald-durrell/208 524/. 3 Chomsky (1957). S. Chaudhary (B) Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_16

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little attention.4 People like Mark Aronoff5 and Elisabeth Selkirk6 had done some ground breaking work in combining study of morphology and semantics. But led by Chomsky, syntactic theory evolved in a manner that left little room for the study of meaning by linguists. That, however, does not mean that “meaning” is not a fit subject for linguistic enquiry. One reason meaning is more important than any other aspect of language is because all we do with language is anchored in meaning. Meaning permeates everything, including intonation.7 If somebody says “apple” in one tone and again “apple” in another tone, then we know that two things are intended. Philosophy of language has tried to understand this phenomenon, but the study of meaning does not seem to have reached a state of understanding where it can propose an algorithm to correctly distinguish one articulation of the same word from another with different meaning. Plato will have to be brought back into it, and we will have to understand why we understand more than we hear or see, more than we experience.8 Yet it must be admitted that study of structure is central to the linguistic study of language. Meaning may arise from more than language, but without the study of rules and lexical units, making up structure of language, language cannot be studied. But, in spite of advances in the study of structure of language, there are unresolved issues. One issue of this kind is knowledge and use of language by multilingual people. The present paper raises some issues of this kind for further discussion by linguistic theory leading to a better understanding of structure and use of language and of the architecture of its knowledge. What are the contents of language? Is it speech, which is its most noticeable manifestation, or cognition, which is at the heart of it? Is “Language” a material substance? A lot has been said on this subject. And that brings us to the topic of brain and cognition studies. Studies of human brain claim that human brain has a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere, and they are believed to have specific functions. But do we know the difference between brain and mind, or where mind ends and the body begins? Or, what is mind, what is brain? Language does distinguish between them. One may be mentally retarded or mentally challenged, but one is not “brainly” retarded or “brainly” challenged. People also talk of front area and back area. Left front lobe of the brain is said to have one kind of ability, and right lobe is attributed another. People also talk of other attributes of mind/brain.

4

For a brief note and information on Generative Semantics, see https://www.google.com/sea rch?sxsrf=ALeKk02yp5RIT925QwJ8mUZTdj3ageqqSg%3A1593102788330&source=hp&ei= xNH0Xvj9EceX4-EP0ayn6Ag&q=generative+semantics+&oq=generative+semantics+&gs_lcp= CgZwc3ktYWIQAzICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjI GCAAQFhAeMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjoECCMQJzoICAAQsQMQkQI6CAgAEIMBEJ ECOgUIABCxAzoFCAAQgwE6BQgAEJECOgcIABAUEIcCUPIdWPVBYPpPaABwAHgAg AGCAogB9R6SAQYwLjE3LjSYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKE wj476Wusp3qAhXHyzgGHVHWCY0Q4dUDCAc&uact=5. 5 Aronoff (1976). 6 Selkirk (1984). 7 Goldsmith (1979). 8 Chomsky (1986).

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Mathematics and music are believed to be located in the left hemisphere, and literature and story-telling are believed to be located in the right part of the brain, etc. All of these areas have specific names. So front left part of brain is called “Broca’s area” and is believed to be the location of the ability to speak9 ; and left rear area, near the brain stem, is called Wernicke’s area and is believed to be the location of the ability to listen and understand.10 So, the story goes, if somebody is hurt in the front left part of the brain, then one’s ability to speak is lost. Evidence is produced through a variety of scans of brain while subjects are speaking and listening.11 But all of these data fail to answer why one regains language after some therapy. Does one re-grow a copy of the same organ, like nails on one’s fingers, or hair upon one’s chin or head, in place of the ones that have been lost? How does brain/mind regain the ability to understand and speak after damage and in spite of a period of silence and incomprehension? These views of language and cognition do not recognize the holistic power of brain; they cannot explain how visually challenged people learn to spell12 ; neither can they tell how a hearing challenged person can compose music.13 Some traditions believe that brain/mind is an auto-repairing mechanism and can survive many difficult situations.14 It can receive inputs through any channel and reach conclusions that would ordinarily be possible only through other sense organs. But adequate experimental evidence is yet to be found in support of this view. How do we hear? We know quite a bit about how we produce speech sounds. We also know how these sounds are transmitted. But we know little about how brain distinguishes among similar sounds brought to it by agents in the auditory canal. We know that cochlea vary in length and thickness, and, therefore, they produce electrical waves of different sizes and intensities when hit by the turbulence of air 9

Broca (1861). Wernicke (1875/1995). 11 Two very commonly used technologies in this respect are called, 1. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and 2. Positron Emission Tomography (PET). For basics of MRI, see https://www.goo gle.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk005rJVnwpw4RKZaYTQAIK8VZ6L7cw%3A1590729335975& source=hp&ei=d5rQXvCYOZOW4-EP3NKE8Ak&q=what+is+mri±. For PET, see https://www. google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03tO_L2bW3bkOupjMyoOGtxX27Y4A%3A1590729348891& ei=hJrQXs7qNZie4-EPnMiq0Ao&q=what+is+a+pet+scan+of+the+brain+used+for&oq=what+ is+pet+scan+od+brain+&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgCMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjIICA AQCBANEB46BAgAEEc6BQgAEJECOgIIADoFCAAQgwE6BAgAEAo6CAgAEBYQChAeO ggIIRAWEB0QHjoECAAQDToGCAAQBxAeUMu-CVj9pQtg6IkMaABwAXgAgAGeAogByh uSAQYwLjE5LjKYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab. 12 Jyothi (1993). 13 Beethoven, the noted composer, became total deaf by about the age of 44. See https://www. google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03Tk5zD4i329_YkK3gkrcDggk65vw%3A1595252124446& ei=nJ0VX7blGtWo9QPZm4foDA&q=beethoven+deaf&oq=beethoven+&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktY WIQARgAMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIA BBDMgcIABCxAxBDMgoIABCxAxBDEIsDMgcIABBDEIsDOgQIIxAnOgIIADoICAAQFhA KEB46BwgjEOoCECc6BQgAEIsDOggIABCxAxCLA1D5wwFYgvQBYJjyAmgBcAB4BIABz AGIAc0VkgEGMC4xNS4xmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdperABCrgBAw&sclient=psy-ab. Yet he composed. 14 Satprakashanand (1994). 10

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waves carrying speech sounds. What happens beyond this point? What mechanism in the brain deciphers these waves so accurately as to distinguish between sounds that are minimally different, or that change the meaning of the same word when produced with a different intonation? So little is known about brain that nothing can be said about it with confidence.15

2 Multilingual Discourse It seems brain brings a body of knowledge to bear upon the linguistic text to understand its meaning. A word or phrase belongs to a certain semantic category, syntactic category, morpho-phonological and phonetic categories, besides belonging to a register, a dialect and a style, etc. Slightest error in the application of knowledge from any of these to the heard text can cause misunderstanding of the text. For instance, see the following16 : (1) Instances of mishearing Correct response

Wrong response

1. Novice

a. Enormous b. Obvious c. Nervous d. Novelist

2. Wood work

a. Good work b. Book work

3. Lady’s size

a. Lady’s eyes b. Lady’s side c. Latest size

After listening to the recorded audio-clip containing the relevant phrases, the listeners were asked to fill in the blanks on the given sheets. If hearing were all that mechanical, then this kind of misunderstanding would not occur—people, or at least those people that are not hearing impaired, would hear and understand anything correctly. But that is not always the case. Some years ago, Usha (1995) asked why mishearing occurs. To answer this question, she played over two dozen recorded talks and tales to about 1,100 people of various descriptions and checked if the listeners heard and correctly understood what they had heard. She found that most incorrect responses, including those given in (1) above, matched the expected responses in many ways. Incorrect responses had the same syntactic category—a noun was misunderstood only for a noun, an adjective 15 16

Chomsky (1986: 39). Usha (1995).

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for an adjective, etc., as seen in (1) above. Wrong answer had a similar phonological structure, yet it was not the right word. Misunderstandings occur. Perhaps more processes are involved at the neural level than simply physical. Things like worldview, extent of knowledge of the world and the language, the topic and its context have all been said to have an influence upon the processing of data by brain. A particular text, for instance, had a line saying “I was a novice.” Many respondents filled in the given blank with one of the words cited in (1) above. We can see the phonological similarity—both “a novice” and many of these words have. The right word, novice?, has main stress on the initial syllable; in “enormous,” the wrong answer, the initial syllable has a short vowel. Stress, therefore, moves to the next syllable where the initial sound is the alveolar nasal like the initial sound of the expected word. Beginning with the stressed syllable, they are both bi-syllabic. They are all compliments to the verb “was,” etc. Similarities between the expression, “I wanted a book on wood work” and any of the other answers received can also be noticed. “Wood work” was misunderstood for: “good work,” “book work,” etc. They are both noun phrases, bi-syllabic and can be objects of the verb “buy.” Yet another phrase from the same text, “Ladies’ size,” was misunderstood for “Lady’s eyes,” “latest size.” The expected answer and these choices have remarkable similarities. Yet crucial points are missed. In an undergraduate classroom, we checked cognition of words in print. Students proficient in English were asked to fill in the blanks in the following poem. (2)17

John’s looks 1. __are_____ good His dress is formal His voice is low. His mind is 2. ______sound____ His appetite for work’s abnormal A plastic name tag 3. ____hangs______around His collar like a votive necklace Though 4. __well-paid___, he is far from reckless, Pays his rent promptly, jogs, 5. ___does__ not Smoke cigarettes, and rarely 6. ___pot___, Eschews both church and 7. __heavy____ drinking, Enjoys his garden, likes to 8. ____read___ Eclectically from Mann to Bede (A surrogate, some say, 9. __for____ thinking.) Friends claim 10. ____he’s___ grown aloof and prim (His boss, 11. __though____, is well-pleased with him.)

Highlighted words within the broken lines are the expected answers. These are the only words that would fit and fill in the blanks if syntactic, semantic and metrical 17

Seth (1986, p. 3). This poem was used as part of the classroom materials for the course called “HS.0021English – Advanced Level” offered as a Humanities elective to selected undergraduate students at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India during 1995–2014.

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features of the required word were to be met. Quite a few students went wrong. They thought, for instance, it could be either “good” or “intelligent” at no. two. These words are adjectives required there; “good” as a mono-syllabic word fits, but it does not rhyme with “around,” as required metrically, in the following line. So also in blank no. 3 above. It needs a verb that fits semantically and that has only one syllable. The only English word that will answer syntactic, semantic and metrical requirements of this slot is “hangs.” Words like “is,” “goes,” “dangles,” etc. will not fit there; “dangles” may fit semantically, but will be a misfit metrically; “goes” and “is” may fit syntactically and metrically, but would not fit semantically. In this manner, we can go through the entire poem. We can see that to fill in the given blanks correctly, one should know the syntactic, semantic and metrical features of the relevant word. While doing the exercise, many students went wrong in one or another feature, but when given the expected answers, they agreed that these were the only words that would fit. We can thus, agree, that even a second language speaker, or a proficient non-native speaker of any language, can also have intuitive knowledge of the various features of its words as also of the rules following which they may combine with one another. Meaning may be difficult to predict through algorithms even today, but units and rules of structure of languages have been developed to predict all and only grammatical structures with considerable accuracy. This is largely true of monolingual persons. How does it happen? How does our linguistic intuition work? Even those that do not that a particular word is “noun” or “verb” identify only nouns and verbs when they have to pick up a word for noun and verb slots in a conversation, such as when completing a conversation, or when helping an interlocutor get a word that the latter knows, but cannot recall, etc. How does mind/brain store all these data, such that a slight cue can trigger a largely, even if not entirely, matching response? What principles and processes guide building of knowledge base in mind/brain? Yet why does brain miss one or two sounds and go off mark? We have no clear answer yet. If we extend this enquiry further, and ask about the ability of multilingual people, then we can test the adequacy of these structural concepts in respect of some complex but occurring and unaccounted for language use. How does mind/brain store data such that similar sounding words with different meanings in different languages generally do not get listed even for the wrong choice? Are the walls between the so called languages, like, for example, Hindi and English, so thick that nothing can cross from one into the other? Or, are these walls so porous that anything can get across and mix with other elements in the selected slot in the other languages? From multilingual communities, such as those in India, where lots of people speak more than one, or more than two, or even three, languages, we have instances of mixing of sentences, phrases, words, parts of words and inflexions from one language with those in others. In multilingual communities, mixing of units, such as sentences, phrases or words is a well-known phenomenon. See, for instance, the following from the sixteenth century,

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(3)18 yadi bhawati jalaadulkalkako moutkhaane satam ahitbhaasii guhyaruk striisukhonah Gloss: “When Mars is in the eighth house, its native then is foul mothed person always seeking the company of women.”

Highlighted elements are Persian phrases borrowed into a Sanskrit sentence. Rahim, the poet, could have said, mout e khaana, “in eighth house,” according to the rules of the Persian grammar applying to a Persian phrase, and he could still have embedded it into a Sanskrit sentence. But Rahim applies Sanskrit inflexion to it instead, still saying “in the eighth house,” and uses it in a Sanskrit sentence. This happens very frequently in the discourse of multilingual children who may take a word from one language and its inflection or derivational affix from another. We can see some examples from multilingual children’s discourse given below. (4) Multilingual Children19 No.

Speaker

Conversation and language

1.

Mu

kahiyanu piisii maan ke je pant change “Ask your aunt to change your pant.” ka detii: Maithili

“Gloss”

2.

Rc

baabii ne kahaa hA pant change karaa “Grandma has asked you to help me do: Hindi change my pant”

3.

Ra

puuchho baabii se kaun saa pant pahnogii Hindi

“Ask grandma which pant you will wear.”

4.

RC

baabii ham kaun sa pant pahinuu Maithili

“Grandma, which pant will I wear?”

5.

Mu

bhaaijii ke puchhiyanu khenaai kiyaik nai khaai chhathi Maithili

“Ask bhaaijii why he does not eat dinner.”

6.

Rc

bhaaijii, tumi khaabaar keno khaay naa Bengali

“Brother, why do you not eat dinner?”

7.

Mu:

Richa bhaaijii ke kahuu Tebul khaalii karuu

“Richa, ask brother to clear the table.”

8.

Rc

bhaaijii baabii bolchhe Tebul khaalii korte Bengali

“Brother, baabii says clear the table.”

9.

Mu:

richaa bimlaa aanTii ke bajaau ta Maithili

“Richa, call Bimala aunt, please.” (continued)

18

At the instance of emperor, Jalaluddin Akbar (1540–1603), Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana. (1556–1627) composed in verse a book, called KheTa Kautukam, “Wonders of the Skies,” in Sanskrit language summarising the essence of the Hindu Astrology. The book frequently mixes Persian phrases into Sanskrit discourse. For a fuller discussion of this work, see Chaudhary (2009 pp. 202–205). Also see Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b). 19 From Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b).

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S. Chaudhary

(continued) No.

Speaker

Conversation and language

“Gloss”

10.

Rc:

bimlaa aanTii aapko baabii bulaa rahii hA Hindi

“Bimala Aunt, Grandma is calling you.”

11.

Sh:

richaa paper raakhuu samaTi ka Maithii

“Richa fold the newspaper properly, please.”

12.

Rc:

hamraa nai abaiA Maithili

“I don’t know.”

13.

Sh

rishuu ahaan sikhaa diyanu Maithili

“Rishu, instruct her, please.”

14.

Rs:

richaa, fold it properly

richaa, fold it properly

15.

Sh

rishuu enaa sikhAl jaai chhai? richaa bhaaijii chaahait chhathi je ahaan buddhu rahii Maithili

Rishu, is this how you teach? Richa, (your) brother wants you to remain stupid for life.”

16.

Rc:

(bhaaiji) do you want me to be stupid?

17.

Rs:

Yes, of course

18.

Rc:

bhaaijii ganduu chhathi Maithii

“Broher is dirty.”

Mu is 58, Sc 60. Ra 34, Rs 12 and Rc 6. It is meal-time in the family

Notice the felicity with which Rc, a six-year-old girl, switches language. In (4.1), (4.3), (4.4), (4.5), (4.7), (4.9), and later Rc is told in one language, but she delivers each of them to the intended recipient in another language, easily switching among Maithili, Hindi, Bengali and English. The child knows who should be spoken to in which language; and, using the appropriate language, she delivers the message exactly as told, switching and managing effortlessly all the linguistic and social features of the languages used. Switching code to match the listener is well attested among multilingual children.20 It may be noticed that the child makes no mistake of pragmatics or grammar in any language, except one. Prompted by her aunt in (4.3), Rc asks her grandmother in (4.4) which pant she will wear. While asking, she uses “kaun sa,” which is a Hindi expression, not valid in Maithili. Maithili would in this position have “kon,” no more. But I am inclined to believe that this may have happened because of the power of the discourse at this moment. But it is not unlikely she has brought an inappropriate particle in an appropriation position. This experience establishes the habit, but this child, it seems had not got enough yet. Look at some more examples, as follow. (5) Children Use a Mixed Language No.

Speaker

Conversation and language

“Gloss”

1.

Rc

ham aab kenaa uTh(B)ab

“How would I climb?”

2.

Ri

jiiyaa chhup(H)ai chhathi

“Jiya hides”

3.

Rc

baabaa ii Ta gumi (B) gel chhelA,

“Grandfr, this had been lost” (continued)

20

See Bhaya and Rukmini (1991), Flynn (1988), Kanthimathi (2007) among many others.

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(continued) No.

Speaker

Conversation and language

“Gloss”

4.

Rc

baabaa ahaan read (E) ka ka sunaau

“Grandfather, read it to me”

5.

Rc

ahaan kon saa (H) miThaai khelaun ?

“What sweet did you have/”

6.

Rc

tum ne is baar book (E) bhii kyon paThaa diyaa

“Why did you this time also send me a book?”

B = Bengali, H = Hindi, E = English; highlighted words/particles have been borrowed into these Maithili sentences from languages indicated through the initial letters of their names

Notice that Rc fluently uses a mixed language. Ordinarily, children are known to be more creative than the adults. In the conversation cited above, we can see instances not only of the mixing of words and phrases from one language into another, but also of mixing of roots of words from one language with inflexions from another to make up a particular word and phrase in the actual spoken sentence. In (5.1) above, Rc uses root word from Bengali, uTh’ “climb,” with the inflexion for first person future mode, “ab,” of Maithili. If the inflexion also came from Bengali, then it should have been “uTh + bo”; if the root word also came from Maithili, the child should have said “chaDh + ab.” But the child, perhaps not yet sure of what belongs where, takes root word from one and inflexion from another language. That language being used in this manner is not a fluke, or just a random chance, is amply proved by other examples cited in (5) above. The same thing happens in (5.2) in the language spoken by another speaker in this multilingual family. Ri says “… chhup(H)ai chhathi.” Here root word, chhup “hide,” comes from Hindi; but its inflexion for the verb in the simple present comes from Maithili and we hear “chhup(H)ai chhathi,” “hides.” If it were entirely Hindi, then it would have been “chhup + tii hai,” “hides”; if, on the other hand, it were entirely Maithili, then it should have been “nukaait + chhathi,” hides. Ri, an older boy, and Rc a girl six years her brother’s junior, use and inflect the verbs in the same way. In (5.3), a similar phenomenon can be observed. Not knowing how to render it in Maithili, Rc uses “read,” an English verb, in a Maithili sentence, with Maithili inflection for verbs borrowed into Maithili from another language. Another interesting example from this point of view is (5.6) above. It combines a Maithili root word, paThaa, “send,” with diyaa, “did,” resulting in “(you) sent the book.” The root here is from Maithili, and the inflection, diyaa, from Hindi, making the verb paThaa + diyaa. “did send,”: together. All of these apparently non-standard examples of use of language show at least two things, as follows: (6) Components of Knowledge of Language 1. Units of language, from sentence to inflexions to sound, and 2. Rules that join these units in an acceptable order. Knowledge of the etymology of these units is an additional feature, not indispensable for use of language. A verb of any language with some modification can

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go as a verb with other units of any language. For another instance, we can see the following lines of an essay on Pongal festival written in Hindi by a Tamil-speaking school student in Chennai. (7)21 sab log adhiklai kulichte hain aur naya kapda ududutta hai vaasal mein bada bada kolam potutta hai “All people eat much new clothes wear home inside big big kollam draw.” Even in these two lines, we can see that the writer has taken the root verb from Tamil, kulich and inflexional affix for the third person plural verb in the present tense from Hindi, te, to make kulich + te, “wash.” In yet another instance of this ability to create grammatically acceptable phrase, even if it may not be culturally acceptable, can be seen in the two other examples of inflexions of verb in this manner in this sentence, In ududutta, the main root verb, ududu, “wear,” comes from Tamil, but the inflexion for verb in the present tense agreeing with noun in the third person singular number, ta, comes from Hindi to make udud + ta, “wears.” The same pattern is repeated in potu(t) + ta, “draws.” It can be said that these individuals do not yet have socially acceptable language, but the evidence presented here indicates that they know root of verb from its inflexion, and where they are at a loss they can take one from one language and the other from another language, and put them together, to make a grammatical expression. Nouns occur in the place of noun, verbs in the place of verb, and their inflexions where inflexions ought to be. Whether they all come from and should come from one language, or anything from anywhere is a cultural issue that can be and generally is resolved by all speech communities through norms of the so called “standard” language. But the grammatical sense of human beings includes a sense of recognizing grammatical units and of the way these units may combine to make a legitimate expression in the community. It is this ability of monolingual speakers that is sought to be described by modern grammars. Can this not be done for multilingual people too? Not just use, inability to do so is also pan-linguistic. One who stammers while speaking in one language stammers in all else. One who writes good handwriting in one does so in all else. Evidence from allegedly dyslexic children also bears this out. If they have difficulty with the order of letters and sounds in language, then that handicap is not limited to their knowledge of any one language. This disability spreads to all languages, and when it disappears, it does so from all languages the dyslexic individual knows and uses. Some instances are cited below.

21

Personal communication from a colleague in Chennai.

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(8.) English and Hindi Writing of M, A Nine-Year-Old (Dyslexic) Child22 English

English

Hindi

Hindi

Glossary

Written word

Intended word

Written word

Intended word

“Glossary”

On children’s day, DiD you…

… did …

anchaahi

anchaahii

“unwanted”

, … and os on

, … and so on

… ki kyaa wisheshtaa

Kii kyaa wisheshtaa “of what characteristic”

… part of countury…

… country

… dortaa thaa

… dourtaa thaa

“ran”

… there was Boy…

… was a boy…

uske aankh laal the…

uskii aankhen laal thii…

“his/her eyes were red”

… his father name was…

… father’s name…

… shiikaar koi nahiin karegaa…

… shikaar koi nahiin karegaa…

“none will hunt”

…… after some … After some… months…

…sukhii se jiine do…

…sukh se jiine do

… “let (one) live happily”

… got throught paining…

patii- patnii

pati- patnii

“husband–wife”

… din’t no what … didn’t know… to do

priya pritaa

priya priitaa

“Dear Prita”

… kept the neclece…

… prashna puchhte

… prashna puuchhte

“asked questions”

…got throat pain…

… the necklace…

… in the Bank

… in the bank

praarthanaa

paraarthanaa

“prayer”

… your parents way…

… parent’s…

talegu

telugu

“ name of a south Indian language”

…bieng an adult …being an adult

Tuufaani gati se…

tuufaanii gati se …

“at the speed of storm”

… strict mo ralcode…

…moral code

lAkin phir bhii lekin phir bhii…

“still, even then”

… you no there was…

You know…

Kyaa uttar kyaa dakshin aayaa…

Kyaa uttar kaa dakshin aayaa…

“what to say of north, south came too..,”

…so many cireals…

…serials

…dharaa merii gaagan merii

…dharaa merii gagan meraa

“Mine is the earth, mine the sky.”

It may be noticed that all allegedly dyslexic children have only three kinds of difficulties in writing, as mentioned below.

22

M was believed to have been a dyslexic. But with support from teachers and family, M overcame this problem before she passed school to join higher classes in university. See the table given in (8). Today she is a parent and lives the life of a normal person managing responsibilities in a company. These data were collected from her note book during the time she grew from a five year old to an 11 year old. Some of these data have been discussed in Chaudhary (1998), and Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b).

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S. Chaudhary (9.)

a. Geometry of letters, b. Order of use of letters in a sequence, and c. Number of times a letter is used in the “correct” spelling of any word

Mistakes in writing made by dyslexic children can be classified into only these categories, but these mistakes are not limited to their use or knowledge of only one language. These mistakes are found in all they write. And when, as they grow, they pick up right geometry, right order and right number of times of iteration, then they make no mistakes of this kind in any language they write, as the following table shows for the child cited above. (10.) Development of Writing Skill in M (b.1988), An Allegedly Dyslexic Child Age of the child

a.

b. Relative to Geometry

c. Relative to Order

d. Relative to Iteration

Hindi

English

Hindi

English

Hindi

English

Seven

05/08 (62%)

05/20 (25%)

03/08 (40%)

10/20 (50%)

01/08 (15%)

10/20 (50%)

Nine

00/28 (00%)

00/69 (00%)

12/28 (45%)

14/69 (22%)

27/28 (90)

59/69 (90%)

Eleven

00/104 (00%)

00/69 (00%)

25/104 (24%)

10/69 (16%)

87/104 (82%)

61/69 (90%)

But there is a problem. How can grammar be organized such that it can take any unit from any language and join them with likely units from another language in the given slot at will? In the rest of this paper we will discuss this question and see how this question can be best understood and answered.

3 Discussion Some say that learning one or many languages involves the same processes.23 Yet, there are significant differences. First languages are “acquired,” other languages are “learnt.” There are differences in the extents of exposure, and, motivation to learn, and degrees of success in learning first and later languages. Few people knowing two or more languages speak all languages with equal ease. Some speak one language with the accent of another, others construct and use phrases and sentences more appropriately in one than in another, yet others maintain distinctions in one language that they fail to observe in another. Mixing seems more common among multilinguals than is readily acknowledged. And missing seems to spread at all levels, from intonation to sentence construction. 23

Flynn (1988)

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Can we say different elements of language are stored differently in language specific boxes from which users choose according to the needs of their discourse? Some of these things need investigation with large bodies of data from multilingual settings before anything can be said with certainty. But questions arise. Just as concepts like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area lead us to believe that abilities are located at different spots in brain, are different languages also located in different places, or are they all stored together in one place, or in one box, so to say? If they are all together, then how does brain distinguish one from another? If they are stored separately, then what separates one language from another? How do we mark the boundary between two languages? How is one switched into use without touching the other(s)? How are they used at will? How do we, at will again, switch from one into another, or take words and expression from one into another, mixing words and expressions from one into the phrases and sentences of another, and yet obeying the rules of one rather than those of another grammar? As I have asked earlier in ), do we have one language only which has several forms in several locations, or do we have many languages, each with its own units, rules and norms of use? How does brain store them, together in one box called language, or in separate boxes called Hindi language, English language and …?24 All this is yet to be understood. Indian tradition differs in this respect. We have a different view of mind/brain. When one part of brain is affected, the other part takes over. Body generates other kinds of energy in other parts. It is not the eyes that see. Seer is someone else somewhere else. Mind/brain gets inputs from various sources to reach its own conclusions. Therefore, if one channel stops working, another somewhere else may take over. That is how Braille readers learn the spelling of words.25 Rather than see the letters and learn to spell the words, they touch the letters engraved on a specially designed sheet and learn to read the words. Body develops complementary and compensatory senses. There are many ways in which body supplements itself. It is not that one loses one thing actually and gets another piece of the same thing, a spare available in the store. That does not seem to happen. After injury to the brain, the language is either lost or is rendered incoherent for some time. But in many cases, soon mind repairs its faculties and regains its use. This has been attested in a large number of cases of injury to brain. So it seems the ability is in a certain sense physical and yet not local. Any part that is lost seems lost forever. But another part of human body, and perhaps another part of human mind/brain takes over, and performs that function. As our sages found, one sees, or hears, or does things only with internal instruments, antahakaran; all that is seen externally is done only with a tool—if one tool fails, another tool or the other tools take over; but the ability answering a need is somehow sustained. It is this ability sitting at the intersection of abilities that may be called linguistic ability manifesting itself in many ways, as and when required. But we hardly know anything about this ability yet. Vedanta says we have four states of consciousness—conscious, subconscious, unconscious and superconscious. This last state takes over even when one is asleep. 24 25

Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille.

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That is why even in their sleep they talk in grammatically correct language, as some people do, or their conversation with another in a dream also goes on in grammatically correct language, as many people experience in their dreams.26 That suggests there is a level of storage that never goes to sleep, that is almost always awake. But so little is now known about the relevant aspects of brain,” Chomsky says, “that we cannot even speculate what the connections might be….”27 Even this “little” knowledge comes from studies of the brains of monkeys, or of the brains of dead/disabled people, etc. may not be reliable. We do not know yet, as Chomsky asks,28 how an inorganic entity, such as human language, can exist in an organic substance called brain, where one finds nothing like human language. Knowledge of language, perhaps, resides in an organic stuff like mind in the form of electrical impulses, created by acoustic waves received in the auditory canal, or through photoelectric waves received through visual and auditory and other channels, etc. But, as we noted above, we do not know for sure, neither do we know what happens next, how are these impulses processed and “stored” in mind/brain? Vast areas of mind/brain are yet to be mapped and understood. We know next to nothing about what neural mechanics are involved in the storage, processing and use of linguistic data in mind/brain. Are these processes different for monolingual and multilingual children? Are multilingual children born with or develop some special tools or body parts to “do” more than monolingual children? Do the former do more than the monolingual children? How do they do so? Are their brains differently structured from those of the monolingual children? Are they born with or grow additional cortexes and larger neural networks? Do their brains grow faster or slower with more or fewer cortexes and neural networks than do the brains of monolingual children? We do not know. Neither do we seem anywhere near knowing our linguistic brains better than we have known so far, that is hardly worth the mention. As I have asked in related papers cited above,29 there is yet another aspect of a multilingual individual’s knowledge of language, which can be formulated as follows. (11.) a. Does a person knowing more than one language, such as Hindi, English, Tamil, etc. store their knowledge of different languages in different boxes, so to say, each isolated as a unique entity from the others; or, b. Does a person knowing more than one language store the entire knowledge of all languages they know in one box? No experimental evidence is available to prove either of these hypotheses right or wrong. Both seem possible, with their own specific good and bad consequences. If we assume that one creates as many boxes as the number of languages they know, then all we are doing is to keep all units and rules of all languages separately in separate boxes. This view can be called “Free Expansion Hypothesis,” or FEH. This view would be neat, without confusion, and with separate boxes for each language. And it 26

See Satprakashanand (1994). See Chomsky (1986). 28 See Chomsky (1995). 29 See Chaudhary (1998), and Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b). 27

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may not be so off the mark, as all multilingual people intuitively know when they are using one rather than another language. It is possible that they may not always refer to the language by its name, but they know when they speak one rather than another language. The only problem in this view is that we may have difficulty explaining mixing of units from one language into another. If boxes are each in isolation from the others, then there can be no traffic among them. But if these boxes are open and have holes, then all of this can be explained easily. The only problem may be cost. Lexicon would require unnecessary expansion. This by itself cannot be called wrong. Mind/brain is a powerful tool, its capacity to remember and use seems infinite. There is no upper or lower limits to know how much can an individual know, and that no individual can know more than so much. The only real problem with (10.a) lies in its inability to explain this unstoppable expansion of the box. Rge3 other Hypothesis, (10.b), suggests that one may know any number of languages, but one stores them all in the same box selecting what to use when in view of the dynamics of speech event, namely, who speaks what to whom, where, when and how? This hypothesis can be called a “Limited Expansion Hypothesis” (LEH). LEH is cost-effective and explains more easily the phenomenon of mixing and borrowing by one language into and from another. This view is neat, and it explains all the related phenomena of the use of language in multilingual setting more convincingly and in a cost-effective manner. LEH claims that human beings work and live with limited load, so that from a mass of data, they can reach conclusions in no time. This hypothesis can explain mixing, borrowing, birth of new languages and death of old ones. Basically, it assumes that just as speakers of any language know dialect specific features of units at different levels of the structure of language, so do the speakers of different languages. They know which words and sounds belong to which language, or how differently phrases or sentences of one language are constructed from those of another. Then depending upon the dynamics of speech, they choose which language, or dialect or which feature of which language or dialect to use when and where. LEH has greater explanatory and descriptive powers. All then one needs to do is to see how grammar of a multilingual person may be organized.

4 Least Expansion Hypothesis30 Units of all languages/dialects/varieties, and specific rules to combine these units with one another are all stored together with specifications of features for use.

In other words, LEH, says that be it syntax or phonology of English or Hindi, at different levels, i.e. phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse, all units are stored together. But some units may bear special language/dialect/ variety specific mark, so that at each level for each unit, one knows which of them is for 30

For a detailed discussion of this hypothesis, see Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b: 151–60).

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which language or languages, and then one uses them appropriately. To illustrate, past tense inflection for the verb “give” in Hindi is, diya. “gave,” which should go with the Hindi verb, bhej, send. But because this word is not yet available to the speaker, it seems, in the lexicon of this individual shares with Rc, she attaches this past tense inflexion to the verb root from Maithili that is available to her, is there in her lexicon. The following outlines offer a visual representation of this view of multilingual people’s knowledge of language, 12. Multilingual Person’s Knowledge of Language: Units SOUND S1 S2 S3 Sn

WORD W1 W2 Wm Wn

PHRASE P1 P2 Pm Pn

SENTENCE ST1 ST2 STm STn

Geometry and relative order of these boxes, which I have discussed at some length in Chaudhary (2014a, 2014b), is not a crucial issue here. The hypothesis here is that all sounds of all languages, S1 to Sn , or all words from W1 to Wn , etc. are all stored together in one box. But if there is some sound, or word, or phrase, or inflexion, or a construction type, etc., that is used in only a particular variety of language, then it is marked Sm , Wm . etc. A similar hypothesis can be proposed for the organization of rules that apply to and combine these structural units, from sound to sentence. A visualization of a multilingual person’s organization of rules is given below.

5 Multilingual Person’s Knowledge of Language: Rules R1 R2 Rm Rn

Just as in (12.), all rules for relevant levels are also stored together with extra marking upon those that are there only for a specific language. Thus, because Rc uses some language specific things where she knows them and uses some others about which one does not know, she is still able to produce a grammatically correct sentence, like paThaa doyaa, “did send.” In a similar manner all “aberrant” instances of language can be explained.

6 Concluding Remarks From the discussion above, it appears that the structural tools to describe use of language by a multilingual person need not be significantly different from those that are used currently to describe others. The organization of these units and rules,

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in other words, the design and operation of their lexicon cam be. What has been said here is hardly enough to reach any conclusion, but it seems an enquiry into a multilingual person’s knowledge of language can proceed in this direction. The true nature of the knowledge of language and its structure can be understood better by looking at the use of language in multilingual settings.

References Aronoff, M. (1976) Word formation in generative grammar, The MIT Press. Bhaya Nair, R. (1991). Monosyllabic English or disyllabic Hindi? Language learning in a Bilingual child. Indian Linguistics, 52, 51–90. Broca, P. (1861). Portee de la Parole: Romallisement chronique et destruction partielle de lobe anterieur gauche de cerveau. Bulletin de la Science d’Anthropologie, 2, 235 Chaudhary, S. (1998). Knowledge of language & the multilingual mind. Language Sciences, 20(2), 201–220. Chaudhary, S. (2009). Foreigners & foreign languages in India (pp. 202–205). Cambridge University Press. Chaudhary, S. (2014a). Rahim’s KheTakautukam. Indian Linguistics, 74(1–2), 105–113. Chaudhary, S. (2014b) Knowledge of language & the multilingual mind. Indian Linguistics, 75, 145–70. Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. Gruyter. Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. Praeger. Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program (pp. 1–2). MIT Press. Durrell, G. (1958/2011) Encounters with animals. Westland Ltd. Flynn, S. (1988). Second language acquisition and grammatical theory. In F. J. Newmeyer (Ed.), Linguistics: The Cambridge survey (Vol. II, pp. 53–73). Cambridge University Press. Goldsmith, J. A. (1979). Autosegmental phonology. Garland Publishers. Jyothi, D. A. (1993). Aetiology of spelling disability in students learning English as a second language (Ph.D. thesis). Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Kanthimathi. (2007). Code-mixing tamil and English: A study of language use by college students in Tamil Nadu (Ph.D. thesis), Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Satprakashanand, S. (1994). Mind according to Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna Math. Selkirk, E. O. (1984). Phonology and syntax: The relation between sound and structure. The MIT Press. Seth, V. (1986). The golden gate. Random House. Usha, R. (1995). Linguistic aspects of listening in english as a second language (Ph.D. thesis). Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Wernicke, K. (1875, 1995). The aphasia symptom-complex: A psychological study on an anatomical basis. In P. Eling (Ed.), Reader in the history of aphasia (pp. 69–89). John Benjamins Pub Co.

The Politics of Language: Politics by Another Name Arvind Sivaramakrishnan

It need be no surprise that the politics of language—almost anywhere in the world and at any time in history—is part and parcel of politics in any wider sense of the term. Historical examples abound, as do literary ones. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 led to the transformation of variants of Saxon—itself an import into the British Isles—into something recognizably like our English by the time of Chaucer in the fourteenth century. In literature, Jaroslav Hašek’s novel The Good Soldier Švejk contains, among other highly accomplished constructions, repeated and obviously deliberate distortions of an inflected language, by clear implication German, as a political gesture against the then ruling power, the Austro-Hungarian empire (Stern, 31). In our time, Welsh (in Welsh, Cymraeg) has undergone a remarkable revival after facing the prospect of extinction in the 1960s, and is now additionally supported by the Welsh Language Act 1992, which gives Welsh and English equal status in Wales. The language, which Henry VIII had banned in 1536, now figures as an alternative to English in a wide range of contexts throughout the UK. As for Scottish Gaelic, it is currently spoken by about 60,000 people out of about 5.4 million in Scotland, but sustained efforts are being made to extend knowledge of the language, though there is no necessary connection with the strengthening movement for Scottish independence. In today’s states, issues of the politics of language permeate—as I shall attempt to show—every detail of people’s lives and also raise significant issues in law, philosophy and political philosophy or political thought. In recent times, questions of language and linguistic rights have caused tensions which have led to the reorganization of entire constitutions and the states which those constitutions brought into being, and have even come close to splitting long-established states. Social tensions have been angrily expressed and have sometimes erupted into violent protests. A. Sivaramakrishnan (B) Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_17

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Among contemporary democracies which have, for historical and other reasons, explicitly addressed, or have had to address, some of the issues around the status of languages, including the specification of one or more languages as official languages, Canada and India are notable for specific reasons. Both inherit a complex range of legal and cultural traditions, and as contemporary democracies both countries have to navigate extremely difficult consequences which put their legal and constitutional systems under considerable strain in different ways; these include reconciling different philosophies of law, including different conceptions of rights, and recognizing profound wariness—even suspicion and distrust—of the process and institutions of public, democratic, life themselves. The two countries’ respective situations and responses show striking and illuminating similarities and differences, which I shall outline as part of my wider argument that the issues involved turn on, or give rise to, wider issues which are not necessarily accommodated within the current legal–constitutional systems or within the ways or terms in which the relevant public controversies are formulated. Nevertheless, as I hope also to show, this puts great stress on the nature of the legal–constitutional processes which obtain in both Canada and India, and—as I also hope to show—creates the possibility of a less fraught and less divisive politics of language, particularly in India, and possibly also in other countries; that possibility itself turns on our recognizing certain fundamental difficulties in the conceptions of language assumed by the protagonists in the main public debates and controversies. The example of Canada shows very direct legal and constitutional interventions in the matter of official languages, some of which express broad consensus among major political parties, even if the consensus was in part generated by political expediency in relatively recent times (Veitch, 35). As early as 1867, the British North America Act 1867 (which Canada renamed the Constitution Act 1867 in its own Constitution Act 1982) stated that English and French could be used in the parliament of Canada and the legislature of Québec, and in the courts of both jurisdictions (Veitch, 35; Constitution Act 1867). The Constitution Act 1982 goes even further, guaranteeing the equality of English and French as the official languages of Canada and the province of New Brunswick. The Act also confirms both that Canadian citizens have the right to have their children educated in the parents’ first language, and that English or French may be used by any person in any court or court-related proceedings in Canada or New Brunswick (Veitch, 35). We need to note that in view of Canada’s status as a British Dominion, the Constitution Act 1982, which also incorporated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, had to be patriated by the British parliament; the UK’s Canada Act 1982 was the necessary instrument. The language issue, needless to say, continued to be a source of political and cultural turbulence, as it had been for many decades already. The province had been predominantly francophone—and in smaller towns and rural areas Roman Catholic— even though Canada became a British colony and then a dominion following General James Wolfe’s victory over General Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, at Québec City on the St Lawrence River in 1759; the battle ended what was called the Seven Years War. Britain created the province of Québec by uniting three Québec districts

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(the name comes from an Algonquian word meaning ‘the river narrows here’). The provincial capital remains Québec City. The British rulers gave the province’s population considerable cultural latitude, letting francophone residents—by now French Canadians—retain their language and customs, and British rule was generally relatively benign, if in certain respects instrumental. The British parliament’s British North America (Québec) Act, 1774 confirmed the use of French civil law for private matters and the use of English common law for public matters, including criminal law; the oath of allegiance dropped reference to the Anglican faith (what later became the UK had been an Anglican entity since 1534, and remains one). The instrumental element was that this move was a response to the considerable risk that French Canadians might be recruited by the increasingly discontented American colonies to the south. Other significant Canadian legislation consists of the Official Languages Act 1969 and the much more detailed Official Languages Act 1988. The latter reconfirms the equal status—asserted in the 1969 Act—of French and English as the official languages of Canada and confirms the linguistic rights Canadians enjoy in matters relating to Parliament, the courts, and governmental institutions and agencies. It also commits the government to ensuring that all in both linguistic groups have equal opportunities of employment and participation at all levels of government whether federal or provincial—and it gives Canadians working in the federal civil service the right to work in their own language. Very significantly, the 1988 Act creates the possibility of related governmental involvement in much wider areas of activity and society. It amounts to an offer by government to cooperate with civil society in the form of business and labor to ‘foster the recognition and use of English and French,’ and it creates mechanisms whereby the relevant policies are to be implemented and monitored (Veitch, 35). As Veitch says, the governmental language provisions involved were intended to ensure the equality of services in both official languages, and to ensure that all arms of government achieved the required equality. This, however, meant that significant differences of approach between the federal government, the province of Québec and other provinces, most notably New Brunswick, had to be adopted—and adapted— in the light of the Canadian constitution, and in the light of categorically different conceptions of culture, society and the philosophy of law itself. The 1867 Constitution Act says nothing about language in the relevant sections, namely those which specify the respective powers of the federal and the provincial governments, and therefore language legislation has had to be ancillary to other substantive legislation (Veitch, 35). The federal government could therefore introduce language policies as part of legislation on interprovincial and international trade, banking, national transportation, telecommunications and intellectual property—but until the 1988 Official Languages Act was passed it refrained from substantive intervention. Its most obvious move until then was probably the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act 1970, which was meant to ensure that anglophone and francophone consumers were aware of the nature and contents of commercially available goods; penalties would be levied for compliance failures (Veitch, 35).

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The 1988 Official Languages Act clearly brought about far-reaching changes for the federal government, but in Québec the provincial government had been using provincial powers under the 1867 Constitution with much more wide-ranging effect for over a decade, and its aims were clearly far more extensive than those of the apparently largely procedural measures introduced by the federal legislature. The Québécois intention was to support and strengthen the already existing and strongly francophone character of the province, by passing language legislation in the area of civil rights understood in its nineteenth-century sense, that is, as referring to private rights; these would include language rights and requirements in, for example, areas like consumer contracts, employment contracts, conditions of work and commercial activities like advertising and business (Veitch, 35). The key Québécois measure here was the Charter of the French Language, a provincial law which the Parti Québécois (PQ) passed in 1977, less than a year after it had won 71 out of 110 seats in the provincial assembly. The Preamble to the Charter is utterly direct; for example, its first two paragraphs say: WHEREAS the French language, the distinctive language of a people that is in the majority French-speaking, is the instrument by which that people has articulated its identity; Whereas the National Assembly of Québec recognizes that Quebecers wish to see the quality and influence of the French language assured, and is resolved therefore to make of French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business; (LégisQuébec, 18). The Preamble goes on to state explicitly that exceptions and exemptions will be made in a spirit of ‘fairness and open-mindedness’; these include respect for the institutions of the English-speaking minority in the province and for the ethnic minorities. The passage also …recognizes the right of the Amerinds and the Inuit of Québec, the first inhabitants of this land, to preserve and develop their original language and culture. (LégisQuébec, 18)

Other exceptions and exemptions are stated in the main text of the Charter, and include colleges and universities as well as the provision of English-language schooling for children who have at least one English-speaking Canadian parent, and so on. The statements above, and the exceptions and exemptions, are stated in terms which do not contravene democratic principles, but they do—as I shall now show— raise wider issues about legal and philosophic traditions in different forms or under different conceptions of the democratic state. Needless to say the Charter arose in a complex context which had quite a long history, one involving significant practical issues as much as anything else. A commission of inquiry appointed by the provincial government had reported in 1972 that the English language was causing francophones in Québec—then a majority amounting to 88% of the province’s population—a range of problems. These included, for example, the fact that workplace safety notices, work manuals and communications between managers and workers were all in English. Other widespread problems arose with the widespread, even

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dominant, use of English in banks, department stores, hotels, telecommunications companies and restaurant chains; yet more problems had to do with English in advertising, in insurance contracts, and in instruction manuals for consumer durables (Veitch, 35). The commission warned against assumptions of goodwill and cooperation from big businesses and directly recommended coercive legislation to enforce compliance. It also considered that the workplace use of English demeaned the French language, and it even recommended legislation, no less, to ‘combat mongrelisation of the French language into “franglais”’ (Veitch, 35). I shall return to both points later in this paper, but for the present we need to note that Canada is not a bilingual state by constitution. It does not require that all citizens speak French and English, but it is rather a state which has two official languages, and which therefore provides all government services at the same standard to all citizens whether they speak English or French (Veitch, 35). One province which followed the example of Québec was New Brunswick, which at the time had a francophone minority amounting to about 35% of its population. In 1969 the province passed its own Official Languages Act, which was to take effect in stages over the next decade, and in 1981 it legislated to recognize the equality of its two official linguistic communities; it also requested that the federal government entrench language provisions specific to New Brunswick in the thendraft Constitution Act, which was passed the following year (Veitch, 35). Like the government of Québec, the New Brunswick government was prepared to be coercive, probably in view of hostility to the new laws from the public and private sector. Senior figures in the former—the telecommunications corporation in particular—pointed out that their public documents were available in English and French, but said that any imposition of bilingual internal operations would lead them to consider relocating their head offices to a unilingual province. In the private sector, a multinational processed-food company stated that the firm required managers to be proficient in English and the local language wherever they happened to be working— but when questioned the company admitted that, for example, one of their European operations was based in France because France is unilingual, and not in Switzerland, which has more than one official language (Veitch, 35). There was also considerable hostility among sections of New Brunswick’s anglophone population to any further extension of language rights to the francophone minority. A committee which reported in 1986 accepted that organizations which had no direct contact with the public needed to be considered differently from those with which the public had direct dealings; for example, workplace safety notices, consumer contracts and businesses involved in dealings with the provincial government would have to use both languages in appropriate ways; collective bargaining and labor activities would also have to be conducted in English and French. In the end, events overtook the New Brunswick government, and the language question barely figured in the 1987 elections; the ruling party did not win a single seat, but its successor in government maintained the gradualist policy which was already in place (Veitch, 35).

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In effect, in New Brunswick a free market did not mean unrestrained commercial activity but required an element of consumer protection, and that meant the freedom of businesses to function profitably had to be balanced against the rights of consumers to fair service and fair treatment in their language, in exchange for their custom (Veitch, 35). That stood in sharp contrast to the far more interventionist legislation and policy of Québec, which, unsurprisingly in the context of such an important issue as language rights, generated social and political controversy and significant court decisions. These controversies and other consequences ranged from the foreseeable to the less foreseeable. Among the earliest consequences were Supreme Court rulings over policy and provincial legislation in Québec. In particular, certain rulings on cases arising from the Québec Court of Appeal clarified matters in respect of commercial law and certain constitutional freedoms. The Supreme Court confirmed that in Canada commercial speech is a constitutionally protected form of expression; this did mean that Québec’s French-only signage policy violated the Constitution Act 1982 and the Québec Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court, nevertheless and probably in recognition of the importance of language protection in Québec, suggested that French might be made preeminent in signage, with other languages being given a diminished presence. This kind of move, as the Supreme Court noted, could be justified by reliance on Section 33 of the Constitution Act 1982—a section which enables elected assemblies in Canada expressly to override constitutional guarantees. Veitch holds that Section 33, which in fact the premiers of the western Canadian provinces had insisted on while the 1982 Constitution was being drafted, preserves a tradition of parliamentary democracy which Canada inherits from Britain; he also holds that the western provincial premiers were particularly troubled by the prospect that a nine-judge Supreme Court could effectively overrule an elected assembly (Veitch, 35). If it is surprising, or perhaps ironic, that the Canadian Supreme Court offered to assist Québec by providing a British-inherited constitutional principle to protect something which may well have origins in a very different jurisprudence, several less foreseeable results also followed. For example, francophones never expected or demanded that their anglophone fellow-Canadians become bilingual, and those in Québec sought only to maintain the preeminence of French in the province as a ‘bulwark against the sea of English in North America’ (Veitch, 35). Substantial proportions of anglophones throughout Canada, nevertheless, undertook intensive French-language programs after 1968—when the first Official Languages Act was being drafted—apparently in the belief that the plan was for a form of national bilingualism which would enable all to communicate in both English and French. Furthermore, many of those anglophones who did not engage in such immersion programs complained that they were disadvantaged because bilingual candidates for civil service jobs were, as they held, being favored; they were also very disturbed by the idea that what they thought was the national policy would be imposed throughout the private sector (Veitch, 35). This was probably an unintended consequence, because the 1988 Official Languages Act seems to have been in part intended to address

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francophone concerns that their minority were underrepresented in the civil service, especially at the higher levels (Veitch, 35). In any case, the so-called immersion programs in French failed. What became a focus of legislative attention, however, was the private sector. In December 1988, the Québec National Assembly passed, within three days, its famous Bill 178, which in its English version bore the title ‘An Act to Amend the Charter of the French Language’ (Maton, 19). Under this bill, all public and commercial signs, and signs inside shops but visible from the street, had to be in French; so did all signage in shopping malls, on highways, and on public transportation. Inside shops, signs and all commercial advertising could be in French and English provided French was ‘markedly predominant,’ but it seems that franchisees would not be permitted to use the inside of their outlets to ‘flood’ the province with English-language signs originating from a head office (Veitch, 35). A 2016 ruling in the Québec Superior Court, the highest court in the province, allows trademarks (provided a French version thereof has not been registered in Canada) to be displayed in another language than French, as long as French has a ‘sufficient presence’ in the display or notice concerned (Moffatt et al., 21). The French phrase in the relevant Québec government document is ‘nettement prédominante,’ which in the official translation is rendered as ‘markedly predominant’ (LégisQuébec, 18); the document specifies the terms and conditions for notices and displays. It is also worth noting that the law no longer makes any indoor–outdoor distinction for signs or advertising (Éducaloi, n.d.). Another unexpected result was the demand from some francophone parents in Québec for their children to have access to schools which worked in the English language. The Supreme Court rejected this, holding that francophone education was a central protection for the French language in the province, but it enjoined the provincial government to be flexible in respect of access to English-language schools for children who had earlier studied in English-language schools whether in Québec or elsewhere (Geddes, 13). The province’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education has set out specific eligibility conditions—which are relatively broad—on its website and may well have made the information available elsewhere (Ministère de l’Éducation et Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur, n.d.). The provincial government also created the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), which has to ‘…take a lead role regarding linguistic terminology and to make sure that French is the main language of work, business and government’. It is also responsible for enforcing the Charter of the French Language. (Éducaloi, n.d).

Among other things, this office advises on rules under the Charter of the French Language, sets tests for those professionals who are required by law to have a knowledge of French and has also created a free online French dictionary (Éducaloi, n.d.). It hardly needs saying that all manner of everyday issues both formal and informal needed resolution, sometimes urgent resolution, under the Charter and related laws and policies; many of these will strike a chord in other parts of the world. For example, among the legal cases that arose was the following:

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In 1996, the Old Navy clothing retailer, a US-based firm, was asked to rename its Québec outlets ‘La Vieille Rivière’—literally, ‘The Old River.’ The change never occurred, and in 2015 the Québec Court of Appeal upheld a 2014 Québec Superior Court decision that the OQLF could not require such firms—many of which were multinational or transnational companies whose names were trademarks—to make such changes. Part of the ruling relied on the fact that trademarks lie within the jurisdiction of the Canadian federal parliament and the further fact that trademark integrity is protected by international conventions. In addition, in these cases there was no violation of the Charter of the French Language or of laws on the language of culture and business (Abouchaker, 1; CBC News, 6, 7 ). An earlier case over the display of a shop signboard put up by an antiques business called The Lyon and the Wallrus (in French, ’la lionne et le morse’) had even been taken to an international forum, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which decided that the case was inadmissible for a range of legal reasons mainly concerned with the fact that the domestic Canadian legal process had not been exhausted (University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, n.d.). Even where court cases were not initiated—or perhaps would not have been taken by the courts in the first place—the disputes roused fierce passions and involved the law. Some businesses seem to have given in to, or have decided not to risk, public controversy; for example, in 2007 Imperial Oil decided to retain its Québec-only name ‘Marché Express’ and to continue using its usual name ‘On the Run’ elsewhere in North America. In the same year, some departments in the Québec government altered their automatic telephone answering systems to provide the English-language options after the French-language ones. An Indian restaurant was told in 2000 that it was breaking the law by having coasters bearing the name of a British beer brand, Double Diamond, and in 2005 the OQLF said it would investigate complaints about the Montreal Mayor Gérard Trembleau’s campaign of the slogan ‘Go Montreal’ in election campaign literature (CBC News, 6). One of the disputes was almost farcical and is even reminiscent of the Dead Parrot sketch in the legendary British Monty Python series of hilarious near-surrealist comedy programs. In 1996, a woman seeking to buy a parrot from a pet shop threatened to inform the language authorities because the particular parrot she wanted did not speak French (CBC News, 6). If that confirms the kinds of passions that the status of French can give rise to in Québec in particular, it need be no surprise that the issue of French repeatedly figures as central to politics in the province and that it is often highly significant in the whole of Canada. In Québec, the whole issue seems until very recently to have been permeated by a sense that both the French language and the Québécois identity are, or have been since the English military victory of 1759, in a state of siege, that is, at permanent risk of being overwhelmed by English, the predominant language of North America. The province’s population is declining in proportion to the rest of the Canadian population; currently 24% of Canada’s total population of just under 38 million, Québec’s 8.4 million people have a francophone percentage that had earlier declined from 29% of the Canadian all-languages total to 25 in 1986. At present about 80% of the Québec population are francophone (Tuohy, 33, Table

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7.1; Worldometer, n.d; World Population Review, n.d). In addition, the readiness of immigrants to other Canadian provinces to learn English has contributed both to the declining percentage of francophones in Canada and to a fear that the French language is likely to disappear unless it is specifically protected. The widespread Québécois sense that the French language was under threat, nevertheless, led to significant political agreements, many of which seem to have been at best fragile. It need be no surprise that politicians knew this very well; a key figure here is René Lévesque, himself born in New Brunswick but a Liberal Party member of the Québec assembly from 1960 to 1968, when—convinced that the Canadian federation would collapse—he demanded that the party support the separation of Québec from the rest of Canada. The party rejected this, and Lévesque formed another party, the explicitly separatist Parti Québécois (PQ). Lévesque, however, had a political agenda, which may not have been a primarily linguistic one; for example, his insistence that the rights of English speakers in the province be protected, together with his commitment to electoral politics, meant that the PQ had wider support than other separatist groups; the party won the provincial assembly by a landslide in 1976, and Lévesque was premier of Québec until he resigned in October 1985. It was Lévesque who passed the Charter of the French Language though the provincial assembly in 1977; in 1980, the PQ held a referendum in Québec on a sovereignty-association (sic) agreement with Canada. Lévesque’s then government lost the referendum by 59.6% to 40.4 (on an 86% turnout), but the referendum itself may well have strengthened Québec’s reasons for refusing to ratify the 1982 Canadian Constitution; Québec was the sole province to refuse, and the result was that significant amendments to the old British legislation—in particular the charter of rights and freedoms—remained unratified, though the Supreme Court ruled in 1981 that the federal government could patriate the constitution and amend it without the consent of the provinces; that meant that the constitution would be binding throughout Canada. That in turn led to further discussions at Meech Lake in the Gatineau area of Québec, which is on the Québec side of the Ottawa River, in April 1987 (Simpson, 28; Veitch, 35). The agreement, bilingually titled ‘L’accord du Meech Lake Agreement,’ expresses five key demands made by Québec (Simpson, 28; Veitch, 35): 1. That the Canadian constitution recognizes Québec as a ‘distinct society’ within Canada, with suitable recognition for Québec’s English-speaking minority and for francophone minorities in the rest of Canada. 2. Québec should have a veto over constitutional changes affecting federal institutions, such as the Senate, the House of Commons and the Supreme Court. 3. Québec should have additional powers over immigration in view of its low birthrate and the challenge of maintaining its French-speaking character in its wider location, North America. 4. Provinces should be allowed to opt out of federal spending programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction, provided they devise comparable programs that met ‘national objectives.’

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5. Provinces should have a role in nominating Supreme Court justices; the law already required three of the nine justices to be from Québec and trained in the civil code rather than common law. The Meech Lake Accords were signed by all ten of the then provincial premiers, but they required unanimous assent from all ten provinces within three years of the first ratification, which was by the Québec assembly on 23 June 1987. This was where the agreement foundered. In Manitoba Elijah Harper, a member of the Cree Nation and the only aboriginal member in the Manitoba legislature, voted against ratification because Meech Lake did not address aboriginal demands, including recognition of their inherent right to self-government. This immediately made Harper a hero for aboriginal Canadians—and it put the position of aboriginal peoples squarely on the agenda (Simpson, 28). In 1989, the newly installed Newfoundland premier, Clyde Wells, argued that Meech Lake would give Québec special status, that it would make future constitutional amendments impossible, and that it would undermine federal funding to Canada’s poorer provinces (Higgins, 15). In any case Québec and Ontario, which have the largest provincial populations, have 60% of the seats in the House of Commons in Ottawa (Watts, 36). The resulting complications were very serious indeed and included the possibility that Canada would disintegrate. Quite apart from the ‘nightmarishly complicated’ economic and practical issues involved, it was not inconceivable that the western provinces would join the USA on the latter’s western side and that the Atlantic provinces, separated from their fellow anglophone provinces by an independent Québec, would join New England in the U.S. (Simpson, 28). The issues here were highly political in many senses. One is that of serious differences over what Meech Lake meant in the first place. For Québec, Meech Lake guaranteed minimal conditions to secure the province’s place in Canada, but in other provinces it amounted to much stronger demands for ‘a province perpetually unhappy within Canada’ (Simpson, 28). Just as significant, in a different way, is the fact that public ignorance of the specific terms of the agreement was shocking; a poll four months before the accord showed that 71% of Canadians knew ‘little or nothing’ about the agreement, and that even after the accord had collapsed—two years later—61 percent still knew little or nothing about it. Yet in both polls, the public had very strong views on the matter (Simpson, 28). Canada could potentially have been partitioned with the bulk of the population having no idea whatever as to the specific reasons why. Three decades and more later, similar things could be said of the British decision to leave the European Union—the difference being that the British electorate had the chance to vote on the matter. Nevertheless, other factors may well have been involved in public hostility—outside Québec—to the Meech Lake agreement, and one of these was the reaction outside Québec to the province’s Bill 178, which I have mentioned above, namely the (later modified) ban on outdoor commercial signs in English (Watts, 36). Language therefore, or more precisely the matter of the French language as an essential element in the question of the status of Québec within Canada, showed its politicality, and the nature of its politicality, in the ways it was involved in central

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issues of the Canadian constitution and in the ways the consequences of the Meech Lake failure affected Canada. One consequence was yet another constitutional crisis, which was eventually resolved by the Charlottetown Agreement; that concluded what has been called ‘the most intensive, extensive, exhaustive and exhausting round of public consultations and negotiations over a period of a year and a half that had ever occurred on constitutional issues in Canada’ (Watts, 36). That agreement included modified versions of the Meech Lake proposals, and by widespread agreement was put to a national referendum but was still rejected, by 54% to 46; Québec and five other provinces, plus one of the two territories, voted for rejection (Watts, 36). These renewed constitutional uncertainties were indeed very significant for Canada, but other factors were already at work and were changing Canadian society under, so to speak, the feet of the politicians. Even at the time of the collapse of Meech Lake, what seems to have been a perception widespread in Québec that the rest of Canada—le Canada anglais—was homogeneous was already substantially mistaken. Ontario faced regional rivalries with the western provinces and with the Atlantic provinces. Secondly, the larger urban areas in Canada were already polyglot and multiethnic in character; in Vancouver, about half the elementary school children were of Asian descent, and in Toronto white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were a minority (Simpson, 28). Since then, Canada’s official bilingualism has also come to be widely accepted as a feature of Canadian life, even if neither anglophone Canadians nor Quebecers have come to share, for example, popular cultural icons, though the legendary icehockey player Guy Lafleur of the Montreal Canadiens may have been an exception. It is not just that by 2013 the majority of federal civil servants (60% of whom came from Québec and Ontario) held bilingual positions. Indeed, that requirement seems to have benefited Ontario francophones financially more than it did the province’s anglophones (Patriquin, 25). In all of Canada, 23% of 15–19 year-olds were bilingual, and in Québec the figure was over 50%. The national increase since 1961 amounted to about 160%. Above all, 94% of Quebecers—and 65% of all Canadians—favored official bilingualism, with 85 percent of Quebecers holding that it was important to be bilingual. The survival of French in Québec had ceased to be an issue for the province’s francophones, and by implication that also held for all francophones in Canada. Furthermore, official bilingualism had enabled French to spread steadily, if slowly, across anglophone Canada, with anglophone parents at least comfortable with the idea that if they wanted, their children could attend French-immersion schools; Quebecers too, were by then engaging in a net migration to other provinces, particularly Alberta and Ontario (Patriquin, 25). In effect, as Martin Patriquin concludes, protecting French within Québec while yet enabling Canadians to remain unilingual if they wished had ‘bolstered the French fact in Canada, and apparently made francophones in Québec more secure.’ He adds, ‘In 50 years, French in Canada has gone from economic albatross to political flashpoint to something banal and accepted—even celebrated. The battle, you might say, has been won. Vive le Canada français’ (Patriquin, 25). Patriquin’s final phrase may be a direct reference to the French president Charles de Gaulle’s famous and highly controversial slogan ‘Vive le Québec libre!’, uttered to

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a huge crowd from an upstairs balcony at Montreal City Hall during a visit ostensibly to the Expo 67 exhibition in 1967, and it sums up the vastly changed situation of the French language in Canada. One very clear implication, as I have tried to show above, is that the change was brought about by demographic changes in Canada between the 1970s and our time, and, just as importantly, by the fact that the various legislative and policy measures did not force anyone in Canada to be English-French bilingual, despite many fears on both sides of the former linguistic divide. Significantly too, the changes have also made it much more difficult for extreme supporters of French in Québec to get their way; Quebecers have come to be embarrassed by international ridicule over demands like the OQLF order, made in 2013, that an Italian restaurant in the Montreal area remove non-French words like ‘pasta’ from the menu, in an episode that was immediately dubbed ‘Pastagate’ (Patriquin, 25). One wider consequence is that Canadian federalism itself has been strengthened. The fears powerfully expressed about the Meech Lake accords by the former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau—that French-Canadian nationalism would imprison French within Québec—may have been very well founded, as was his further argument that federalism offered the French language and culture what Patriquin terms ‘nationwide breathing space.’ Indeed, Trudeau had already been making those arguments for three decades (Patriquin, 25). Many of the issues Canada has faced over language also arise in India, though the historical context and the linguistic demographics are vastly different. Where the English-French issue in Canada has involved fears that French would be engulfed or overrun as well as fears among both francophones and anglophones that they would have to learn, respectively, French or English under coercion, the Indian issues have involved far more explicit—and unsuccessful—forms of coercion. The official approaches have also varied greatly between the two countries. Canada has, as I have tried to show, a long history of complex and detailed legislative and judicial responses to its language issues, while India’s official approach, although accurately cognizant of the linguistic diversity of Indian society, has far more cautious legislative statements. In both countries, nevertheless, the everyday politics around language issues is just as heated and even turbulent, with violence sometimes much more obvious—and worse—in India than it is in Canada. India, like Canada, has no stipulated national language, but the Constitution of India specifies Hindi in the Devanagari script as India’s official language; English was also to be used for official Union (in effect, central government or all-India) purposes until 1965, but the Official Languages Act, 1963 stated that English could be used in addition to Hindi for Union purposes and in Parliament. One of the most obvious features of the Indian context is that of linguistic coercion on the part of official bodies and elected representatives. In 1895, the British colonial government, in the person of Sir John Woodburne, Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, ordered that Hindi be the official language of the courts and government services in Sambalpur District, now in Odisha state (Pasayat, 24). The order took effect on 19 January 1895. Government officials had no problem over the new dispensation, which was intended to help officers who did not speak Oriya,

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but the substantially Oriya-speaking public were rightly troubled and fearful of the consequences, particularly over legal documents and proceedings, and of what would follow if they did not follow government procedures because they did not understand the language in which those were issued. They also faced exclusion from government jobs, a serious matter then as now. Widespread disquiet, in part led by people like Baikuntha Nath Pujari (himself an Assistant Commissioner), led to the restoration of Oriya as the official and court language in 1903, and the efforts of other leaders such as Madusudan Das brought about the creation of the province of Bihar and Orissa in 1912 (Pasayat, 24). For about four decades already, Oriya speakers had been pressing the colonial government in Delhi for the unification of the Oriya-speaking areas of Bengal and the Central Provinces into a single administrative area. In independent India, responses to linguistic coercion have been—as is well known—much more vehement, and have often been violent. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, and the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution (which followed the passage of the Act) created the states of India in a form which is still broadly recognizable today; almost all the states were created on linguistic lines, and several have been further divided since 1956, some on broadly linguistic lines even though language seems not always to have been the main issue. Some of the states in the formation of which language was the main issue are nevertheless illuminating examples. In 1953 Andhra State was demarcated—as a majority Telugu-speaking state—from the then Madras State, and in 1956 it was then made into Andhra Pradesh when the Telugu-majority areas of the then Hyderabad State were merged with it. The key events in 1952 were Potti Sriramulu’s fast to death, which lasted 58 days, and the violent public protests which preceded and followed Sriramulu’s death. All the protests took place in districts where Telugu was the majority language; seven people were killed when the police opened fire on protesters. The remaining territory, Madras State, was later divided again, respectively into Kerala and Mysore (now Karnataka). If the formation of Andhra State in 1953 seems not to have resulted from the imposition of a particular language, attempts to impose—in particular—Hindi on various regions of India have generated fierce and often violent reactions. In the Madras Presidency in August 1937, the Madras Presidency Prime Minister (as the chief minister’s post was then called) C. Rajagopalachari decided that Hindi would be taught for two hours a week in 125 secondary schools in Madras Presidency. The ensuing protests were mounted by a range of groups in collaboration and lasted over two and a half years; two of the protesters died in prison, allegedly having been denied medicine in jail after refusing to apologize for their part in the protests. In February 1940, Rajagopalachari annulled the policy (Marthandam, 20, 20). What became Madras State figured again in very fierce protests against the fear that Hindi would be imposed, particularly as an alternative language to English for the civil service examinations, which are conducted by the Union Public Service Commission; English was the language of higher education in the state, and although in a sense all speakers of Indian languages other than English start from the same position in respect of English, the introduction of Hindi would create a ‘serious handicap’ for those who do not have it as a mother tongue (Forrester, 12). For Tamil

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speakers, English was the language in which and with which to advance their interests (Forrester, 12). The agitation, partly intensified by a rather confrontational statement which the Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, made on 23 December 1964, started in 1965, on India’s Republic Day, 26 January. The responses—the Indian National Congress held both the state and the central governments at the time—were highly confrontational, and widespread violence spread through the state, extending into the neighboring Kerala and Mysore; over 30 lost their lives. It was not until 12 February that the very bitter agitation ended. It had undoubtedly been exacerbated by failures on the part of the government in Delhi and in Madras to understand the strength of public feeling in the southern states and to communicate the policy in more conciliatory terms (Forrester, 12). An important contrast with the case of French in Canada is that the status of Tamil as a nationally listed language was never in question, and given that the population of the then Madras state was over 30 million, neither was the survival of the language. As Duncan Forrester points out, the issue was far more that of the prospects for Tamil speakers (and by implication speakers of other Dravidian languages) in an India with Hindi as its sole official language (Forrester, 12). Perhaps unsurprisingly, various groups in northern India, possibly aided by their geographical proximity to Delhi, expressed bitter opposition to ‘any concession at all’ to what they considered non-Hindi areas of India (Forrester, 12). A Cabinet subcommittee and a meeting of all the state chief ministers with the Congress Working Committee resulted in a recommendation that the Official Languages Act be amended to give statutory confirmation to Jawaharlal Nehru’s promise, made in 1959, that Hindi would never be imposed on non-Hindi-speaking states without their consent. On 15 July 1965, an Official Languages (Amendment) Bill was published; this would have confirmed that English could be used for official purposes as long as non-Hindi states wished and that it could be used in communications between states and between states and the central government, but under pressure of other political developments never went beyond being admitted to the Lok Sabha by the then Speaker on 25 August. As Forrester says, the whole issue was shelved indefinitely, no doubt to widespread relief (Forrester, 12). It may well be that the anti-Hindi protests in the then Madras state have had the result that there has been no serious prospect of any significant change to India’s official languages policy, at least until the time of writing, 2020. Occasionally, politicians in northern India raise the idea, but their efforts have made little headway, possibly because their own party leaders, no doubt well aware of the likely public reactions, repudiate such statements. For example, in 2019 major opposition party leaders immediately, politely, and firmly rejected the contention expressed by the current Home Minister, Amit Shah, that if one language can unite the country, it is Hindi; other party leaders pointed out that the Home Minister was stirring up controversy on ‘emotive and sensitive’ issues which had been settled a long time earlier (Hindu, 32). Attempts to make policy on this kind of issue have also been politically damaging. In May 2019, the draft National Education Policy, among other things, mandated the teaching of Hindi in schools in non-Hindi-speaking states, but following sharp public criticism withdrew the relevant clause (Sen, 26).

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In Canada too, the issue remains potentially controversial, especially in partypolitical contexts. During the 2017–18 Québec provincial election, the then premier, the Liberal Philippe Couillard, had to respond to criticism by the Parti Québécois leader Pauline Maurois of two speeches in which he said, respectively, that bilingualism is not a threat, that knowledge of English is ‘indispensable,’ and that for French-speaking and English-speaking children to be bilingual in French and English is a fantastic asset. Those contexts, however, are identifiable and relatively limited, or have been so far in respect of language issues in India and Canada. For the time being then, if not for the foreseeable future, there is no great prospect that Hindi or any other language will be stipulated or specified as the Indian national language; the current position is likely to continue for some considerable time. In Canada, it is clear that the protection of French in Québec and the federal backing— with funding as appropriate—of official bilingualism have broadly combined both to ensure the survival of French and its steady spread across a country which is relatively comfortable with bilingualism and with the presence of at least conversationally bilingual French–English speakers throughout all provinces and territories, even if such speakers amount only to 17.5% of the population (Cholakian, 10). At least two sets of significant issues, however, are not thereby settled. One is the inaccuracy of the assumption which was made earlier and which underlies even current policy, that Canada is a mainly bilingual society. This neglected the range of languages spoken by aboriginal Canadians, some of which are at serious risk of extinction despite, for example, the recognition in Québec’s Charter of the French Language that speakers of aboriginal languages have the right to preserve and develop their original languages. One language which faces extinction is Inuktitut, the Inuit language; this has a rich phonetic makeup, which the Roman alphabet cannot accommodate without substantial modification or augmentation, but as yet has no standardized Roman script, even assuming that is necessary for the preservation of the language in Canada. Just as serious is the fact that in 2011, three quarters of Inuit children did not complete secondary education, which was conducted in English and French (Cholakian, 10). In addition, the very idea of bilingualism no longer provides a Canadian linguistic map; one in five Canadians now speaks a language other than French or English at home, and in the Greater Toronto Area that figure is nearly up to 50%. Bilingualism may be ‘surging’ in Canada, but it is not necessarily doing so in the two official languages (Cholakian, 10). As for India, the Census recognizes the category of ‘general speakers’ of Hindi, and among those categories are speakers of, for example, Awadhi, Bundeli, Magadhi, Rajasthani (which had 25 million speakers in 2011) and many others. Linguistic diversity is of course far more obvious in India than it may be in Canada, or may have been until relatively recently in Canada, but concerns about the decay, or worse still corruption, of any language raise other kinds of question, which probably lie more in the area of philosophy than anywhere else. The issue here, I shall now argue, is that of what constitutes a particular language, and it arises in both Canada and India. In respect of Canada, Veitch gives two examples that seem to have troubled the 1972 committee of inquiry, which among other things was very

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concerned to resist, as I have noted above, the mongrelization (sic) of French into what is often called—in Canada and elsewhere—‘franglais’. These examples are: “J’ai hemé le skirt pour hanger le correct” And “J’ai crossé le street pour acheter le papier pour le bébé’s bum”. (Veitch, 35). In conversational English, these would be, respectively, reasonably rendered as, ‘I’ve hemmed the skirt so that it hangs correctly’, and ‘I crossed the street to buy some paper for the baby’s bum.’ (The French use of the present perfect does not always match exactly with the respective English uses of the present perfect and past simple.) In Canada, the examples cited by Veitch are of an obvious mixture of English and French in informal or colloquial registers. The unsettlement expressed by the committee over these examples of franglais in 1972 might be understandable, but such combinations of languages in informal registers are very widespread. For example, many who use Tamil and English as languages of currency (including many for whom English is a first language) use such combinations in any number of everyday conversations but would be highly unlikely to use them—except perhaps as quotations—in written forms of either language, or in formal contexts. That implies that our focus might be better directed toward the range of registers which speakers of any language can use, rather than over, say, pure and impure, or acceptable and unacceptable forms, of a language. This is hardly an easy area in which to work, as there are times when we struggle to decide if a particular usage is grammatically acceptable or not, but the origins of what came to be the corpus of a language can be uncomfortable for those who lay claim to preserving languages against change or who claim—often for political reasons—the largest numbers of speakers they can of any language. I have already argued above that mixtures of languages in informal registers are not a serious problem. The claim to numbers of speakers, however, raises a less tractable problem. This seems to be a particular and underrecognized issue in India, though less of one in respect of English than of Hindi. English in India, particularly in its written form, has been authoritatively described as a composite of colonial formalism (imposed for administrative purposes), archaisms (inherited from the upper class British officials and others during the period of British rule) and other such informing principles which often result in barely intelligible writing (Sanyal & Sen, 27). Hindi, on the other hand, with its very wide range of dialects and cognate languages, raises the question of which forms of Hindi are taken to be, so to speak, canonical. Here there is no avoiding the matter of who decides the canonical form, and indeed content. For example, when the colonial government handed over the production of textbooks to Indians in the 1870s, the result was a school culture in which only upper-caste children were at home, one in which the complex and Sanskritized Hindi taught was stripped of the caste and status markers which continued to shape lives and speech of the entire social context in which the children lived. In addition, the Hindi taught to girls gave history without dates and stories without historical perspective, and under the new education system girls were taught to be ‘good daughters, wives,

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and mothers.’ Furthermore, all literature, poetry and spoken forms of the language were excluded, even though the proponents of this Sanskritized Hindi spoke and read Urdu, Persian, English, Khari Boli, and what they considered pure or shuddh Hindi (Orsini, 22; Sivaramakrishnan, 29). That issue is still pertinent today. The 2011 Census of India, the most recent one, states that 528.3 million, or about 44% of the then Indian population, speak Hindi—but under ‘Hindi’ it lists 57 dialects, including an entry under ‘Hindi’, with 322.3 million speakers, and one under ‘Others’, which numbers 16.7 million (Census of India 9; The Hindu, 32). In effect, 26% of India’s population have Hindi as a mother tongue; the remainder of the 322.3 million whom the census calls Hindi speakers have been called ‘general speakers’ of Hindi, or have a form of it as what a Canadian researcher has called a ‘principal home language’ (Castonguay, 8). This kind of issue even arose in the anti-Hindi agitation in Madras in 1965; M.S.S. Pandian has noted the point in respect of Brahminical forms of Tamil, which uses a wide range of Sanskrit-derived words, as against forms which use Dravidian words instead (Pandian, 23). India nevertheless has the highest number of endangered languages in the world; currently 197 Indian languages are in that position. The thoroughly modernist project of classification by census could be crucial to their survival. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have come to be called scheduled languages, and 99 non-scheduled, which include English, Tulu and Khasi. One major problem is that census enumerators are not required to verify self-reported mother tongues, and another is that once the census returns are in, languages are reclassified or ‘rationalized’ into groups; in the 2011 census, 19,569 raw returns of mother tongues were regrouped in into 1,369 mother tongues, and then again into 121 languages. The consequences of non-recognition as a language are serious, because state support and promotion or protection are no longer available. Even inclusion in the three-language formula, whereby children learn English, Hindi, and their regional language at school, is unavailable; the Indian census, furthermore, does not list languages with fewer than 10,000 speakers (Agarwal & Jolad, 2). The great risk here is that of what has been called linguistic genocide (Skuttnabb-Kangas, 30). The great risk of forgetting the history of supposedly canonical or orthodox versions of a language is that we forget some the implications of Rush Rhees’s conclusion, in a noted symposium with Alfred Ayer: ‘Language is something that is spoken’ (Ayer & Rhees, 4). In the context of Hindi, political purposes were centrally involved, with terrible and tragic consequences for hundreds of millions of people. For example, Aneesh concludes a detailed argument on the recharacterization of a single language as two separate ones: Under the pressure of two potential nations, a common daily language of north India was stretched and split in two. The linguistic foundations for the two nations were therefore provided by the same a priori sociocognitive frame that informed the notion of two completely separate communities. (Aneesh, 3). The common language here was Khari Boli, the everyday language of much of northern India, and part of Aneesh’s argument is that a Sanskritized—and therefore upper-caste—form of Hindi was deliberately turned into a canonical written form for

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Khari Boli in the Devanagari script, which had coexisted for centuries with the written form of Khari Boli in a Persian-derived script (which forms today’s Urdu) (Aneesh, 3). For Aneesh, the former project was very much part of a Hindu-nationalist agenda of nationalist closure or possibly enclosure, and, as he adds, the communication processes of modernity greatly facilitated such exclusive characterizations. This helps us to identify some of the implications of Rhees’s seemingly cryptic conclusion. One is a much-needed reminder of what is otherwise obvious: it is people who speak language. In doing so, they both draw upon an existing corpus, albeit (and inevitably) one with imprecise boundaries, of the particular language they speak, and they use language for themselves, that is, they make it their own. They thereby both develop a sense of the world, including the social world, and render themselves intelligible to others. Both are greater achievements than they might seem at first sight to be, as Stanley Cavell, in part drawing upon the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, has notably demonstrated (Cavell, 5; Wittgenstein, 37). Therefore, attempts to control or purify our use or uses of language amount to attempts to ‘stamp out the grass’, in Alok Rai’s telling phrase, and even to do violence to the language concerned and— frequently—also to the people who speak it (Rai, 2001, cited in Aneesh, 3). Aneesh gives the notable example of the commercial Hindi-movie industry, Bollywood, which is world-famous and one of the biggest businesses in the world; Bollywood has never followed what Aneesh calls the Hindi–Hindu–Hindustan closure and has thereby ‘loosened’ the hold of linguistic nationalism on popular consciousness. If it is Canada’s people who by their own conduct in a major democracy have rendered the French–English issue far less of a problem than it used to be, similarly it is India’s people, who by their own conduct in their major democracy who have shown that by using languages as people have always done, by participating in speaking them and thereby making them their own, that we thereby make and shape our public spaces, our politics, that is, both our own spaces and those of the others with whom we share those spaces. Rush Rhees was right. Language is something that is spoken. Linguistic coercion of the kinds I have analyzed here therefore amounts to political coercion—of a kind no democracy can justify, or perhaps even survive. It would be thoroughly consistent with democracy, therefore, for whole bodies politic to celebrate multilinguality rather than multilingualism; quite apart from the pleasure and enjoyment, and quite apart from the frequent necessity to have even fragments of a language other than our principal language(s), multilinguality, as much as multilingualism, is—if my arguments above are sound—part and parcel of the achievement of communication and intelligibility. The connection with democracy hardly needs stating, or if it does then a further set of arguments is needed.

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Language Documentation: Issues and Challenges of Field-Worker S. Imtiaz Hasnain and Farooq Ahmad Mir

1 Introduction Certain concerns pertaining to documentation of endangered, minoritized and the lesser known languages are evocative of doubts and interventions by the participating audience1 reflective of a social condition, which marked a contraction of our zone of sensitivity, verging on derision and suspicion. It resonates with the “cynical opening” of the story concerning the “bandwagon syndrome.” The story proceeds thus: “the contemporary bandwagon that scholars are eager to jump onto is that of endangered languages, languages of the powerless and tribal languages of deep forests … (Agnihotri, 2017, p. 78). The embedded cynicism is said to be predicated on “a grain of some truth” (p. 79). However, it is immediately assuaged bringing in the redemption that: the idea is not to trivialize the efforts of generations of linguists seriously trying to understand the nature and structure of language and its social, psychological and historical aspects. In spite of this rather cynical opening, we do need to do everything we can to preserve, document and enrich our endangered languages without losing their multiplicity of voices. (Agnihotri, 2017, p. 79; emphasis in original)

The impassivity has inured our sensitivity to the truism that the loss of minoritized, the lesser known and the tribal languages is both real and lamentable. That the linguistic and cultural loss is not only restricts itself to living speakers but spills over to the yet unborn generations. This calls for an extension of a strong support to invest S. I. Hasnain (B) Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India e-mail: [email protected] F. A. Mir Cluster University of Jammu, Jammu, India 1

This paper is based on an invited presentation in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IITM, Chennai; the participating audience comprised young faculty members and research scholars of languages and linguistics from different universities and institutes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_18

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in these speakers the tenacity for protection and preservation of their languages in the face of pressures exerted by the bigger and powerful languages. This is a humanistic concern which needs to be addressed expeditiously and in all earnestness. Language documentation, indeed, is “a field of linguistic inquiry and practice in its own right which is primarily concerned with the compilation and preservation of linguistic primary data and interfaces between primary data and various types of analyses based on these data.” (Himmelmann, 2006, p. 1) It engages with the textual materials derived from the unwritten language of the researched. The textual materials can be the language structure, knowledge of the folk, music, cultural beliefs and practices of speakers of the languages of the powerless. Language documentation is textually mediated, and it is also about interpretation of these textual materials by the researcher. The interactional interface between “primary data” and “types of analyses” arising out of these data, should, therefore, go beyond providing “a lasting, multipurpose record of a language” (Himmelmann, 2006, p. 1; highlighted in original). This desired mandate, consequently, makes language documentation an act of interpretation. Interpretation requires careful reading. We not only work to interpret the textual materials for a better moral understanding of the victimage of globalization and the victims of endangered languages or minoritized, the lesser known and the tribal languages who had a long history of suppression at the hands of the powerful. We also strive to address the fundamental issues of inequality, injustice and marginalization which accompany globalization. As interpreters, we interpret extinction or loss of language not simply as a problem of inability or unpreparedness to cope with changes in society, or as an existential issue as to how to keep pace with the development and meet the expectations and aspirations of the speaking community; but interpret it for its moral valence. As this is a humanistic dimension of language documentation, we articulate our concern in the voice of a humanist. The humanistic concern anticipates engagement with a knowledge-based activity or a philological activity, which it already does as an important feature of documentary linguistics. At the same time it is also inclined toward engaging with ethical activity—the ethical activity of alterity and differences and not similarity. Interpretation in the humanistic tradition is alterity. It takes on to conversation and, as interpreter in language documentation, it allows us to enter into a serious interpretational dialogue with a text or a person. This makes the task of documenting a language far more challenging, for the interpretation has to derive its argument based on fairness and not on misrepresentation or misinformation or even misinterpretation. Further, as an interdisciplinary approach, language documentation is not only concerned with the role of language speakers and their rights and needs but it also involves a close cooperation with the speech community and invokes negotiation that bring the researcher and the researched in unprecedented position, which is ever changing. This ‘positioning’ as a process takes the language out of the langue to the parole and to the legacy of the speech act which underlies the “humanistic theory of language out of which positioning theory has been fashioned.” (Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 120).

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2 Situating the Issues of Language Documentation Against this theoretical background we intend to take up the issues in this presentation, which are premised on the experiences obtained from the fieldwork on specific language communities such as Birhor and Chinali, the two endangered languages spoken in the Jharkhand state and Himachal Pradesh, respectively and Pawri and Bhili languages of the internally displaced population of Narmada, namely Pawra and Bhil. In fact, most of the experiences have been theorized from the fieldwork conducted in Jharkhand state, which has been home to many tribes. The sense of “dispossession and the internal colonialism, accompanied by the inevitability of poverty and powerlessness, exploitation and oppression”, which characterized the situation of the indigenous people, “had conjured the predatory nature of the state … and infused a semantic opposition of Dikku and Hor.” (Hasnain et al., 2017, p. 45) Hor is an insider, human, epitomized by the traits of humanness. Dikku is an outsider, perceived as oppressor and exploiter and carries the attributes that are not human. Linguistically both the groups marked significant differences—the former’s language reflected the simplicity of the tribal life while the latter’s language “was replete with abusive and coercive terms which had no equivalence in the languages of the tribal groups” (Hasnain et al., 2017, p. 45). Observance of ‘silence’ struck an immediate contrast arising out of the culturally asymmetrical relations between the Dikku and the Hor in a communicative language situation. Although this narrative suffers from essentialist fallacy, ‘engaged’ research of many years on tribal language communities spurs to suggest that links between language, culture and identity are empirically and subjectively real. This essentialist import has implications for theory and method of research, for it suggests intervention of ideologies of the research community on the analysis and also alludes to closure of any serious interpretational dialogue with a text or a person. Every experience of our engagement in the fieldwork has been abstracted to raise a variety of issues ranging from the ways humans assume centrality in relation to others, privileging and assertion of agency, construction of objectivity, etc., which are entangled and implicated in research surrounding language documentation. Are we as humans privileged with the unique capability of asserting agency? Is the trait of human hubris in the assertion of agency uniformly spread across all humans? Are all human masters of their own intentions and desires? Is documenting the knowledge of the language, which “is down to a few speakers”, the most important thing and the primary function of linguists entering communities for documentation? (Hinton, 2001, cited in Grenoble & Whaley, 2006, p. 68) Do we have any demonstrable sense of neutrality by the agents in their treatment of certain social group as object of scientific enquiry? How is the object of enquiry represented by the privileged agency? Has the object been adequately represented in research? Are the object of enquiry equally engaged as partners in the formulation of the research questions? Does the agency give space to its object of scientific enquiry to articulate itself with equal and shared trajectory of relations? How much of our interpretation is taking to conversation that is based on the principle of alterity and not on similarity? Are we alert to the ethically charged question of representation and the demands of fairness

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during our interpretational dialogue with textual materials or a person? How does one capture the representativeness of communicative events occurring in the speech community? For someone who has been dabbling into critical discourse analysis these are some salient issues which are fraught with dilemma of practicality, politics and pessimism in language documentation. These are important considerations not only “to unsettle the position of humans as the monarchs of being” (Pennycook, 2018, p. 183) but also for doing being critical (Phipps & Guilherme, 2004, p. 2). These questions, it is hoped, would allow to embed experiences in theory and, therefore, need to be included as one of its goals for preservation, protection and documentation of endangered languages in general and minor and minority languages in particular.

3 Anthropocene: Assertion of Agency by Humans We are living in a time of Anthropocene. The homo sapiens are the single most influential species of environmental and climatic destruction. More importantly, we are also living in a time of fragmented Anthropocene—fragmented by design to create boundaries and distinction between humans and biology, between humans and the world around us. Anthropocene is also hierarchized by design resulting in the loss, disuse and extinction of language. Although our species are the single most destructive agents of environmental degradation, divided and hierarchized humans are impacting the linguistic and biodiversity in the field of language endangerment. Documentation in the context of endangerment, preservation and protection of Tribal and other minor languages in their natural setting of existence anticipates different positioning. A positioning that allows us to forge “renewed interest in how we relate to animals and the other inhabitants of this planet” (Pennycook, 2018, p. 183) and reflect on “humanity, the non-human, politics and pessimism.” (2018, p. 179) It also invites us to question the “ways humanism has privileged the human mind as the source of knowledge and ethics” (2018, p. 182) and allowed humans to assume centrality in relation to other beings on the planet. This is a theoretical anti-humanism position which connects the thread of contributions in post-structuralism represented by Lacan, Althusser and Foucault. While Lacan’s work “theorizes the subject in terms of desire in a way which provides resources for going beyond limitations inherent in a humanistic version” (Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 120), Althusser, in his positioning theory, interpellated ideologized subject. Foucault’s anti-humanism related the subject to discourse, politics and power and made an apocalyptic proclamation concerning the ‘end of Man’,2 which concludes The Order of Things. Man’s appearance, Foucault writes:

2

Paden (1987) clarifies the obscurity associated with ‘Man’. According to him, Foucault does not mean ‘man’ as human kind; “rather a particular view of human cognitive processes which takes them to be open to a kind of empirical investigation which can both provide a ground for knowledge and explain behavior.” (Paden 1987, p. 123).

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…was not the liberation of an old anxiety, the transition into luminous consciousness of an age-old concern, the entry into objectivity of something that had long remained trapped within beliefs and philosophies: it was the effect of a change in the fundamental arrangements of knowledge. As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end. If those arrangements were to disappear as they appeared, if some event of which we can at the moment do no more than sense the possibility—without knowing either what its form will be or what it promises—were to cause them to crumble, as the ground of Classical thought did, at the end of the eighteenth century, then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea. (Foucault, 2005, p. 422)

Anti-humanism position alludes to Pennycook’s “posthumanism”, which takes “humanity’s ontological precariousness” seriously (Fuller, 2011, cited in Pennycook, 2018, p. 182). This theoretical anti-humanism position not only denies the capacity of agency but also interrogates human hubris emerging out of assertion of agency by humans and “provides the resources for an understanding of positioning as a systemic discursive process” (Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 120).

4 ‘Positioning’: Dualism of Conscious Action and Unselfconscious Motivation ‘Positioning’ is the discursive process—an ongoing engagement with participants in their day-to-day activities—“whereby people are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced storylines.” (Davies & Harre 1999, cited in Block, 2014, p. 22) In language documentation one finds evocation of sense of ambivalence and duality in meaning emerging from the discursive process. Ambivalence because individuals simultaneously situate themselves and get situated by others in the discursive process, and duality comes from the way ‘position’ as a construct is looked at both as a verb and as a noun. Besides the obvious duality of grammatical functions and meaning, ‘positioning’ also signals dualism of agency and structure, of conscious action and unselfconscious motivation, and, thus, alludes to the nature of power relationship in the engagement of the spoken languages’ documentation. ‘Position’ as “a way in which people dynamically produce and explain the everyday behaviour of themselves and others” (Harre & van Langenhove, 1991, cited in Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 122) lends authority to agency and brings “interpellation into subject positions.” (Davies & Banks, 1992, cited in Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 121) This postmodernist orientation allows ‘positioning’ to further suggest that behind this seemingly innocuous function of language documentation lies imposition of the dominant (the agency) upon the dominated ones (the interpellated subject). Furthermore, since the agency and the interpellated subject do not have a symmetrical relationship, in language documentation, the field linguists, perhaps unwittingly and sometimes intendedly through certain discursive practices, make the informants slip into becoming the ‘object of wonder.’ (Agnihotri 2017,

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p.79) Ordinarily, the word ‘object’ evokes two strains of thought—the first strain emerges from the binarity of subject–object relations as something which is stable, fixed and unchanging and can be contrasted with events and processes. The second strain raises the issue of how the researcher positions him/herself in relation to the informant in the construction of neutrality and objectivity.

5 Terminological Conundrums—Some Reflections In providing a preliminary answer to the question “What is a language documentation?”, Himmelmann (2006) brings in three constituents, namely “lasting”, “multipurpose” and “record of a language” to define language documentation. However, in these definitional constituents, it is the “record of a language” that carries the complexities of the problem attached with defining “language as opposed to dialect, or language as a field of scientific enquiry, or language as a cognitive faculty of humans…” (Himmelmann, 2006, p. 2). This ambiguous fate of opposition between language and dialect has intrigued linguists and laypeople alike. If we compare the status of languages listed in Ethnologue-2020 with Ethnologue-1996 (or even 2005), it is interesting to find how dialects are becoming languages in Ethnologue-2020.3 For instance, Bhatri (alternate names: Bhatra, Bhottada, Deshia, etc.) is listed as a separate language in Ethnologue-2020, while in Ethnologue-1996 it was a dialect of Oriya; Matu is listed as a separate language in Ethnologue-2020, while in Ethnologue-1996 it was a dialect of Khumi Chin/Khumi; Eravallan and Yerukula are listed as separate languages in Ethnologue-2020, while in Ethnologue-1996 they were alternate names of Irula; Lyngngam is listed as a separate language in Ethnologue-2020, while in Ethnologue-1996 it was listed as a dialect of Khasi; Deccan (alternate names: Dakhni, Dakhini, Dakkhini, Deccani, etc.) is listed as a separate language in Ethnologue-2020 while in Ethnologue-1996 Deccan/Dakhini/Dakani were dialects of Urdu; Amri Karbi is listed as a separate language in Ethnologue-2020, while in Ethnologue1996 Amri/Amri Karbi was a dialect of Mikir/ Karbi, and in Ethnologue-2005 Amri became a separate language (alternate name: Amri Karbi). There is yet another dimension of problem representing the interiorized discomfiture surrounding the use of ‘language’ and other essentialized constructs such as ‘community,’ ‘speech community,’ ‘domain,’ etc. It carries traces of language ideology imbued with eurocentrism. According to Costa (2013, p. 317), they characterize “regime of truth as one that not only essentializes the link between language and community, but also constructs communities as homogeneous …” which are allowed to be unquestionably used in the definition of ‘speech community.’4 They not only reflect “an ideology of languages” as discrete entities, bounded, impermeable, autonomous and countable institutions, but also “the construction of new objects” 3

We are grateful to Awadesh K. Mishra for providing this revealing information. Spolsky (1998, p. 24) in his explanation of speech community informs us that unlike the general linguists who look at it as “all the people who speak a single language (like English or French or

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(Makoni & Pennycook, 2007, p. 10). This is clearly evident from the data provided by international instruments like UNESCO. For instance, in 2009, the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger identified 198 languages of India as endangered. However, after Khasi was withdrawn from the list in 2012, the number of endangered languages in India came down to 197. Bokar, Bori, Milang, Minyong Padam, Pasi and Tangam, Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, provide an interesting case of “construction of new objects.” All these languages were mentioned in 1951 Census, save Tangam which was dropped in 1961 Census. However, none of these appeared in Ethnologue-1996. Further, Minyong, Milang and Padam existed as dialects of Adi in Ethnologue-2000, but Bokar, Bori, Pasi and Tangam did not appear in Ethnologue-2000. Furthermore, Bokar, Bori, Milang, Minyong, Padam (Standard Adi), Pasi and Tangam appeared as dialects of Adi in Ethnologue-2005 and again reappeared as dialects of Adi in Ethnologue-2020. Similarly in the case of Bellari—a South Dravidian language, and Manda and Pengo—South Central Dravidian languages, which were listed as separate languages in Ethnologue-2005 and its subsequent editions. Bellari and Pengo did not find any place in 1951 and 1961 censuses. In Ethnologue-1996 and 2000, Bellari was listed as a dialect of Tulu and in Ethnologue-2005 it was mentioned as a separate language. In Ethnologue-1996, Pengo and Manda appeared as separate languages but in Ethnologue-2000, Pengo (with alternate names such as Pengu and Hengo and Manda) was mentioned both as a separate language and as one of the dialects of Pengu. Interestingly, while Ethnologue-2000 treated Pengu as one of the alternate names of Pengo, the same Ethnologue (2000) listed it as a separate language. Ruga, a dialect of Garo (Grierson 1908 and Ethnologue-1996), provides yet another case of eurocentric ideology of languages in the “construction of new objects.” Although Ruga did not exist in 1951 and 1961 censuses, it was listed as a separate (“endangered”) language by the UNESCO Atlas and “nearly extinct” or “moribund” language by Ethnologue-2000, 2005, and its subsequent editions. Similarly, Toda and Kota, the two tribal languages of Nilgiris, which together were placed as “endangered” languages according to UNESCO, but Ethnologue considered Toda as vigorous while Kota as a developing language. In fact, the terminological conundrum essentially arise out of linear systems of classification which was premised on the assumption that there existed ‘a language,’ ‘a community’ with an enclosed territory and a set of nearly frozen social networks and relationships. In the context of language enumeration, this anomaly and terminological confusion clearly emerges from the Census—the state-sanctioned political institution which is said to be the ultimate register of projecting the sociopolitical and linguistic truth about language and dialect.5 It creates consciously hidden identity through Amharic) and so share notions of what is same or different in phonology or grammar…sociolinguists…focus on the language practices of a group of people who…share not just a single language but a repertoire of languages or varieties. 5 As an ideological state apparatus, Census is used by the state to pigeon-hole the people within their boundaries into categories—linguistic, racial, and ethnic for conferring group recognition and (numerical) proportion. For instance, 2011 Census rationalised 19,569 raw returns, which were based on the parameters of mutual intelligibility and linguistic relatedness. This resulted in reporting

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the elicitation technique and the ideological dispensation of the enumerators who, unfortunately, do not offer people the choice of language. The questionnaires are designed and constructed in such a way that respondents have to pick one language, for example, Hindi or Urdu. One is neither allowed to say “both” nor there is any space given to write Bhojpuri or Braj or Magahi, etc. For official purposes, one’s identity is “a language” but for a speaker, it is not. Both the “ideology of languages” and the “construction of new objects” become discernible when we compare the mother tongues/languages recorded in the 1951 and the 1961 Censuses. While the 1951 Census recorded 767 languages,6 about 1550 MTs (excluding about 102 foreign MTs) were recorded in the 1961 Census. The comparison, according to Mishra, clearly shows that: about 783 mother tongues/languages were “born” in one decade! In the 2001 Census, we had about 1535 MTs (excluding about 105 foreign MTs), 234 of which were spoken by more than 10,000 persons and the remaining 1301 MTs were spoken by fewer than 10,000 persons. If we compare the mother tongues of the 1961 Census with those of the 2001 Census, we find that about 940 MTs of the 1961 Census appear in the 2001 Census, about 620 MTs s of the 1961 Census do not appear in the 2001 Census (i.e., about 620 new MTs were born in four decades), and about 620 MTs died or became extinct (which were replaced by the newly born 620 MTs)! [Even] a careful look at the MTs that disappeared or supposedly died/became extinct at the time of the 2001 Census…[show] that these mother tongues did not actually die or become extinct. A great majority of these MTs were spoken by 1 speaker each,…or by a very small number of speakers (fewer than 10 or so)…and most likely these were mistakenly (due to ignorance) mentioned by those speakers as the names of the MTs. There was a considerable number of MTs (mostly spoken by fewer…than 1000 persons) which were alternate names/varieties of other mother tongues/languages… (Mishra, 2019, pp. 2-3; emphasis added)

The plenitude of politico-social contexts of meaning and concept lend ambiguity to the term ‘mother tongue.’ Mother tongue could be a dialect or a language that one grows up speaking in the home. Is home language always the mother tongue too? Will the local language always be the home language? What is the local language of a child who lives in Aligarh and is familiar with Hindi at home, hears Urdu in the locality and learns in English at school? What is the local language of a child whose family speaks Bhojpuri and lives in a Hindi-speaking part of Mumbai? More urgently, what about a North Indian living in Chennai or vice versa—which is the 1369 as rationalised mother tongues and 1474 as ‘Unclassified’ ‘Other’ mother tongues; thus, leaving behind 16,726 raw returns. Out of 1369 rationalised mother tongues, 121 were classified mother tongues, returned by 10,000 or more speakers, without providing any objective basis for arriving at this particular number (121), and not recognising the rest of them even when their speakers were much more than 10,000. The driving force for rationalisation, i.e. mutual intelligibility and linguistic relatedness, is neither able to explain the inclusion of 49 varieties of Hindi in 2001 Census and 56 in 2011 Census nor it is able to justify keeping Urdu separate from Hindi. (forthcoming publication, Hasnain, Kumar, Mir and Khan). 6 1951 Census classified all MTs as “language/dialect” or “languages (or dialects)”. Out of 767 languages, “there were 47 languages (or dialects) spoken by more than 1 lakh persons (23 tribal languages/dialects and 24 non-tribal languages/dialects), and 720 languages/dialects spoken by fewer than 1 lakh speakers (202 languages/dialects spoken by fewer than 10 persons)” (Mishra 2019, p. 2).

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local and home language of either? Many who speak Urdu, Hindi and English would describe all three as their language. The question of mother tongue will always remain problematic for such individuals and groups. Only the speakers, because they are at the heart of this interaction, can answer the question of what their “mother tongue” or “home language” is. Furthermore, in the discourse about the spread of English in the background of globalization, mother tongue is often used to refer to another regional or national language used in education and not to the home dialect, thus adding complexity and confusion to the terminology. Perhaps, it is these difficulties arising out of terminological confusion that prompted Himmelmann to suggest that; Unless we want to postpone working on language documentations until the probably never arriving day when all the conceptual problems of defining language in all of its different senses are resolved and a theoretically well-balanced delimitation of “a language” for the purposes of language documentations is possible, we need a pragmatic approach in dealing with this problem. (Himmelmann, 2006, p. 2)

6 Researcher as Explorer and Explainer [W]e should address our talents as explorers and explainers to those texts which evidence crucial moments in discourse where participants may be placed at social risk during communication, suffering disadvantage in consequence of the inequalities of communication. (Candlin 1989, pp. viii-ix)

We share a particular experience encountered during our visit to Ranchi. It illustrates the ‘crucial moments in discourse’ underlined by Candlin in his Preface to Fairclough’s (1989) Language and Power. As part of the project of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, sponsored by NCERT, UNESCO and CIIL, we were to explore the status of tribal languages in government schools in Jharkhand State. The textbooks were printed in Khariya, Santali and Kurukh, and they were to be used in schools located in the villages dominated by the speakers of these languages. Since this was not a personal visit, the information about our visiting schools was consequential. To our dismay, we saw brand new unused books handed over to children and class teachers who mostly happened to be the native speaker of Hindi with no background of the dominating language of the school. In one of the schools dominated by Kurukh speaking children, it was interesting to observe students not only bemused by the presence of such books printed in their language but quite overzealously struggling to read what is printed there while holding the books upside-down. Our visit at night to the Kurukh dominating village was far more revealing. The village had no lights, except one lamppost. Under the lamppost stood a girl writing something. She recognized us because she had seen us interacting with the teachers and all others during our visit in the school. She was surrounded by other children with whom we had interacted in the school and a lot of community members, including her parents. We wanted to see what she was writing and with a sense of trepidation, fear and shame she finally showed us. She was writing

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in Kurukh using Tolong Siki script. Interestingly, the text books provided to them in the school did not have that script. The school marginalized and silenced her, as her symbolic and material resources were neither valued nor acknowledged. However, she had the support and tacit encouragement from the community to use Tolong Siki in the village and enabled her to carve out a space for resistance—resistance against the dominance of a particular pedagogy, domination against the imposition of a particular script. The school did not give that space; she found space at home and was able to use that to connect herself with the community and to forge her identity. It was the ‘social risk’ and ‘suffering disadvantage’ that prompted the girl to bring enactment of identity at home which gives space to articulate her voice. This serves as an interesting example of ‘centrifugal’ hidden and playful activities which are really important for providing an alternative pedagogy because it is the centrifugal, playful and hidden activity that make one think alternatively and she was able to do that. Here, Tolong Siki script should not be seen simply as a medium to represent language (Kurukh in this case) for bringing or lending permanence to the hitherto unwritten language. It is much more than this innocuous projection. The choice of script in the inhabiting academic institutions conveys the social class and status to those who recognize the earmarks. It also denotes certain linguistic behavior that have a market value which can be exchanged for social prestige (Bourdieu & Thompson, 1991). In fact, it poses challenge to social construction of privilege and educational bias toward a preferred form of script that is mediated through controlling systems of education.

7 Problems of Identity in Singularity Just as we have problems with identifying language in singularity, as a discrete entity, singular word ‘identity’ is also equally misleading. Identity in singular can be useful as the everyday word for people’s sense of who they are. But neither it brings in the sense of simultaneity that comes with identification with social groups nor it allows to draw allusions to “the connotations of social construction and constraints which are foregrounded by the terms ‘subject’ and ‘subjectivity’.” (Ivanic, 1998, pp. 10–11) This subjectivity is our sense of ourselves, which is not innate but constructed by individual and is socially produced. Here the people either foreground their identities at different times or contradict or interrelate one or more aspects of their identities. One could see these happening in case of Birhor or Chinali. Based on ecology and ethno-religious ways of living patterns, the Birhor tribes residing in Jharkhand state are categorized into two subtribes—Uthul Birhor and Jaghi Birhor. The Uthul Birhors are the nomadic group who live in many districts across Jharkhand like Patepani, Chota Banki and Noamundi, which is Jharkhand–Odisha border area. They continue their orthodox religious practices where the concept of god /boNA/ is realized in the shape of sun /sINI/ and the mountain(s) /b*ru/. They believe that the Sun god /sINI boNA/ has created them all and have been given to the mountain god /b*ru boNA/ for their development and food. The Sal

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tree is worshiped only once a year and is offered sacrifices of black hens. TSRDS of Tata Steel (Jamshedpur) provides them houses, clinics, schools, drinking water, etc. The Jaghi Birhors, on the other hand, are associated with agriculture. They rear cattle and sheep and live a settled life as agriculturists in their own houses which are predominantly found in Tatiba area of Bishunpur of Gumla District in Jharkhand. Orthodox religious practices are found absent among them. Many of them have converted to Hinduism and some have moved toward Christianity. Although the Uthul Birhors maintain their language across generations, there were some instances of Santali lexical borrowings being observed in their day-today communication. This is attributed to the social set-up of almost all Uthul Birhor as they live in the vicinity of Santals. The children of Uthul Birhors were exposed to Hindi and English languages as they were attaining literacy from the schools maintained by TSRDS. While both Hindi and English form their verbal repertoire, they continue to maintain the use of their mother tongue at home and at community level.7 The Jaghi Birhors living in Tatiba area of Gumla district were observed to be using Birhor mixed with Sadri language for ingroup and outgroup communication. The Jaghi Birhor, particularly those living in proximity with the Christian community, have also been maintaining their language across younger generations while using substantial number of lexicons borrowed from Sadri language. However, those who are in contact with the Hindu community were more inclined toward using Hindi, besides using their mother tongue. There were also instances of borrowing of lexical items from Hindi representing Hindu mythology and style of worshiping. Also Chinali, an unwritten language spoken by the tribal community in Himachal Pradesh called Chinals, is generally not used as a mother tongue by the community in their day to day life. Only the elder generations use it at home and for interaction with community members. Because of the pejoration attached with the name,8 Chinali is not transmitted to younger generation. Instead, Lahuli or Kulvi is used when talking to their children. The former is a mixture of languages spoken and understood by people living in Lahul valley; however, it is entirely different from Chinali and it does not include Chinali words into it. The latter is a common language spoken by the communities living in and on the outskirts of Kullu and Manali.9 Use of both Lahuli and Kulvi as lingua franca of the community marks clear case of language 7

Regarding language shift it was observed that though a small group of Birhor families were taught Bible in Odia language in Noamundi area lying on Jharkhand-Odisha border, nonetheless the community had not converted to Christianity. The Bible written in Odia language was translated (verbally) to them in Birhor. 8 Chinals are identified by different names such as Domba, Channa, Shudras. These names carry pejorative connotations, suggestive of belonging to lower caste, and the community members claim that these are attributed to them by the upper caste Hindus. Majority of them do not want to be identified with this name and, thus use different surnames to disguise their Chinali connection. There are few who have no objection in being called as Chinals. However, none of them believe that they are Shudras; rather they claim that they belong to the Aryan race of Indians and some even carry the surname Arya for the validation their Aryan ancestry (Mir, 2015). 9 Although some families living in Kullu consider Chinali as their mother tongue and pass it on to their children, it’s use is confined to home and rarely used in speaking with other community members.

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shift among the Chinal community. Their use of Hindi is for the purpose of education and economic privileges. They also perceive its use as beneficial in preserving some of their oral literary heritage—songs and poems of ritualistic values—by writing them in Devanagari. However, their shift toward Lahuli and Kulvi can be seen as a strategic compromise to escape from the marginalization, inhuman treatment and social stigma alleged to have been attributed to the community by certain members of the upper-caste Hindus. One may even see emerging intersectional identity, as in the case of Kurukh girl who uses Kurukh script at home and Ol Chiki (used for Santali) or Devanagari in school, thus suggesting construction of one identity at home intersecting with another at school. This justifies the use of identity in plural, i.e. ‘identities’ because it effectively captures “the idea of people identifying simultaneously with a variety of social groups” (Ivanic, 1998, pp. 10). At the same it is also fraught with disconcerting fragmentation when used in the sense of person’s ‘identities.’ This makes the case for the use of the term ‘multiple identity,’ but this term also has potential of suggesting the opposite problem, Ivanic refers to as “a comfortable coherence among identities, which is not true to most people’s existence” (1998, pp. 10).

8 Communicative Events in Documentation: Reaffirming the Agency in and Through Language Schultze-Berndt (2012) argues that what is to be documented in any given language documentation project is “not a language as such, but a selection of communicative events, i.e. parole, not langue, in Saussure’s terms.” (Schultze-Berndt, 2012, p. 2070) Himmelmann clearly spells out this functional imperative in language documentation through the metaphorical use of ‘net’ when he says that “the net should be cast as widely as possible [and] language documentation should strive to include as many and as varied records as practically feasible covering all aspects of the set of inter-related phenomena commonly call a language.” (Himmelmann, 2006:2). Everyday conversational routines are as important as a grammar and lexicon.10 Besides the non-informational use, language is also used in purely informational social interactions as in greeting, joking, abusing, intimidating, offending, questioning, commanding and so on. ‘Privately’ language can as well be used in and for communication. We talk to ourselves; or we write for our own future (benefit) and we do all that with our use of language which go as claims of the Language of Thought Hypothesis. Thus, for presenting a multipurpose record of a language Himmelmann (2006) stresses the importance of obtaining: 10

Scope of lexicons used to explore the counterparts can be expanded to include pronouns, tense forms, as well, for participating in situated speech events. In fact, tenses are of particular significance because they help in eliciting information on the temporal relationship to the event in question either by embedding target sentences in the questionnaire on tenses in a context or by reversing the order and asking speakers for a context in which a certain expressions are likely to be used by them.

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specimens of observable linguistic behaviour, i.e. examples of how people actually communicate with each other. This includes all kinds of communicative activities in a speech community, from everyday small talk to elaborate rituals, from parents baby-talking to their newborn infants to political disputes between village elders. (Himmelmann, 2006, p. 7)

Himmelmann’s notion of “communicative activities in a speech community”, and all that goes with it, resonate with the idea of ‘communicative acts’ which the linguistic anthropologists use to bring in the sense of folk, artistic and creative abilities in performance. In their pursuit to explore what speakers do with language, the linguistic anthropologists, according to Duranti, not only employ the notion of performance in the sense of Chomsky’s ‘use of the linguistic system’ and Austin’s ‘doing of things with words’ but also include the sense “which comes from folklore studies, poetics, and, more generally, the arts” (Duranti, 1997, p. 15). This sense of performance falls within a domain of human action and communicative practices found in a given speech community. They are as important as the linguistic description based on grammar and lexicon, which, with a very few connected texts, may provide data at the sentence level. But one may not get information about the pragmatics and discourse structure. For instance, the following sentences from Birhor inform us how important it is to go beyond grammar-driven approach (Amery, 2009) in order to understand the real use and function of language, the worldview that the given speech community represents, and to recognize “the role played by social actors, viz. agents, in the production and reproduction of social systems” Duranti (2004, p. 452): i. Word

ÍIlIN

ãoRA

INthi

mIna

Morphemes

ÍIlIN

ãoRA

IN -thi

mIna

Lex. Gloss

tall/long

rope

me/I hand

be

Lex. Gram. Info

ADJ

N

1SG:SUB. N

COP

Word Gloss

tall/long

rope

me/I hand

Be

Word Cat

ADJ

N

PRO

COP

Free Translation: ‘A long rope’

(In their worldview the understanding of measurement is determined by measuring things as per length of their hand, i.e. the length of the hand is the criterion for measurement provided in response to the sentence “Rope is long.”). ii. Word

uni

l@t̪ @r

uju

unAe

Morphemes

Uni

l@t̪ @r

uju

un -A- -e

Lex. Gloss

he/she

up

fall

they finite he/she/it

Lex. Gram. Info

PRO

ADV

V

DET FIN 3SG:SUB

Word Gloss

he/she

Up

Fall

they finite he/she/it

Word Cat

PRO

ADV

V

DET FIN PRO

Free Translation: ‘S/he falls down’

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(This expresses their worldview of ‘detachment’ which entails the process of initially going up from an imaginary or conceptual point and then falling down; rather than the existing original point from where the action is enacted.) iii. Word

moh@n

ÍA

bAhAemA

Morphemes

moh@n

ÍA

bAhA

-e

mA

d̪ eA d̪ e

-A

rAm

ke

Lex. Gloss

mohan

go

flower

pro

optative

give

indicative

ram

dative

Lex. Gram. Info

N.PROP

V

N

OPT

V

IND

N.PROP

DAT

Word Gloss

mohan

go

flower

optative

give

indicative

ram

to

Word Cat

N.PROP

V

N

OPT

V

IND

N.PROP

DAT

rAmke

Free Translation: ‘Mohan gave a flower to Ram’

(This gives a sense of movement of the person doing something, i.e. Mohan ‘goes’ and ‘gives’ flower to Ram.) iv. Word

sIt̂ @RA

mãdi

Íom

k@n

Morphemes

sIt̪ @. -RA

mãdi

Íom

k - @n

Lex. Gloss

morning of

food

eat

be demonstrative

Lex. Gram. Info

N GEN

N

V

COP DEM

Word Gloss

morning of

food

eat

be demonstrative

Word Cat

N GEN

N

V

COP DEM

Free Translation: ‘I eat breakfast’

(The idea of breakfast is imposed on them and in order to respond well they just ‘personify’ the morning time and use a genitive marker /-RA / to fit in the imposed worldview.) These examples not only make cases for discussing linguistic relativity and language use and function but also inform us about the social implications of language usage. In fact, the informants’ conceptualization and reproduction of sentences imbued with their worldview reaffirm the role played by the given speech communities as agents of change. It thus demonstrates how agency of the interpellated subject is enacted and represented in (and through) language. Genre of recipies can be a strong source for language documentation. It brings spontaneity and can capture the moment of communicative action in real speaking situations. For instance, a simple instruction such as: i. /@b h@m n@m@k ãAleNe/ ‘Now we will add salt’ not only marks the use of imperative constructions, which varies from person to person, but also shows overwhelming use of future with first person plural form and, thus, makes a strong case for using recipes as rich and useful source for documentation from communicative action point of view.11 Even certain unexpected collocations imbued with illocutionary and perlocutionary forces, for example: 11

Recipies also allude to intersectionality of gender and allows us to understand the synergetic and mutually reinforcing connection between linguistic vitality and the gendered intent of the questions employed by a researcher in the fieldwork. Pioneering studies by Abbi convincingly demonstrate

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ii. /miThA rIsht̪ A/ ‘Relation that is/was sweet’, iii. /s@Ri si l@Rki/ ‘Girl who is rotten’ (in the sense of obnoxious) which are suggestive of more being a marker of evidential kinds rather than definite or indefinite kinds, can bring elements of surprise that come from conversational patterns in interaction.

9 Conclusion This paper has sought to delineate the challenges and issues of a field-worker with an aim to make the process of language documentation a fruitful process for the researcher and the researched. By discussing various aspects of the challenges of this process, i.e. the theorization, the fieldwork, empowerment and advocacy, and the identity formation, it has been amply demonstrated that the language documentation needs to be viewed as a process of abundant challenges that actually lie in front in myriad shapes for the field-worker. A field-worker, thus, needs to consider the essentiality of an epistemic, social and democratic balance between researcher and the researched; the latter needs to be engaged in the process of language documentation as an indispensable centripetal agency. Also, the government bodies are, no doubt, the most empowered agencies for the collection of data, and their role is pivotal in defining the status of languages/mother tongues and the identities pertaining to them. By demonstrating the issue of terminological conundrum in this paper, the approaches and methods of data collection for language Census by the government bodies has been taken into account to express how such approaches, methods, tools and techniques are actually not helping in the collection of the exact information regarding languages/mother tongues spoken and how it masks the identities of the people, in turn. It is, therefore, important for a researcher to creatively define his/her own position before she/he gets (may be unwittingly) caught in a tide carried along by the current of other people’s expectations. These issues need to be taken as a way forward in the interest of a fruitful language documentation process. There is much more to communication than words or signs which the interpreter communicates based on the interpretation of the text, for communication involves intention, context, gestures and relations of power. These are different situations where interpretation takes place which contribute toward making communication as a communicative event. Further, since there is an ongoing engagement with participants in their day-to-day activities and also a constant negotiation between the researcher and the researched in the ever-changing new positions, communicative events and the legacy of speech acts assume significance. Language documentation must, therefore, also pay attention to both the communicative practices and functions and use of language for exploring the ways in which they are executed. This paradigm that women have been more consistent in contributing towards linguistic vitality. This not only validates the prevalence of gender-loaded questions concerning linguistic vitality but also suggests that documentation of language must be looked at from the lenses of mother and grandmother.

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of language documentation, therefore, calls for adopting a method and methodology which has a realistic edge and a survivalist flavor. A methodology which can provide conceptual antagonism between “being spoken” and the possibility of “speaking in new ways” (Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 122) and is adequately equipped to observe and capture the moment of communicative action in real and spontaneous speaking situations. Acknowledgements We have benefitted from our discussion with Professors Anvita Abbi, Panchanan Mohanty and Awadesh K. Mishra and the insightful comments provided by Mr. Danish Iqbal.

References Agnihotri, R. K. (2017). What shall we do with our ‘Unwritten Endangered’ languages? In A. Abbi (Ed.), Unwritten languages of India (pp. 78–93). Sahitya Akademi. Amery, R. (2009). Phoenix or Relic? Documentation of languages with revitalization in mind. Language Documentation & Conservation, 3(2), 138–148 http://nrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/. http://hdl. handle.net/10125/4436 Block, D. (2014). Second language identities. Bloomsbury. Bourdieu, P., & Thompson, J. B. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Harvard University Press. Costa, J. (2013). Language endangerment and revitalisation as elements of regimes of truth: Shifting terminology to shift perspective. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 34(4), 317–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2013.794807 Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge University Press. Duranti, A. (2004). Agency in language. In A. Duranti (Ed.), A companion of linguistic anthropology (pp. 451–473). Blackwell Publishing. Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. Longman. Foucault, M. (2005). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. Routledge. Grenoble, L. A., & Whaley, L. J. (2006). Saving languages: An introduction to language revitalization. Cambridge University Press. Himmelmann, N. P. (2006). Language documentation: What is it and what is it good for? In J. Gippert, N. P. Himmelmann, & U. Mosel (Eds.), Essentials of language documentation (pp. 1–30). Mouton de Gruyter. Hasnain, S. I., Mir, F. A., Sarkar, S. (2017). The world of the Birhor: Continuity, change and loss. In A. Abbi (Ed.), Unwritten languages of India (pp. 38–62). Sahitya Akademi. Hasnain, S. I., Kumar, R., Mir, F. A., Khan, T., & Sarkar, S. (Forthcoming). Vanishing identity, Linguistic human rights and linguistic citizenship. Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Makoni, S., & Pennycook, A. (Eds.). (2007). Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Multilingual Matters. Mir, F. A., Imtiaz Hasnain, S., Sarkar S (Forthcoming) Maintenance of aboriginal identity: An ethnosemantic study of Chinals of Himachal Pradesh. LingPoet: Journal of Linguistics and Literary Research. Published by Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universities Sumatera Utara, Medan Indonesia. ISSN 2745-8296 Mir, F. A. (2015). Chinali: A case of language endangerment in India. Interdisciplinary Journal of Linguistics, 8, 162–168.

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Mishra, A. K. 2019. Census and endangered languages/mother tongues of India. Paper presented in the National conference on Revitalization of indigenous languages: Issues and challenges (12–14 July 2019), KIIT, Bhubaneswar. Paden, R. (1987). Foucault’s anti-humanism. Human studies (Vol. 10, pp. 123–141). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht. Pennycook, A. (2018). Critical and post humanist applied linguistics (pp. 179–195). Accessed January 12, 2020. openaccess.blucher.com.br›download-pdf Peters, M., & Appel, S. (1996). Positioning theory: Discourse, the subject and the problem of desire. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology, 40, 120–141. Phipps, A., & Guilherme, M. (2004). Introduction: Why languages and intercultural communication are never just neutral. In A. Phipps & M. Guilherme (Eds.), Critical pedagogy: Political approaches to language and intercultural communication (pp. 1–6). Multilingual Matters Ltd. Sallabank, J. (2013). Attitudes to endangered languages: Identities and policies. Cambridge University Press. Schultze-Berndt, E. (2012). Language documentation. In T. Kiss & A. Alexiadou (Eds.), Syntax: An international handbook of contemporary research (2nd ed.). Mouton de Gruyter. Spolsky, B. (1998). Sociolinguistics. Oxford introductions to language study (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press.

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses in Nominalization Perspective Prashant Pardeshi and Masayoshi (Matt) Shibatani

Abstract In the previous studies on the noun-modifying expressions ([{modifying structure} head noun]) in Marathi, the structure modifying the head noun in the socalled relative clauses and the noun-complement clauses is claimed to be a sentence or clause. In this chapter, adopting the framework of nominalization proposed in (Shibatani M. Syntax Complexity: Diachronic, Acquisition, Neuro-Cognition, Evolution: Typological Studies in Language 85, pp. 163–198. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins (2009); Shibatani M. In Masayoshi (Matt) Shibatani, Shigeru Miyagawa, and Hisashi Noda (eds.). Handbook of Japanese Syntax: Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics [HJLL] Series, Volume 4, pp. 271– 331. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton (2017); Shibatani M. In Prashant Pardeshi and Taro Kageyama (eds.). Handbook of Japanese Contrastive Linguistics: Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics [HJLL] Series, Volume 6, pp. 345– 410. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton (2018); Shibatani M. In Roberto Zariquiey, Masayoshi (Matt) Shibatani, and David Fleck. (eds.), Nominalization in Languages of the Americas. pp. 15–168. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins (2019)), we argue that the structure modifying the head noun in the relevant constructions is not a clause or sentence that performs the predication or assertion function, but it is rather a ‘(grammatical) nominalization,’ which, like ordinary nouns, denotes a substantive/thing (including abstract ones such as events, facts and propositions), and which performs referential function when it heads a noun phrase, and restricting or identification function when it modifies a head noun. Keywords Marathi · Hindi · Relative clause · (Relative-) correlative construction · V/N-complement · Clause · Sentence · Nominalization

P. Pardeshi (B) National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] M. Shibatani Rice University, Houston, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 R. Kumar and O. Prakash (eds.), Language Studies in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5276-0_19

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Abbreviations (not included in Leipzig Glossing Rules) CP EMPH RELP CORREL

Conjunctive participle Emphatic particle Relative pronoun Correlative pronoun

1 Introduction Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the state of Maharashtra (state capital Mumbai/Bombay) in India. With over 80 million speakers (Census of India 2011), Marathi is one of the 20 most widely spoken languages of the world. Apart from Maharashtra, a substantial number of Marathi speakers are found in the neighboring states like Goa, Karnataka and Telangana (to the South), Gujarat (to the Northwest), Madhya Pradesh (to the North) and Chhattisgarh (to the East) and the diaspora settled in various parts of the world. Marathi is surrounded by Indo-Aryan sister languages like Gujarati, Hindi and Chhattisgarhi spoken on the northern border of Maharashtra state, and by Indo-Aryan Konkani and Dravidian languages like Telugu, Gondi and Kannada, spoken on it southern and eastern borders. The prolonged contact with the Dravidian languages is said to have had a profound effect on the noun-modifying constructions in Marathi (Southworth, 1971). In the present chapter, among the noun-modifying constructions of Marathi, we will take up relative clauses and noun-complement clauses, as well as constructions unique to Indic languages, known as correlative constructions, which are generally treated as a type of relative clause by experts in the field. With regard to relative clauses, there are many prior works which elucidate their morpho-syntactic and semantic-functional aspects (for general introduction see Pandharipande (1997: 76– 103), Dhongde and Wali (2009: 209–30), and for specific issues, see Kelkar (1973), Jhungare (1973)). Hook and Pardeshi (2017) offer a very comprehensive description of semantic and functional aspects of noun-modifying constructions in Marathi, exemplifying all the positions on the Noun-Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH) proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977) and beyond. In contrast to relative clauses, there are very few works on the noun-complement constructions. Descriptive grammars such as Pandharipande (1997: 64–65) and Dhongde and Wali (2009: 215–16) consider them as a subspecies of noun clauses. In the previous works, however, the true nature of modifying structures has not been revealed, with simple assumptions that they are clauses or sentences without any definitions of them. This chapter examines the nature of modifying structures involved in relative and complement clauses in the light of the new nominalization theory developed by Shibatani (2009, 2017, 2018, 2019) and concludes that, contrary to the usual assumptions, modifying structures are grammatical nominalizations that

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denote substantives/things, like ordinary nouns, rather than clauses and (declarative) sentences that respectively predicate and assert. The organization of this chapter is as follows. In Sect. 2 we will offer a brief review of previous works on Marathi relative clauses and noun-complement clauses, setting the boundaries on the construction types examined in this paper. In Sect. 3, we will focus on the forms and functions of the predicate in the modifying expressions of relative clauses and noun-complement clauses and attempt to interpret them in the framework proposed in the recent works by Shibatani alluded to above. Finally, in Sect. 4, we will summarize our claims and offer concluding remarks.

2 Previous Works Previous works dealing with relative clauses in Marathi and other Indic languages usually include the following types of constructions. The closest Marathi parallels to relative clauses found in English, Japanese and others involve so-called participial forms of the predicate and a gap in argument position as in other languages, as below. (1) [{Ø

d¯aru

pi-n.a¯ r-¯a} basˇca¯ lak] liquor.f drink-prs.ptcp-m.sg bus.driver.m.sg

‘[the bus driver [who drinks liquor]]’ (2) [{Ø

d¯aru

py¯ay-lel-¯a}

basˇca¯ lak]

liquor.f drink-pst.ptcp-m.sg bus.driver.m.sg ‘[the bus driver [who drank liquor]]’ (3) [{t-y¯a-ne

Ø

he-obl-erg

di.lel-i}

s¯ad.i]

gh¯a.t-l-i

give-pst.ptcp-f.sg

saree.f.sg

wear-pfv-f.sg

sall¯a

di.lel-i}]

mulgi

advice.m.sg

give.pst.ptcp-f.sg girl.f.sg

‘(I) wore [the saree [which he gave (to me)]].’ (4) [{t-y¯a-ne he-obl-erg

Ø

‘[the girl [to whom he gave advice]]’

Example (1), where the modifying structure demarcated by {} contains the predicate in its present participle form, the interpretation of the gap therein is confined to an agent or agent-like entity and it is confined to the subject position. This restriction can be considered to be stemming from the fact that the original function of the present participle is deriving agent nominal from verbs. In examples (2)–(4), which contain past participles, on the other hand, the gapped position can be subject or other argument positions.

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In contrast to these examples, example (5a) below contains a finite verb form and has no gap in an argument position in the structure beginning a j-form.1 Such structures are usually treated as relative clauses in the literature, perhaps because they may also contain a gap in an argument position, as in (5b), and also because they appear to modify a head noun in such variant constructions as (6a, b), similar to ordinary relative clauses (adopted from Dohngde & Wali (2009: page 217 [20a = 5a] and 218 [22 a = 6a, 22b = 6b] with slight modifications in transcription and glossing). (5) a. {j-i

mulgi ghari

REL-FSG dha

girl

ge-l-i}

ti

mulgi

home go-PFV-FSG COREL-FSG girl

a¯ he

stupid be.PRS ‘The girl who went home is stupid.’ b. {j-i

Ø

ghari

REL-FSG dha

ge-l-i}

ti

mulgi

home go-PFV-FSG COREL-FSG girl

a¯ he

stupid be.PRS ‘The girl who went home is stupid.’ (6) a

t-i

mulgi

{j-i

that-FSG

girl

REL-FSG

Ø

t-i

dha

a¯ he

COREL-FSG

stupid

be.PRS

ghar.i

ge-l-i}

home.to go-PFV-FSG

‘The girl that went home is stupid.’ (Note: This translation is added by us) b. don/k¯ahi two/some t-y¯a

muli

{j-y¯a

Ø

girl.PL REL-OBL.FPL

nat.y¯a COREL-OBL.FPL actress.PL

ghari

ge-l-y¯a}

home

go-PFV-FPL

ho-t-y¯a be-PST-FPL

‘The two/Some of the girls that went home were actresses.’

These challenging constructions, known as (relative-) correlative constructions in the literature and which are fully addressed in Sect. 3.2.3 below, are characterized as “sentential relative clause” (Pandharipande, 1997; Subb¯ar¯ao 2012), suggesting that the relevant modifying structures are sentences. Turning to the so-called noun-complement clauses, as shown in (7) and (8) below, the form of the verb in the modifying structure is described as {infinitive expressing aspect + genitive + number/gender} which is said to agree with the head noun that follows it.2 Further, unlike the relative clauses described above, there is no obligatory gap in the modifying structure of the noun-complement constructions. 1

The j-form has the following allomorphs: dz-o (MSG), j-i (FSG, MPL, NPL), dz-e (NSG), j-ya (FPL). 2 The issues related to marking of gender, number (and case) are discussed in 3.2 below.

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

(7) [{dzhopad.pat..ti-l¯a a¯ g hutments.obl-dat fire šahar-¯a-t

pasar-l-i

town-obl-in

spread-pfv-f.sg

325

l¯ag-l-y¯a-ˇc-i}

b¯atmi]

catch-pfv-inf-gen-f.sg

news.f.sg

‘[The news {of the hutments catching fire}] spread througout the town.’ (8) mi I.erg

[{mukhy.mantri chief.minister

ho-n.-y¯a-ţ-a} svapn] become-fut-inf-gen-n.sg dream.n.sg

p¯ah.i-l-a see-pfv-n.sg ‘I saw [a dream [{of becoming the Chief minister}].’

Pandharipande (1997: 64–65) and Dhongde and Wali (2009: 215–16) treat the modifying expression in (7) and (8) demarcated by {} as a subtype of nominal clause, without a detailed discussion as to what this term really means. For understanding grammatical status of the modifying structure in the so-called relative clauses and noun-complement clauses, we first need to consider the form that the modifying structure ought to take in order to modify a noun.

3 The Formal Characteristics of the Modification Structure Let us first look at the ‘gap’-type noun-modifying structure and its corresponding sentence containing the full array of arguments associated with the predicate. Example (9) is a gap-type RC, where its predicate is in present participial form and (10) is its corresponding sentence. If the predicate in the modifying structure is substituted with a finite form as in (11), the sentence turns out to be ungrammatical. Example (12), on the other hand, is a gap-type RC, where the predicate in the modifying structure is in its past participial form, and (13) is its corresponding sentence. Again, if the predicate in the modifying expression is substituted with a finite form as in (14), the sentence turns out to be ungrammatical. (9)

[{Ø

d¯aru

pi-n.a¯ r-¯a} basˇca¯ lak] liquor.f drink-prs.ptcp-m.sg bus.driver.m.sg

‘[the bus driver [who drinks liquor]]’ (10) basˇca¯ lak bus.driver.m.sg

d¯aru

pi-t-o

liquor.f drink-ipfv-m.sg

‘The bus driver drinks liquor.’ (11) *[{Ø

d¯aru

pi-t-o}

liquor.f drink-ipfv-m.sg ‘[the bus driver [drinks liquor]]’

basˇca¯ lak] bus.driver.m.sg

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(12) [{basˇca¯ lak-¯a-ne

Ø

bus.driver-obl-erg

py¯ay-lel-i}

d¯aru]

drink-pst.ptcp-f

liquor.f

‘[the liquor [which the bus driver drank]]’ (13) basˇca¯ lak-¯a-ne

d¯aru

py¯ay-l-i

bus.driver-obl-erg liquor.f drink-pfv-f ‘The bus driver drank liquor.’ (14) *[{basˇca¯ lak-¯a-ne

Ø

bus.driver-obl-erg

py¯ay-l-i}

d¯aru]

drink-pfv-f

liquor.f

‘[the liquor [the bus driver drank]]’ (OK as object right dislocation sentence)

Marathi is a morphologically ergative language, where the nominative–ergative split is conditioned by aspect. In (10) the situation depicted is conceived to be incomplete (the endpoint of the event has not been attained) and is said to be in an imperfective aspect. In such cases, the subject is zero-marked (Ø) and agrees with the predicate in gender and number. On the other hand, in (13), illustrating the use of a perfective aspect form, the situation depicted is wholistically perceived from its inception to completion. In such cases, the subject is marked with the ergative (-ne) and the predicate agrees with the object in number and gender, if it is unmarked (if the object is also marked, the predicate assumes the default form, viz. neuter singular). In the literature the gender, number and case of the modifying structure are said to agree with those of the head noun. We shall propose an alternative account on this below. Similarly, in the case of noun-complement clauses, as shown in (7) and (8), the form of the predicate in the modifying structure is non-finite and it as well is said to agree with the head noun in number, gender and case. If this predicate is substituted by the finite form, the sentence becomes ungrammatical as in (15) and (16) below. (15) *[{dzhopad.pat..ti-l¯a a¯ g hutments.obl-dat fire

l¯ag-l-i}

b¯atmi]

šahar-¯a-t

catch-pfv-f.sg

news.f.sg

town-obl-in

pasar-l-i spread-pfv-f.sg ‘[The news {of the hutments catching fire}] spread throughout the town.’ (16) *mi I.erg

[{mukhy.mantri ho-n.a¯ r} svapn] p¯ah.i-l-a chief.minister become-fut.m/f.sg dream.n.sg see-pfv-n.sg

‘I saw [a dream [{of becoming the Chief minister}].’

From the examples above, it is clear that the form of the predicate in the relevant modifying structures should be non-finite. In other words, in Marathi, forms of the

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modifying structures are clearly different from those of clauses or sentences.3 The assumptions that these modification structures are clauses or sentences are undoubtedly based on the simple observations that they show (partial) structural resemblances to clauses/sentences without critical appraisals of their nature, as in the following definition of RCs by Keenan and Comrie (1977), perhaps the most influential paper on the topic. We consider any syntactic object to be an RC if it specifies a set of objects (perhaps a one-member set) in two steps: a larger set is specified, called the domain of relativization, and then restricted to some subset of which a certain sentence, the restricting sentence, is true. The domain of relativization is expressed in surface structure by the head NP, and the restricting sentence by the restricting clause, which may look more or less like a surface sentence depending on the language. (Keenan & Comrie, 1977: 63–64; emphasis added)

A true understanding of the relevant modifying structures in Marathi and similar ones in other languages hinges on the grasping of the nature of so-called participial and infinitival structures. For example, the traditional definition of Indo-European participles (Gr. metokhe´¯ ) is: “a part of speech sharing features of the verb and the noun” (Dionysius Thrax Tékhn¯e grammatiké (see Kemp 1986; emphasis added)), pointing to the nominal nature of the participle. In the case of complex participial structures, they are structure-internally verbal (e.g. taking a direct object and an adverbial modifier, as in [washing the hands carefully]) but are nominal in meaning and in structure-external (syntagmatic) properties; i.e. like ordinary nouns, they denote things and thing-like entities such as an event as in the example above, and, thanks to this nominal property, they behave like nouns in heading subject and object noun phrases, as in [Washing the hands carefully] would help prevent the spread of Covid19. As nouns modify another noun (e.g. cotton shirt), participial structures also modify a noun, as we saw the participial modifying structures in Marathi do so above and as in [The boy [washing the hands carefully] was commended by the principal]. It is observations on modifying structures like this that prompted Shibatani (2009, 2017, 2018, 2019) to explore analyses of noun modifiers (including so-called RCs of different types) radically different from the prevailing views on them. We review this new approach briefly below and then return to reassess the modification structures in Marathi, including correlative constructions.

3.1 Outline of Shibatani’s Theory of Nominalization Shibatani’s theory of nominalization comprises the following three foundational concepts defining nominalization, as well as the applied notions of usage and function. 3

As shown in (5), although the modifying element starting with j-i contains a finite form like an ordinary sentence or a clause, it cannot function as an independent sentence.

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P. Pardeshi and M. Shibatani

Nominalization is a Functional Notion

The past studies on nominalization have tended to focus on morphologically marked lexical nominalizations functioning as nouns. But a larger picture on this phenomenon calls for a functional, not a morphological, characterization of the process that derives a structure—both lexical and phrasal—with semantic and syntactic properties similar to nouns to varying degrees. Indeed, familiar derivations in English like speak (V) > speaker (N) and cook (V) > cook (N) show that nominalization may not be associated with a morphological marking. The same is true with Marathi forms such as kisn.e (to grate, V) > kisn.i (grater, N) and l¯a.tn.e (to roll out, V) > l¯a.tn.e (a rolling pin, N). We recognize these derived forms as nouns because of their semantic and syntactic properties that they share with ordinary nouns; i.e. they denote substantives or things and thing-like entities, the property that allows them to syntactically head a noun phrase and to be marked by a determiner or a classifier/gender in some languages.

3.1.2

The Category of Grammatical Structures is Determined by Function and External Properties

The category of both word and phrasal structures is determined by their functional and external syntagmatic properties, not by the structure-internal properties. The internal structures of speaker and cook in English or kisn.i (grater, N) and l¯a.tn.e (a rolling pin, N) in Marathi differ—the former consisting of the verb root and a derivational suffix, and the latter without such a suffix, but they are both categorized as noun because of their semantic and external syntactic properties, as pointed out above. Same holds true for the complex structure ‘John is honest’ in English. In example (17) it is used as a sentence, while in (18) it is used as a complement of a verb. (17) John is honest (18) Mary knows [John is honest] As the name “(verb) complement clause” used in the literature suggests, the structure [John is honest] in (18) is considered a clause or a sentence.4 However, the structure [John is honest] plays different functions in (17) and (18). In (17), at the clausal level, it plays a predication function of ascribing the verbal property of being honest to the referent of the subject noun phrase, viz. “John” and at the sentence level, it asserts the truth of the predication. In contrast to this, the same structure in (18) denotes an abstract thing/entity similar to nouns like fact, truth. This is evident from the fact that (18) has same meaning as that of Mary knows the fact that John is

4

For example, Nevis, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2009: 356), from the perspective of generative grammar, recognize the so-called noun-complement and verb-complement sentences, as is clear from the following quote: “A verb may merge with a sentence, as in Mary thinks [that the world is round].” “…a noun can merge with a sentence, as it does in (the) claim [that the world is round],…” (emphasis added).

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honest.5 In other words, although the structure [John is honest] in (17) and (18) is same in form, it in fact is different in performing distinct functions. The difference in its function is reflected in its external syntactic behavior. When [John is honest] is used as a sentence, it does not permit the presence of the nominalizer “that”, as in (19), in sharp contrast to the structure functioning as a nominalization, as in (20), where it can be marked by the (overt) nominalizer. (19) *That John is honest (20) Mary knows that [John is honest] Sentences stand as a complete expression but nominalizations (see (19)) do not, just as nouns do not, unless they are supported by some illocutionary act.

3.1.3

Nominalization is a Metonymic Process

Nominalization is a metonymic process. It derives forms that denote substantives and thing-like entities that are metonymically related to the concept of the base forms. Just like ordinary metonymies, both lexical and grammatical nominalizations denote various concepts from which a particular one is chosen depending on the context. For example, in a mundane metonymic expression such as ‘Drink a glass a day’, the noun phrase a glass can denote various things which are associated with the glass as a container, such as milk, orange juice, wine and calcium drink. The denotation most relevant to the context is selected per Gricean maxims of conversation, one of which (the Maxim of Relevance) requires speakers to be contextually relevant at the time of the utterance. In the same vein, in the case of a lexical nominalization a half-pounder, based on the noun half-pound and used in an expression like Give me a half-pounder, may denote a hamburger in a fast-food restaurant, or a can of tobacco in a smoke shop, a bag of jelly beans in a candy shop, or a steelhead trout among fishing aficionados. Just like these lexical nominalizations, grammatical nominalizations also denote those entities intimately connected with events, such as Event protagonists (agent, patient, etc.), Instrument, Location, Time, and Results, etc. For example, in the case of an expression involving argument nominalization such as [What Marry brought Ø] was delicious, event participant corresponding to the object of Mary’s bringing are metonymically evoked, and among various possibilities such as apple, watermelon, cake, etc., the relevant one would be chosen according to the context. For example, in the context of a question like “Have you recently eaten a delicious cake?”, a cake will be selected as an appropriate denotation and the reference will be narrowed down to a specific cake (the one that Mary brought). In Shibatani’s framework nominalizations are divided into two broad types: lexical nominalizations which create nouns, and grammatical nominalization, which creates a (phrasal) grammatical structure which would not be categorized as noun. While 5

Such event nominalizations (see below), apart from ‘fact’, denote ‘event’ per se, or ‘proposition’ ‘location’, ‘reason’ etc. metonymically related to an event (See Shibatani (2019) for details).

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many lexical nominalizations, listed as nouns in the lexicon, tend to have more uniform denotations, grammatical nominalizations, which are created for the nonce, do not have fixed denotations, and speech context plays an important role in determining and selecting the denotation most consistent with the context, as discussed above. Further, both lexical and grammatical nominalizations are subdivided into two types: Event nominalization and Argument nominalization. A schematic representation of types of verbal-based nominalizations illustrated by some representative English and Marathi forms is given below as Fig. 1, where the function-based classification cuts across the distinctions between lexical and grammatical nominalizations as well as formal morphosyntactic differences. One of the important features of Shibatani’s theory is the clear-cut distinction between the linguistic structures and their use/function. As for nouns, there are two main uses: (i) as the head of a noun phrase (NP use), where they play a referring function, and (ii) as a modifier of a noun as in compound nouns or a noun phrase (modification use), where they restrict the denotation of the head noun to its subclass (as in restrictive relative clauses) or identifies the denotation of the head noun (as in non-restrictive relative clauses). Observe Fig. 2. Grammatical nominalizations parallel nouns in their use and function—that’s why they are called nominalizations or quasi-nominals (juntaigen) as in the Japanese grammatical tradition: (i) NP use with referential function and (ii) modification use that either restricts or identifies the denotation of a head noun, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3 using the Marathi examples in Fig. 1. As seen above, in Shibatani’s theory, the so-called relative clause in Fig. 3 or complement clauses as in Fig. 4 are nothing but modification uses of grammatical nominalizations and are not independent structures as proposed in the previous works. The new theory of nominalization as described above claims that noun-modifying structures in Marathi are not clauses or sentences as claimed in the previous literature. They are rather grammatical nominalizations that denote things and thing-like entities as evidenced, for example, by the gender marking, which classifies denoted substantive entities into three gender classes (see below).

3.2 Re-appraisal of Noun Modification in Marathi 3.2.1

So-called Relative Clauses

First, let us take a look at the gap-type participial noun-modifying structures involving -n.a¯ r- (present participle) and -lel- (past participle). As mentioned earlier, in the previous studies the modifying structures involving these suffixes have been analyzed as relative clauses. In what follows, with the help of attested examples, we will argue that the relevant structures are actually grammatical nominalizations. First, let us start with the participial structure in question which in and of itself can be used as the head of a noun phrase (“NP use” in Shibatani’s terms).

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Event nominalizations English Lexical nominalizations (nouns)

employment employ → (the) employing (of John) Marathi moʣṇe → matmoʣṇi (vote counting) (to count) perṇe → bhātperṇi (rice planting) (to plant) Argument nominalizations English

employer employ →

employee Marathi

V-based nominalizations

kisṇe → kisṇi (a grater) (to grate) lāṭṇe → lāṭṇe/lāṭṇa (a rolling pin) (to roll) Event nominalizations English Grammatical nominalizations (nonce grammatical structures)

John's employing Bill (that) John employs Bill Marathi [ nānā-ne khup kami Nana-ERG very few malā māhit āhe I-DAT aware be-PRS

sineme movies

ke-l-ya-ts-e ] do-PFV-INF-GEN-N.SG

‘I know [that Nana did (or acted in) very few movies].’ Argument nominalizations English (one) [who [Ø employs Bill]] (one) [who(m) [John employs Ø]] Marathi [Ø lahānpaṇi bambā-č-yā pāṇ-yā-var childhood brass.water.heater-OBL-GEN-OBL water-OBL-with āŋghoḷ ke-lel-ā] bathing do-PST.PTCP-M.SG

mi 1.M.SG

āhe be.PRS

‘I am [the one who had bathed using the water heated in the brass water heater].’

Fig. 1 Classification of verbal-based nominalization structures

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Structure

Use NP use/Referring function [[Cotton] N ] NP is in high demand again.

[cotton] N

Modification use/Restricting or Identification function [[cotton] N [mill] N ] N (noun compound) [[cotton] N ] N’ [shirt] N ] NP (noun phrase)

Fig. 2 Two main uses of nouns

Structure

Use NP use/Referring function [[Ø lahānpaṇi bambā-č-yā pāṇ-yā-var āŋghoḷ ke-lel-ā] NMLZ] NP mi āhe

[Ø lahānpaṇi bambā-č-yā pāṇ-yā-var āŋghoḷ ke-lel-ā] NMLZ

‘I am the one who had bathed using the water heated in the brass water heater.’

Modification use/Restricting or Identification function [[Ø lahānpaṇi bambā-č-yā pāṇ-yā-var āŋghoḷ ke-lel-ā] NMLZ māṇus] NP mi āhe ‘I am the person who had bathed using the water heated in the brass water heater.’

Fig. 3 Two main uses of argument nominalizations

Structure

Use NP use/Referring function [[nānā-ne khup kami sineme ke-l-ya-ts-e] NP malā māhit āhe

[nānā-ne khup kami sineme ke-l-ya-ts-e] NMLZ

‘I know [that Nana did (or acted in) very few movies].’

Modification use/Restricting or Identification function [[nānā-ne khup kami sineme ke-l-ya-ts-e] NMLZ saty] NP malā māhit āhe ‘I know [the truth [that Nana did (or acted in) very few movies]].’

Fig. 4 Two main uses of event nominalizations

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

(21) [{Ø

nokri na-mil.-n.a¯ r}NMLZ -e]NP job neg-get-prs.ptcp-m.pl

333

n¯ar¯adz

dzha¯ -l-e

disappointed become-pfv-m.pl

‘[{Those (masculine/epicine plural) who could not get jobs)}] were disappointed.’ (22) [h-y¯a

[{Ø

proximal-obl

bh¯adz-lel}NMLZ -y¯a]]NP roast-pst.ptcp-f.pl

mot.h-y¯a big-obl

[t-y¯a

[{Ø

d.ab-y¯a-t tiffin-obl-in

an.i and

cˇ hot.-y¯a

d.ab-y¯a-t .thev tiffin-obl-in put.IMP

small-obl

distal-obl

ukad.-lel}NMLZ -y¯a]]NP steam-pst.ptcp-f.pl

‘Keep [these [{roasted ones}(feminine plural)]] in the big tiffin and [those[{steamed ones} (feminine plural]] in the small tiffin.’ (23) [{Ø

saty truth

bol-n.a¯ r}NMLZ -y¯a-n-n¯a]NP gol.y¯a gh¯al-un speak-prs.ptcp-obl-pl-acc bullets put-cp

dza¯ -t a¯ he .th¯ar kel.e kill.pfv-n.sg go.pass-ipfv be.prs ‘[{Those speaking truth (masculine/epicine plural)}] are being killed with bullets.’ (24)

[{Ø

dzhop-i

ge.lel}NMLZ -y¯a-n]NP -n¯a

a¯ t¯a

a¯ li

dza¯ g

sleep-to

go.pst.ptcp-obl-pl-dat

now

come.pfv.f

wakening.f

‘[{Those who have fallen asleep (masculine/epicine plural)} have now woke up.’

These structures are often analyzed as headless relative clauses by many researchers. The point of departure of such a treatment is the preconceived idea that relative clauses exist as independent structures—the idea that is rejected in our analysis. The structures in (21) through (24) are fundamentally different from the relative clauses that restrict or identify the denotation of a head noun. The popular analysis of deriving these from a headed RC by deleting the head is not permitted in many languages because the putative head is not permitted to occur in the first place; cf. the English form Show me [what you bought] (< *Show me the book [what you bought]). Indeed, if we keep ourselves away from the relative clause perspective, we notice that the structures demarcated by [] above possess features associated with ordinary nouns, namely number and gender marking. Compare (21) and (22) respectively with (21’) and (22’) below.

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(21’) [anek many

yuvak a ]

n¯ar¯adz

dzha¯ -l-e

youngsters disappointed become-pfv-m.pl

‘Many youngsters (masculine/epicine, plural)] were disappointed.’ a This word has no singular/plural distinction. However, the plurality of the word is externally indicated

by verb form (as well as the modifier ‘many’). (22’) [[h-y¯a

[šeŋ¯a]NP

mot.h-y¯a big-obl

proximal-obl peanut.f.pl [[t-y¯a distal-obl

[šeŋ¯a]NP

d.ab-y¯a-t an.i tiffin-obl-in and

cˇ hot.-y¯a

d.ab-y¯a-t .thev peanut.f.pl small-obl tiffin-obl-in put.imp

‘Keep [these [peanuts (feminine plural)]] in the big tiffin and [those[peanuts (feminine plural]] in the small tiffin.’

The parallelism in number and gender marking between (21), (22) and (21’), (22’) supports the analysis that the relevant structures in the former are nominal denoting/referring to substantive entities (e.g. masculine/epicine job seekers, feminine objects like peanuts) that are classifiable according to number and gender, just like ordinary nouns. In addition to these formal properties of the nominalization structures themselves, they also exhibit external nominal properties; namely, they can be modified by a demonstrative determiner h-y¯a ‘these’ and t-y¯a ‘those,’ as in example (22) (also compare example (22) with (22’) above). The logical explanation of these functional, morphological and syntactic properties of the structures under consideration obtains naturally by analyzing them as nominalizations, as proposed in this paper. The gender and number marking properties of the participial nominalizations also reveal that clauses/sentences do not underlie them. Like in some other Indic languages, the agentive subject in Marathi is marked by an ergative marker in the perfective aspect, as noted earlier, and in such a case, if the object noun is inanimate (non-specific), it occurs in an unmarked form. In the case of such clause/sentence, as shown in (25) below, the gender and number marking in the predicate agrees with the unmarked object noun. (25) nokar-¯a-ne/nokarin.-i-ne

d¯agine

ţor-l-e

male.servant-obl-erg/female.servant-obl-erg jewelry.m.pl steal-pfv-m.pl ‘The {male/female}servant stole jewelry.’

If such a clause or sentence is to function as a modifier, it would be expected that the number and gender on the predicate continue to agree with the object noun phrase. However, in the participial nominalization corresponding to (25), the predicate does not agree with the object noun phrase, but with the substantive entity it denotes/refers. For example, in (26a) the participial structure denotes a feminine, singular entity, as shown by the marking on the predicate form contained in that structure. On the other

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hand, in (27a), the participial nominalization is marked by a masculine, singular form, signaling that it denotes/refers to an object so classified.6 As shown below, these participial nominalizations have two major uses: (i) NP use as in (26a)・(27a), where the structures head an NP and play referential function, and (ii) modification use as in (26b)・(27b), where the same nominalization structures perform modification function of restricting or identifying the denotations of the head nouns.

6

The gender and number marking in Marathi is fairly complex in that the masculine and feminine distinction gets formally neutralized in the case of plurals and oblique forms. However, the forms marking used in the participial structures are the same as that of simple nouns, as shown below.

(a)

mulg-¯a

‘son/boy’,

m¯am-¯a

‘maternal uncle’

(a’)

mulg-i

‘daughter/girl’,

m¯am-i

‘maternal aunt’

(b)

pustak

tsor-{n.a¯ r/lel}-¯a steal-{prs.ptcp/pst.ptcp}-m.sg

book

‘the one (m.sg) who steals/stole a book’ pustak book

tsor-{n.a¯ r/lel}-¯a steal-{prs.ptcp/pst.ptcp}-m.sg

mulg-¯a progeny-m.sg

‘the boy who steals/stole a book’ (b’)

pustak book

tsor-{n.a¯ r/lel}-i steal-{prs.ptcp/pst.ptcp}-f.sg

‘the one (f.sg) who steals/stole a book’ pustak book

tsor-{n.a¯ r/lel}-i steal-{prs.ptcp/pst.ptcp}-f.sg

mulg-i progeny-f.sg

‘the girl who steals/stole a book’

On the other hand, the number and gender concord marking between the noun and the verb, the forms are different in the perfect and non-perfect aspect environment and are different from the consistent markings in the case of present participle and past participle. Non-perfect aspect (c)

mulg-¯a

pustak

ţor-t-o

boy.m.sg

.n.sg

steal-ipfv-m.sg

The boy steals a book. (c’)

mulg-i

pustak

ţor-t-e

girl.f.sg

.n.sg

steal-ipfv-f.sg.

‘The girl steals a book. Perfect aspect (d)

muli-ne

amb¯a

ţor-l-¯a

girl.obl-erg

mango.m.sg

steal-pfv-m.sg

‘The girl stole a mango.’ (d’)

mul¯a-ne

vahi

ţor-l-i

boy.obl-erg

notebook.f.sg

steal-pfv-f.sg

‘The boy stole a notebook.’

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(26) a. polis-¯a-ne

[[{Ø

police-obl-erg

d¯agine

ţor-lel-i}NMLZ ]-l¯a]NP

jewelry.m.pl

steal-pst.ptcp-f.sg-acc

pakad.-l-e catch-pfv-n.sg ‘The police cought [[{the one who stole the jewelry}(feminine, singular)]].’ d¯agine

ţor-lel-y¯a}NMLZ ]a

police-obl-erg

jewelry.m.pl

steal-pst.ptcp-obl

nokarin.-i-l¯a]NP female.servant.F.SG-OBL-ACC

pakad.-l-e catch-PFV-N.SG

b. polis-¯a-ne

[[{Ø

‘The police cought [[{the female servant who stole the jewelry}(feminine, singular)]].’ a The feminine form changes to oblique form in the case of modification use.

(27) a. polis-¯a-ne

[[{Ø

police-obl-erg

ţor-lel-y¯a}NMLZ ]-l¯a]NP pakad.-l-e steal-pst.ptcp-m.sg-acc catch-pfv-n.sg

d¯agine jewelry.m.pl

‘The police cought [[{the one who stole the jewelry}(masciline, singular)]].’ d¯agine

ţor-lel-y¯a}NMLZ ]

police-obl-erg

jewelry.m.pl

steal-pst.ptcp-obl

nokar-¯a-l¯a]NP

pakad.-l-e catch-pfv-n.sg

b. polis-¯a-ne

[[{Ø

male.servant.m.sg-obl-acc

‘The police cought [[{the male servant who stole the jewelry}( masculine, singular)]].’

The situation can be summarized diagrammatically as shown in Fig. 5. Structure

Use NP use/Referring function polis-ā-ne

[[{Ø dāgine

police-OBL-ERG

jewelry.M.PL

ʦor-lel-yā}NMLZ]-lā] NP steal-PST.PTCP-M.SG-ACC

pakaḍ-l-e {Ø dāgine ʦor-lel-yā} NMLZ

catch-PFV-N.SG ‘The police cought [[{the one (masciline, singular) who stole the jewelry}]]’

Modification use/Restricting or Identification function polis-ā-ne

[[{Ø dāgine

police-OBL-ERG nokar-ā-lā] NP

jewelry.M.PL

ʦor-lel-yā}NMLZ ] steal-PST.PTCP-OBL

pakaḍ-l-e

male.servant.M.SG-OBL-ACC catch-PFV-N.SG ‘The police cought [[{the male servant (masculine, singular) who stole the jewelry}]].’

Fig. 5 Two uses of argument nominalization

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337

As clear in Fig. 5, so-called headless RCs (e.g. {Ø d¯agine ţor-lel-y¯a}NMLZ ‘{the one who stole the jewelry}’) are no more than an instance of NP use of an argument nominalization, and so-called (externally headed) relative clauses are argument nominalizations in modification use.

3.2.2

Complement Clause

As the English expression “[To see] is [to believe]” shows, infinitive structures behave like nouns syntactically; e.g. heading a subject noun phrase and functioning as the complement noun phrase of the be verb paralleling the sentence such as “[John] is [a student]”. The verb forms in Marathi complement structures like (32) and (33) are labeled “infinitive” because of the external properties paralleling those in English and other languages—the infinitival structures below constitute a subject noun phrase, as subject–verb agreement shows. (32) [{mul¯a-ne-ţ son.obl-erg-emph

vad.il-¯an-ˇc-i father-obl-gen-f.sg

ke.l-y¯a-ţ-a}]

ughad.kis do.pfv-inf-gen.n.sg open

haty¯a killing.f.sg

a¯ l-e come.pfv-n.sg

‘It came to light [{that none else but the son himself killed his father}].’ (33) [{t-y¯a-ne

patni-ţ-¯a

khun

he-obl-erg wife-gen-m.sg

stabbing.m.sg

ke.l-y¯a-ţ-a}]

samor

a¯ l-e

do.pfv-inf-gen.n.sg

front

come.pfv.n.sg

‘It came to light [{that he stabbed his wife}].’

The term “complement clause” or “nominal clause,” as used by Pandharipande (1997: 64–65) and Dhongde and Wali (2009: 215–16), is largely motivated by the structure-internal properties, as in the case of participial nominalizations discussed above. The structure demarcated by {} in the examples above also has number and gender like nouns and participial nominalizations, which reveals that they are also nominal. In the previous studies this number and gender marking has been considered as an agreement with the head noun; however, in the above example the noun which controls the agreement actually does not exist.7 7

The popular agreement-based analysis of gender marking fails in Marathi and many other languages since there are cases where gender marking obtains without an agreement-controlling head noun; e.g. Marathi form “[don dzan.-i (*muli)] a¯ l.y-¯a” ([two classifier-fem (*girls)] came.FPL), where the head noun is not allowed. See Shibatani (2021) on the limitations of the agreement-based analysis of gender marking.

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From the perspective of nominalization theory, the number and gender marking in these examples are attributed to the nominal nature of the structures in question; namely, they denote thing-like entities such as events and facts metonymically denoted by the event-denoting structures. Usually such event nominalizations are marked with a neuter, singular form, as in (32) and (33), unless a specific “incident (feminine noun)” or “fact (neuter noun)” is conceived. However, in the context as in (34), where the denotation is concretely identified, the gender and number marking matching the denotation in question becomes possible, as in (34b). (34) a. gely¯a.vars.-i ast.year-during

ghad.-lel-y¯a happen-pst.ptcp-obl

tujhy¯a.mat-e

kon.t-i your.opinion-in which.f.sg ghat.n¯a incident.f.sg

ghat.n¯a-n-madhe incident.f.sg-pl-in sarv¯at

bhayankar

most

horrible

hot-i? was-f.sg

‘Among the incidents that happened last year, which one was the most horrible one in your opinion?’ b.

mul¯a-ne-ţ son.obl-erg-emph

vad.il-¯an-ˇc-i haty¯a father-obl-gen-f.sg killing.f.sg

ke.l-y¯a-ˇc-i do.pfv-inf-gen-f.sg ‘Undoubtedly, that of a son killing his father.’ cf. 1995 s¯al-i 1995 year-in

[ti that

ghat.n¯a] ughad.kis a¯ l-i incident.f.sg open come.pfv-f.sg

‘In 1955 [that incident]f.sg came to light.’

Another nominal feature of the event nominalizations in infinitive form is genitive marking cˇ-/ts- in the examples above. Of course, the typical hosts for the genitive suffixes are nouns, as in the following examples. (35) a. a¯ i-ţ-¯a (rum¯al) mother-gen-m.sg handkerchief.m.sg ‘mother’s (handkerchief)’ b. a¯ i-ˇc-i (s¯ad.i) mother-gen-f.sg saree.f.sg ‘mother’s (saree)’

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Our analysis of infinitives as (event) nominalizations accounts for the genitive marking naturally. On the other hand, if they were clauses, as in the usual characterization of them in the literature, we wouldn’t expect them to be marked by the genitive suffix, since clauses are not associated with genitive marking.8 Infinitival event nominalizations, just like participial argument nominalizations seen earlier, also permit a modification use. Examples (32) and (33) are the cases of modification use of event nominalizations. (36) [{mul¯a-ne-ţ son.obl-erg-emph

vad.il-¯an-ˇc-i father-obl-gen-f.sg

ke.l-y¯a-ˇc-i}

ghat.n¯a] do.pst-inf-gen-f.sg incident.f.sg

haty¯a killing.f.sg ughad.kis open

a¯ l-i come.pfv-f.sg

‘[The incident {that none else but the son himself killed his father}] came to light.’ (37) [{t-y¯a-ne

patni-ţ-¯a

khun

ke.l-y¯a-ţ-¯a} do.pst-inf-gen.m.sg

he-obl-erg

wife-gen-m

stabbing.m.sg

purav¯a]

samor

a¯ l-¯a

proof.m.sg

front

come.pfv-m.sg

‘[The poof {that he stabbed his wife}] came to light.’

Just like the case of participial relative clauses, so-called verb- and nouncomplement clauses are not independent structures apart from the two uses of event nominalizations; verb complements represent the NP use and noun complements the modification use.

3.2.3

So-called (Relative-) Correlative Constructions

Correlative constructions, illustrated earlier in (5) and (6), have attracted the attention of a large number of researchers, specialists and non-specialists of Indic languages alike, who generally treat them as (a type of) relative clause (e.g. Andrews, 2007; Kachru, 1973; Subb¯ar¯ao 2012). Unlike participial argument nominalizations and infinitival event nominalizations studied above, the modifying structures of correlative constructions contain finite verb forms. And this feature has likely contributed to the decision to call them “sentential relative clause” on the part of Pandharipande (1997) and Subb¯ar¯ao (2012). Despite the past efforts, which include Pandharipande (1997) and Dohngde and Wali (2009) dealing specifically with Marathi correlatives, the basic characteristics of correlative constructions and the question of how they are similar to or different 8

A question remains as to why participial argument nominalizations are not marked by the genitive suffix. Nominal structures show varying degrees of “nouniness” within and across languages (Shibatani 2019)–some are more noun-like in their formal properties than some others. Also, see Shibatani (2019) and Shibatani and Chung (2018) for the treatment of genitives as a case of nominal-based nominalization.

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from ordinary relative clauses have not been sufficiently elucidated. This section addresses several salient issues surrounding the treatments of Marathi correlatives, especially focusing on the question of whether they are sentences as suggested by the earlier works. In their basic form, correlative constructions, as the name suggests, consist of two grammatical units: (i) a main clause containing a correlative expression, either a correlative pronoun alone9 or an NP complex marked by such a pronoun, functioning as a main clause argument or adverbial (see (43)–(45) below), and (ii) a structure marked by a j-form. The j-form itself is marked for gender, number and case, as in the following Marathi examples, where j-form is in masculine, singular and nominative form ((38a) below is from Pandharipande (1997: 78, example (194)), transcription and glosses modified). (38) a

{dz-o

m¯an.us

itha

šikav-t-o}

REL-M.SG

man

here

teach-IPFV-MSG

t-o

m¯adzh¯a

COREL-M.SG I.GEN.M.SG

bh¯au

a¯ he

brother

be.PRS

‘The man who teaches here is my brother.’ [Pandharipande’s original translation] Lit. ‘The man teaches here, that is my brother.’ b {dz-o

m¯an.us

itha

šikav-t-o}

t-o

REL-M.SG

man

here

teach-IPFV-MSG COREL-M.SG

m¯an.us

m¯adzh¯a

bh¯au

a¯ he

man

I.GEN.M.SG brother

be.PRS

‘The man who teaches here is my brother.’ [Pandharipande’s original translation] Lit. ‘The man teaches here, that man is my brother.’

The structure containing a j-form is usually likened to a relative clause, with a jform being identified as a relative marker/pronoun, as in Pandharipande’s interlinear glossing above. Because such identification of the relevant structures itself is highly contentious, as shown below, we adopt, for the time being, the term “j-structure” for the bracketed structure containing a j-form. Despite the practice by Pandharipande and most other specialists of Indic languages of translating correlative constructions into English relative clauses, there is actually little parallelism in the external properties between the two. In (38a), for example, the j-marked form jo m¯an.us ‘the man’ is not really an argument of the main clause as the English translation has it; it is the correlative pronoun to that is the subject argument of the main clause, as it is the correlative to m¯an.us that is the subject argument of the main clause in (38b). Correlative constructions are structurally distinct from ordinary RCs in that the j-structure does not form a constituent with what it modifies, namely the correlative pronoun to (or a full noun phrase marked by a j-form (see (38b)) in the main clause; ordinary RCs, as in English, form an NP constituent together with their heads. 9

Correlative pronouns are identical with the distal demonstrative pronouns that inflect for gender, number, and case.

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

341

Observe the following examples, where the j-structure modifies a discontinuous correlative form. (39) [j-y¯a

mul¯a-ne

muli-l¯a

paise

REL-OBL

boy.OBL-ERG girl.OBL-DAT money.MPL.ACC

p¯a.thavile]

mi

send.PST.MPL I

t-y¯a

(mul¯a)-ˇci

stuti

COREL-OBL

boy.OBL-GEN-F

praise

kel-i do.PST-FSG ‘That boy (who) gave money to the girl, I praised that (boy).’ (40) [[dz-o]

mal¯a

REL-MSG

phOlo

kar-el]

mi pan. also

I.ACC/DAT follow do-FUT I

t-y¯a-l¯a

phOlo

COREL-OBL-ACC/DAT

follow do-FUT

kar-el]

‘One who follows me I also follow him.’

The common practice of translating Indic correlatives into ordinary RCs in English is, thus, at best misleading and at worst hides the true nature of the j-structure involved. A more literal translation for (38), for example, is along the line of the less idiomatic English expression “The man teaches here, that (man)is my brother” (with a focus on “the man”), suggesting that the j-structure is a sentence asserting the clausal predication “the man teaches here”. Indeed, this is exactly how Pandharipande (1997: 78), quoted below, analyzes the relevant j-structures (in the example (38) above, which is example 194 of Pandharipande’s work). Example (194) [=(38)] consists of two clause which share an identical and coreferential noun phrase as shown in (194a) below.

(194a) Ralative clause: m¯an.us itha man

here

šikav-t-o teach-PRS-3SM

‘The man teaches here.’ Main clause:

m¯an.us m¯adzh¯a man

bh¯au

I-POSS-SM brother

a¯ he is

‘The man is my brother.’

The relative clause takes the relative marker dzo [‘dzo’ in our transcription], whereas the main clause takes the marker to. When the relative clause precedes the main clause, the resulting sentence is (194) [=(38b)]. In this case, the second occurrence of m¯an.us in the main clause is deleted under identity with the preceding occurrence of m¯an.us in the relative clause.

While Pandharipande in the above quote tells us that there are two clauses involved in correlative constructions, she characterizes them as “sentential relative clause,”

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implying that the j-structure involving a finite verb form is a sentence. Our claim below is that j-structures, though they may be based on structures that can be used as sentences, are not sentences themselves and that the term such as “sentential relative clause” is also misleading, unless it is qualified as above, namely that “they involve structures with a finite verb form similar to sentences,” rather than j-structures themselves are being considered as sentences. Let us now clarify the basic function of j-structures. While the past analyses do not make this quite explicit, j-form may actually mark any of the arguments within a j-form structure. For example, given the baseline structure like (41a) below, any of the three arguments within the modifying structure can be j-marked, as in (b)–(d). (41) a.

Baseline structure [mul¯a-ne

muli-l¯a

paise

p¯a.thavile]

t-(N)…

boy.OBL-ERG

girl.OBL-DAT

money.MPL

send.PFV-MPL CORELpaise

‘the boy sent money to the girl, he/she/it….’ b.

[[j-y¯a

mul¯a-ne]

muli-l¯a

REL-OBL.MSg

boy.OBL-ERG

girl.OBL-DAT money

p¯a.thavile]

t-o

(mulg¯a) …

send.PFV-MPL

COREL-MSG

(boy.MSG)

Lit. ‘The boy (who) sent the money to the girl, that (boy) is…’ b’.

[[j-y¯a-Ø-ne]

muli-l¯a

REL-OBL.MSg-ERG girl.OBL-DAT t-o

(mulg¯a) …

COREL-MSG

(boy.MSG)

paise

p¯a.thavile]

money

send.PFV-MPL

Lit. ‘The one (MSG) (who) sent the money to the girl, that (boy) is…’ b”

? [[Ø]

muli-l¯a

paise

p¯a.thavile]

girl.OBL-DAT

money

send.PFV-MPL

t-o

(mulg¯a) …

COREL-MSG

(boy.MSG)

Lit. ‘(The one (MSG)) sent the money to the girl, that (boy) is…’ c.

[mul¯a-ne

[j-y¯a

muli-l¯a]

paise

boy.OBL-ERG

REL-OBL.FSG

girl.OBL-DAT money

t-i

(mulgi)…

COREL-FSG

(girl.FSG)

Lit. ‘The girl the boy sent the money to, that (girl) is…’ c’.

[mul¯a-ne

[j-i-Ø-l¯a]

boy.OBL-ERG

REL-OBL.FSG-DAT money

paise

t-i

(mulgi)…

COREL-FSG

(girl)

Lit. ‘The boy sent the money to one (FSG), that (girl) is…’

p¯a.thavile] send.PFV-MPL

p¯a.thavile] send.PFV-MPL

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

c”.

? [mul¯a-ne

[Ø]

boy.OBL-ERG t-i

(mulgi)…

COREL-FSG

(girl.FSG)

343

paise

p¯a.thavile]

money

send.PFV-MPL

Lit. ‘The boy sent the money, that (girl) is…’ d.

[mula-ne

muli-la

[j-e

paise]

p¯a.thavile]

boy.OBL-ERG

girl.OBL-DAT

REL-OBL

money.MPL

send.PFV-MPL

t-e

(paise)…

COREL-MPL

(money.MPL)

Lit. ‘The money the boy sent to the girl,that (money) is… d’.

[mul¯a-ne

muli-l¯a

[j-e Ø]

p¯a.thavile]

boy.OBL-ERG

girl.OBL-DAT

REL-OBL

send.PFV-MPL

t-e

(paise)…

Corel-MPL

(money.MPL)

Lit. ‘The one the boy sent to the girl, that (money) is…’ d”. ? [mul¯a-ne

muli-l¯a

boy.OBL-ERG

girl.OBL-DAT

t-e

(paise)…

Corel-MPL

(money.MPL)

[Ø]

p¯a.thavile] send.PFV-MPL

Lit. ‘The boy sent to the girl, that (money) is…’

In other words, j-structures are a focusing device that singles out a referential nominal that identifies the referent of the correlative pronoun/NP of the main clause. The focused nominal within a j-structure may be moved to initial position for further highlighting, such that the nominals marked by j-forms in (41c) and (41d) above can be shifted to initial position. The focused j-form NP in examples (41b)–(41d) denotes/refers to a specific type of entity, an agentive boy, a goal girl or a thematic money, but a referent focused by a j-form may be made variable by either having a gap in the j-marked NP, as in (41b’)–(41d’) or by simply having a gap in the argument position, as in (41b”)– (41d”). Thus, (41b’), for example, denotes/refers to any agentive entity, e.g. a man, a father, a male student (rather than specific individuals as in (41b)–(41d)), similar to the English expression “one who gave the money to the girl”. As the above narrative suggests, our claim is that j-structures are actually nominalizations, like the participial RCs discussed earlier, that denote a thing and thing-like entity, which, in turn, identify the referent of a main clause correlative expression. The j-form is best analyzed as a nominalizer that (i) derives grammatical nominalizations and that (ii) focuses on and specifies the nature of the nominal that identifies the correlative form in the main clause in full correlative constructions. In other words, a j-structure as a nominalization identifies the correlative expression of a main clause (e.g. to (mulgaa) ‘that (boy)’ in (41b)) in terms its nominal denotation (e.g. “the boy

344

P. Pardeshi and M. Shibatani

giving the money to the girl”), similar in intent to the English expression “{The boy giving the money to the girl}, that (one/boy) is my son”. The similarity of j-structures to ordinary relative clauses lies in these two properties. Like English relative pronouns who (human) and which (non-human), j-forms mark a gender class (j-y¯a denoting a masculine entity as in (41b)–(41b’), j-i a feminine entity in (41c)–(41c’) and j-e a neuter entity (41d)–(41d’)), and like who and whom, jforms inflect for case (ergative subject in (41b)–(41b’), dative indirect object in (41c)– (41c’), unmarked object in (41d)–(41d’)), marking the participant/grammatical role of the denoted entity, whether it is an agentive/subject entity, patientive/object entity, etc. The gapped and unmarked j-structures in (41b”)–(41d”) are similar to relative clauses in Japanese and Chinese, where the gap position alone indicates the grammatical role of the focused argument. Compare (41b”)–(41d”) with the following Japanese RCs. (42) Japanese a.

{Ø

onna-no-ko

ni

woman-GEN-child DAT

kane

o

yatta}

money ACC give.PST

otoko-no-ko man-GEN-child ‘The boy who gave money to the girl.’ b.

{otoko-no-ko

ga

man-GEN-child

NOM

Ø

kane

o

yatta}

money ACC give.PST

onna-no-ko woman-GEN-child ‘The girl to whom the boy gave money.’ c.

{otoko-no-ko

ga

onna-no-ko

ni

man-GEN-child

NOM

woman-GEN-child DAT

Ø

yatta}

kane

give.PST money

‘The money that the boy gave to the girl.’

Similar to English adverbial wh-forms, there are adverbial j-forms, like the following, which, again like English where, when and how explicitly mark that the relevant j-structures are denoting a location (where), time (when) or a manner (how) that identifies the locative, the time or the manner correlative in the main clause. Observe the examples below, where tithe, tevh¯a and tasa are adverbial correlatives in the main clause being identified in terms of the location, time and manner specified by j-structures (adapted from Dohngde and Wali 2009, glosses and translation altered).

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

(43) [jithe

tu

dza¯ -t-os]

345

tithe

mini

LOC.NMLZR you.M go-IPFV-2MSG COREL.there Mini dza¯ -t-e go-IPFV-3FSG ‘Wherever you go, Mini goes there.’[Dohngde and Wali 2009: 227, example (59)] (44) [j˜evh¯a

lili

dza¯ -il]

t˜evh¯a

mini

dza¯ -il

TIME.NMLZR Lili fo-FUT COREL.then Mini go-FUT ‘When Lili will go, that time Mini will go.’[Dohngde and Wali 2009: 223, example (41)] (45) [dzasa

to

ved.av¯akd.a bol-t-o] crazy speak-IMPF-MSG

MANNER.NMLZR he tasa

(ved.av¯akd.a) ti crazy she

COREL.that.way

bol-t-e speak-IMPF-FSG

‘The way he speaks crazy, the same (crazy) way she speaks.’ [Dohngde and Wali 2009: 225, example (55)]

The most telling cases showing that j-nominalizations are denoting/referring expressions rather than predicating clauses or asserting (declarative) sentences are those in which j-nominalizations stand alone or used as an appositive modifier, as in the examples below. (46) a. [dz-o

Ø

NMLZR.MSG

a¯ vad.e

dev-¯a-l¯a]

(Title of an article)

is.dear god-OBL-DAT

‘the one who is dear to God’ b. strou

hyat.s Straw Hats r¯aj¯a

ho-il !]

king

become-FUT

lafi,

[dzo m¯an.us samudr-i d.a¯ ku Lafi, NMLZR.MSG man ocean-of thief

‘Straw Hats Lafi, the man who will become the pirate king!’ [Title of a story]

Example (46a) does not assert/state that “Someone is dear to God” like a sentence; instead it denotes/refers to a person (a nominal entity) who is dear to God. In the appositive structure like (46b), j-nominalizations likewise denote a nominal entity that identifies the head noun, as do English appositives with two noun phrases; e.g. “John, the butcher, (is missing this morning)”.

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It is this kind of appositive structure that gives rise to constructions where jnominalizations, especially when they contain a gap, resemble ordinary relative clauses in form and that are treated as “standard” relative clauses in Hindi studies (e.g. Kachru, 1973). (47) Hindi vah that

lar.k¯a [dz-o boy.MSG REL-MSG

a¯ y¯a

kal

r¯at

th¯a]

bar.a¯ COP.PST.MSG big.MSG

come.PFV.MSG

yahaã

yesterday night here xušmiz¯az pleasant

hai COP.PRS.SG ‘The boy who came here last night is very pleasant.’ (Glosses and translation original) (48) Marathi t-o

mulg¯a

DEM-MSG

boy.MSG MNLZR.MSG

[dzo

Ø

k¯al

r¯atri

ithe

yesterday night

here

a¯ l¯a

hot¯a],

(t-o)

come.PFV-MSG

be.PST-MSG

COREL-MSG very

khup

huš¯ar brilliant

a¯ he be.PRS.3SG ‘The boy, the one who cam here last night, (he) is very brilliant.’

While these constructions may suggest that the vah lar.k¯a/to mulg¯a ‘the boy’ phrases are head nouns modified by the j-nominalizations, like ordinary RCs, they are still correlative constructions. While Kachru’s example in (47) does not contain the main clause correlative pronoun as in the parenthetical form in the Marathi version (48), the preferred Hindi version would also contain a main clause correlative pronoun as would the preferred version in Marathi. Constructions without a correlative form in main clause like (47) and its Marathi counterpart are felt “elliptical” at least for some Marathi speakers; that is, a correlative form in the main clause is just not overtly expressed. In such constructions, what identifies the main clause correlative pronoun is a j-nominalization. Thus, while (49b) below is grammatical with the correlative pronoun being obligatory, (49a) is not.10

10

Compared to the structure with an appositive head, as in (48), ones without the appositive head to mulgaa, as in (49b), are much harder to omit the main clause correlative form. The same is true with the Hindi counterparts.

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

347

(49) a. *to

mulg¯a,

t-o

khup huš¯ar

DEM.MSG boy.MSG COREL-MSG very

brilliant

a¯ he be.PRS.3SG ‘The boy, that is very brilliant.’ b. [dzo

k¯al

r¯atri

NMLZR.MSG

Ø

yesterday

night here

ithe

come.PFV-MSG

hot¯a],

*(t-o)

khup

a¯ he

be.PST-MSG

COREL-MSG very

huš¯ar

a¯ l¯a

brilliant be.PRS.3SG

‘The one who came last night, that (one) is very brilliant.’

A correlative form (in the main clause) calls for a j-nominalization identifying it, and here lies the raison d’etre of the j-nominalization in correlative constructions. The patterns in (47) and (48) possibly suggest a historical change, whereby the omission of a main clause correlative form has led to the reinterpretation of the appositive j-nominalization structure as a modifier of the preceding noun, which in turn is taken to be functioning as a main clause argument, as in Kachru’s English translation of (47). Yet, characterizing such constructions as (47) and Subb¯ar¯ao’s example (50) below (2012: 267) as “externally headed relative clause” is grossly misleading in that the complex [[ve log] jo…hai] does not form an NP that can as well function as an argument in any other syntactic slots such as object or indirect object position, as ordinary externally headed RCs in English and other languages do. Observe(51) and (52), which are ungrammatical. The correct forms require a correlative main clause argument, as in (51b) and (52b). (50) Hindi [[ve

log]]

[jo

zy¯ad¯a

c¯ay p¯ı-te

which people who

a.lot.of tea

kam

so

p¯a-te

hã˜ı

less

sleep

can-IPFV PRS

hã˜ı]

drink-IMF PRS

‘People who drink a lot of tea sleep less.’ (Glosses and translation original). (51) Hindi a. *bh¯arat

m˜e

a¯ p

[[un

INDIA

LOC

you

which.OBL people.OBL [REL

logo]

p¯ıte

ha˜ı]]

ko

dekhte

ha˜ı

tea

drink.IPFV COP PRS]

ACC

see.IPFV

COP.PRS

Intended: ‘In India you see [those people [who drink a lot of tea]].’

[jo

zy¯ad¯a a lot of

c¯ay

348

P. Pardeshi and M. Shibatani

b. bh¯arat

m˜e

a¯ p

India

LOC

you COREL.OBL people.OBL/COREL.OBL ACC

[jo

zy¯ad¯a

c¯ay

[NMLZR a.lot.of tea

{un

logõ/un}

ko

p¯ıte

ha˜ı]

dekhte

drink.IPFV

COP.PRS]

see.IPFV

ha˜ı COP.PRS ‘In India you see [those (people)], the one’s who drink a lot of tea].’ (52) Marathi a.

*bh¯arat¯a-t

tumhi

[[t-y¯a

lok-¯a]

India.OBL-LOC

you

those-OBL

people.MPL-OBL

[j-e

khup

cˇ ah¯a

pi-t¯at]]-n-n¯a

[REL-MPL

a.lot.of

tea

drink-IPFV.PRS-PL-DAT

pah¯a-t-¯a see-IPFV.MPL Intended: ‘In India you get to see [those people who drink a lot of tea].’ b. bh¯arat¯a-t

tumhi

[{t-y¯a

lok-¯a/t-y¯a}-n-n¯a

India.OBL-LOC you

COREL-OBL people.MPL-OBL/CORREL-OBL-PL-ACC

[j-e

khup

cˇ ah¯a

NMLZR-MPL

a.lot.of tea

pi-t¯at]] drink-IPFV.PRS

pah¯a-t-¯a see-IPFV.MPL ‘In India you get to see [those (people), the one’s who drink a lot of tea].’

Compare (51a) and (52a) with true (externally headed) RC constructions in English, which function as both subject and object noun phrases. (53) English a. [People [who drink a lot of tea]] sleep less. (Subject) b. In India you see [people [who drink a lot of tea]]. (Object) As (51a) and (52a) show, the putative RC constructions ([[ve log]] [jo zy¯ad¯a c¯ay p¯ı-te hã˜ı]] in Subb¯ar¯ao’s example (50) and its Marathi counterpart do not function as an object noun phrase, unlike the English counterpart (53b). Like (51b) and (52b), the correct versions would require overt correlative forms in the main clause. Thus, while the possibility of omitting a correlative pronoun in the subject position of the main clause, as in (47) and (50), may give an impression that the appositive structures involving a j-nominalization are (externally headed) RC constructions similar to the English-type RC constructions, j-nominalizations are unlike ordinary RCs in calling for a correlative expression in the main clause that they identify, rather

Marathi Relative and Complement Clauses …

349

than modifying a head noun within an NP containing an RC, as in ordinary relative clause constructions. In structures like (46b) and (48), j-nominalizations, on the one hand, identify the head nouns, as appositive modifiers do (“John, the butcher”), and they also identify the implicit correlative in main clause subject position. The assumption suggested by the previous studies that such constructions have been reanalyzed as ordinary (externally headed) RC constructions requires far more evidence than hitherto presented.

4 Conclusion: Clause, Sentence and Nominalization In this paper we endeavored to make two main points. One is that both RCs and complement clauses as well as the modifying structures in correlative constructions in Marathi are neither clauses nor sentences; they are grammatical nominalizations. The other is that so-called relative clauses and complement clauses do not exist as independent structures apart from the uses of two types of grammatical nominalizations, argument nominalizations for so-called relative clause and event nominalizations for so-called complement clauses. Like nouns they denote and refer to substantive entities and they behave like nouns in functioning as the head of an NP and as a modifier of a noun head. They thus differ from clauses and sentences that play functions different from those of nouns and nominalizations. It is actually not easy to argue against those who assume that so-called relative clauses and verb/noun complements are clauses or sentences since they do not offer any definitions of what clauses or sentences are. Their assumptions are based on the structure-internal resemblances of RCs and complements to clauses and sentences, with little regard to the meaning and the structure-external (syntagmatic) properties of modifying structures that determine the categorical status of linguistic units. As expressions like (46a) and (46b) clearly show, the relevant jstructures used in correlative constructions are also nominal in meaning, denoting things and thing-like entities, like ordinary nouns and participial and infinitival nominalizations discussed in Sect. 3. The fact that these constructions are morphologically marked for gender/number underscores this; just as ordinary nouns in Marathi and other Indic languages are classified by gender according to what they denote, the structures used as modifiers, including j-nominalizations, are also marked for gender depending on WHAT THEY DENOTE. The most useful definitions of clause, sentence and nominalization are not in terms of structural properties but in terms of speech act they perform. Shibatani (2017, 2018, 2019: 93) offers the functional definitions of clauses, sentences, and nominalizations along the following lines, in terms of different kinds of speech act they perform: • Clauses predicate: By uttering a structure like [John is honest] as a clause, a speaker ascribes the relational property denoted by a predicate phrase to the referent of the subject noun phrase.

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P. Pardeshi and M. Shibatani

• Sentences perform illocutionary acts: By uttering a structure like [John is honest] as a declarative sentence, a speaker asserts the truth of the predication made by the clause of the same structure. By uttering a structure like [Is John honest] as an interrogative sentence, a speaker asks whether the predication made by the clause [John is honest] is true or not. • Nominalizations denote (things and thing-like entity concepts): By uttering a structure like [John is honest] as a nominalization, a speaker evokes and establishes a form-meaning connection between the structure and a metonymically motivated meaning, e.g. a fact, related to a state-of-affairs (or broadly an event)”. (Shibatani, 2019:93) As these definitions show, the same structure (e.g. [John is honest], [John stole the money]) can be a clause (when it performs a predication function of ascribing the verbal property of “being honest” or “stealing the money” to the referent of the subject), a sentence (when the structure asserts the truth of the predication) or a nominalization (when it denotes a fact or a proposition). Our claim in this paper is that so-called relative clauses (including the participial type and the j-structures of the Indic correlative construction) are all nominalizations performing entity denotational/referring function; they do not predicate nor do they perform speech acts that sentences do, such as asserting and questioning. The claim that nominalizations qua RCs do not predicate may make some uncomfortable, wondering how the meaning similarity among clauses (e.g. [John stole the money]), sentences ([John stole the money]) and nominalizations ([(that) John stole the money]) can be captured. The answer is that they all share the structural meaning, such as the subject (John) is an agentive subject, the object (the money) is a patientive/thematic object of an event represented by the verbal form, per Fillmore’s case theoretic approach or the Chomskyan theta-theoretic analysis of the structural meaning. That such structural meaning is available independently from whether the structure functions as a clause, sentence or nominalization is seen from the fact the structure [John loves Mary], for example, is meaningful (we can tell that the structure differs in meaning from the structure [Mary loves John]) despite the fact it is not a clause, sentence or nominalization. By presenting the structure [John loves Mary] as in this text or writing it in a classroom blackboard, the author is not making any predication (the subject “John” and the object “Mary” have no intended referents to be predicated over), is not asserting any truth (the reader cannot respond to it saying “Yes, that’s true” or “No, that’s not right”) and is not evoking any fact or proposition. Our ultimate claim is that noun modifiers are all nominal structures (nouns and grammatical nominalizations) that denote things and thing-like entities, which either specify a subset of the denotation of the head noun (restrictive modification) or identify the denotation of the head noun (appositive modification). How this claim extends to other noun modifiers, such as demonstratives, numeral quantifiers, possessives and adjectives is an interesting and challenging question taken up in Shibatani (2019) and (2021).

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Note The research reported in this paper was supported in part by a JSPS KAKENHI (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(B)) Grant Number 15H03210, Grant Number 22H00659 (Cross-linguistic studies on grammatical nominalizations: with a focus on classifiers and gender markers), the collaborative research project entitled “Crosslinguistic Studies of Japanese Prosody and Grammar: Noun-modifying expressions” and “Empirical Study of the Typology of Nominalization: from Theoretical, Fieldwork, Historical and Dialectal Perspective” funded by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. We would like to thank the editors for their cooperation and patience. Sources of Examples (7) Dadasaheb More.(2001/2016) Andharache Warasdar. Google book. Mehta Publications. https://books.google.co.jp/books?isbn=9386175584. (8) TV 9 Marathi, March 16, 2019 edition. https://www.maharashtratoday.co.in/. (21) Instagram site. www.instapu.com/vbvp_pcmc. (23) Online Marathi news site: Divyamarathi. https://divyamarathi.bhaskar.com. (35) Online Marathi news site: Mumbai live. https://www.mumbailive.com/mr/ crime/two-murder-case-register-during-holi-in-mumbai-34133. (36) Online Marathi news site: Zee news. https://zeenews.india.com/marathi/ news/india/men-killed-her-wife-in-merath/315904. (38) Online dictionary site. https://glosbe.com/hi/mr/. (Accessed on:30 June 2019)

References Andrews, A. D. (2007). Relative clauses. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, vol 2: Complex constructions (2nd ed., pp. 206–235). Cambridge University Press. Dhongde, R. V., & Wali, K. (2009). Marathi. John Benjamins. Hook, P., & Pardeshi, P. (2017). Noun-modifying constructions in Marathi. In M. Yoshiko, B. Comrie, & P. Sells (Eds.) Noun-modifying clause constructions in languages of Eurasia: Rethinking theoretical and geographical boundaries (pp 293–329). John Benjamins. Junghare, I. (1973). Restrictive relative clauses in Marathi. Indian Linguistics, 34(4), 251–262. Kachru, Y. (1973). Some aspects of pronominalization and relative clause construction in HindiUrdu. In B. B. Kachru (Ed.), Studies in the linguistic sciences (Vol. 3(2), pp. 87–103). Keenan, E., & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 8, 63–99. Kelkar, A. (1973). Relative clauses in Marathi: A plea for a less constricted view. Indian Linguistics, 34(4), 274–300. Pandharipande, R. (1997). Marathi. Routledge. Shibatani, M., & Chung, S.-Y. (2018). Nominal-based nominalizations. Japanese/korean Linguistics, 25, 63–88.

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Shibatani, M. (2009). Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t: The case of relative clauses. In T. Givón, & M. Shibatani (Eds.), Syntax complexity: Diachronic, acquisition, neurocognition, evolution: Typological studies in language (Vol. 85, pp. 163–198). John Benjamins. Shibatani, M. (2017) Nominalization. In M. Shibatani, S. Miyagawa, & H. Noda (Eds.), Handbook of Japanese syntax: Handbooks of Japanese language and linguistics [HJLL] Series (Vol. 4, pp. 271–331). De Gruyter Mouton. Shibatani, M. (2018). Nominalization in crosslinguistic perspective. In P. Pardeshi & T. Kageyama (Eds.), Handbook of Japanese contrastive linguistics: Handbooks of Japanese language and linguistics [HJLL] Series (Vol. 6, pp. 345–410). De Gruyter Mouton. Shibatani, M. (2019). What is nominalization? Towards the theoretical foundations of nominalization. In R. Zariquiey, M. Shibatani, & D. Fleck (Eds.), Nominalization in languages of the Americas (pp. 15–168). John Benjamins. Shibatani, M. (2021). Rentai sh¯ushoku no bunp¯o: Ruibetsushi to bunp¯osei o ch¯ushin ni (Grammar of adnominal modification: Centering on classifiers and gender). In S.-Y. Chung, & M. Shibatani (Eds.), Taigenka Riron to Gengo Bunseki (Nominalization Theory and Linguistic Analysis) (pp. 459–555). Osaka University Press. Subb¯ar¯ao, K. V. (2012) South Asian languages: A syntactic typology. Cambridge University Press. Southworth, F. (1971) Detecting prior creolization: An analysis of the historical origin of Marathi. In Dell Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages. Cambridge University Press.

Language of Religion: What Does It Inform the Field of Linguistics? Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande

1 Introduction Language of religion is one of the oldest forms of language, which has been studied from diverse perspectives of theology, philosophy, sociology and linguistics. Language of religion (LR hereafter) is a multifaceted entity, and therefore, it is not surprising that different fields focus on various, mutually exclusive aspects of religious language and analyze it differently. Philosophers and theologians’ primary focus have been on the logical analysis of religious belief, and its epistemological status (Ayer, 1946) while sociological perspective on religious language concentrates on functions(s) of LR in the religious as well as secular social domains (Fishman, 2006; Omoniyi, 2006; Pandharipande, 2010 among others). In contrast to these, current research in linguistics has been largely engaged in identifying those features of language (lexicon, syntax, phonology, morphology, prosody, discourse, etc.), which mark religious language as a register separately from its non-religious counterpart. Samarin (1976: 5) succinctly summarizes linguists’ approach to religious language, “Sociolinguistic studies of religion seek to determine the way in which language is exploited for religious ends.” Thus, LR is primarily studied in the field of linguistics as one of the registers of language used in the domain of religion. Crystal (1981) recognizes distinctiveness of LR at many linguistic levels, when he claims that “theolinguistics” is the study of the relationship between language and religious thought and practice, as illustrated by ritual, sacred texts, preaching, doctrinal statements and private affirmation of beliefs. Crystal (2018: 3) points out that at present lacks the appropriate linguistic techniques (e.g. standardization of lexicon) for analyzing religious language. Holt (2006: 13) argues for the need to

R. V. Pandharipande (B) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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explore variation in LR “in terms of its function, style, historical context, mode, its inter-relation with other texts and language variable.” The most recent approach to religious language is presented in Paul Chilton and Monika Kopytowska (2018) in their co-edited volume, “Religion, Language, and the Human mind,” where they analyze religious language in order to understand the religious mind. Chilton and Kopytowska (2018: xix) point out, “Modern linguistics, however, for all its theoretical rigor and sophisticated analyses of actual uses of language, has not given sustained attention to religious language despite sporadic insights and efforts on the part of some important scholars.” Sawyer and Simpson (2001) divide their co-edited Concise encyclopedia of language and religion into six sections based on various contexts in which LR is used: Language in the context of particular religions (Section I), Sacred Texts and Translations (Section II), Religious Languages and Scripts (Section III), Special Language Uses (Section IV), Beliefs about language (Section V), and Religion and the study of language (Section VI). The above discussion alludes to the lack of cross-linguistic and cross-religious generalizations or universals about the features of religious language and the lack of theoretical framework for analyzing it. As Crystal correctly observes, it is difficult to find common patterns of linguistic structures, vocabulary and other structural features across languages to come up with a theory of religious language. Although distinctiveness of religious language is acknowledged within diverse disciplines, its “distinctiveness” has not been defined. It is important to note here that the research on language of religion in the past few decades has focused exclusively on the equation of one religion–one language and has completely ignored the reality of the age-old multilingual countries with multiple religions expressed in multiple languages. For example, in India, Hinduism is communicated in more than at least a hundred languages and so are Christianity and Islam. Additionally, the research has ignored the “new world” of globalization of large-scale immigration of peoples, religions and languages where the new (nontraditional) languages are being used for “migrated religions” (example: English for Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism in the USA) as well as mixed codes being used for religious practices. In order to understand the contributions of language of religion to linguistics, it is important to know the differentia of religious language. In the light of the above, the following discussion primarily focuses on the following two questions: (1) What is the differentia of LR? Does LR/register differ from other registers of a language exclusively in terms of its linguistic (structural) features and/or social functions? (2) Does LR make any significant contribution toward our understanding of language? In other words, does it provide any insights into the nature of language—its structure and function? The major points in focus are: (a) LR cannot be defined exclusively in terms of its linguistic structures.

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(b) LR, if defined exclusively within functional approach as “register,” cannot be treated at par with other registers of a language. I argue that language LR differs from other registers as well as its non-religious counterpart in terms of the underlying conceptualization of reality. Unless the underlying framework is understood, language of religion (with its structural and functional features) remains either mysterious or meaningless. The linguistic structures of language of religion derive their meaning with reference to its underlying conceptual framework, the worldview, that is, its “deep structure” or the conceptualization of reality is based on their religious beliefs, which marks it different from other registers. This distinctiveness of religious language provides a criterion for separating it from other registers (i.e. it differs from other registers in its conceptualization of reality). Furthermore, I argue that the users of language of religion can have two different conceptual frameworks of reality (I say, ‘can have’ as opposed to ‘do have’ because in some cultures, there may not be any difference between the two), the one expressed by non-religious language and the other expressed by language religion. Finally, I suggest that a community’s repertoire can include more than one conceptual framework. It is a well-known fact that the speech community’s repertoire can consist of many linguistic codes (languages), which is multilingualism. I suggest that similar to diglossia (Fergusson 1959), according to which, speakers use language which is functionally appropriate to a domain, there is a need to assume a di-system (more than one system of underlying conceptualization, “worldview” of reality) which people use in different social contexts. In order to support this claim, I will provide evidence from the language of religion in the Hinduism in the US diaspora. The discussion in following sections 2-6 will be divided into six parts. Section 2 will briefly mention contributions of LR to language analysis (grammar), which is already established in the field’s grammatical traditions and translation Studies. Section 3 will focus on the problematic of Language of religion in the context of philosophy of religion. Section 4 will discuss the sociolinguistic approach and its inadequacy for defining LR. Section 5 will present a proposal for analyzing contributions of religious language. Section 6 will argue that religious language presents a parameter for differentiating registers. Section 7 will discuss implications of the proposal for understanding contributions of the religious language to the field of linguistics.

2 Contribution of Language of Religion to Language Analysis (Grammars) One of the major contributions of LR to linguistics is that the impetus for systematically analyzing language in ancient religious traditions came from the need to

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understand, speak (in oral tradition) and use the language in the religious practices with utmost accuracy. It was claimed that without such accuracy, the goal of religious practices (ritual) would lose their efficacy. The study of religious texts involved meticulous study of the rule of language (grammar). This was the earliest understanding of the relationship between the form (structure) and the function of language. The role of the guardians of the purity of language was taken up by the grammarians, who based their analyses on the religious/sacred language of the respective scriptures. Patanjali’s Mah¯abh¯as.ya (1.1.1), a commentary on Panini’s As.t.a¯ dhy¯ay¯ı, relates a story to emphasize importance of learning grammar without any flaws. According to the story, demons were defeated by gods because they mispronounced words. There are other legends, which tell us how the incompetence of Asuras (demons) in grammar was responsible for their defeat in the war against gods. Vy¯akarana, language analysis, was among the six necessary angas, parts of the study of the Vedas, the earliest Hindu scriptures. The other five parts were Nirukta (etymology), Pr¯atish¯akhya (Phonetics), Chanda (metrics), Jyotis.a (Astrology) and Kalpas¯utra (the rules related to the performance of rituals). Some of the ancient grammars of languages were inspired by the study of the religious texts. The Arabic Grammatical tradition was motivated from its origin in the eighth century CE (Al Khalil 791CE) and focused primarily on the phonetics, morphology and syntax of Arabic, the most sacred language of Islam. The emphasis on the attested data (sama), analogy (qiyas) and continuity were the fundamentals of Arabic grammar. As Suleiman (2001: 336) points out, “Arabic linguistic tradition is developed on foundations, which are primarily directed by the principal objective providing a framework for the analysis of the text of Qu’ran.” Similarly, the wellknown Sanskrit grammatical tradition was developed for codifying the complex Vedic sacrifices (religious rituals). The assumption was that all human activities, including rituals, recitation of Mantras, etc., must be carried out with a tacit awareness of rules of the grammar. The belief was that when performed flawlessly, i.e. according to the rules, they would bring religious merit. Tamil tradition of Akattiyam (perhaps lost to us now!) and Tolkappiyam (the ancient book) treats Tamil language as threefold, textual (iyal), musical (icai) and representational (Kuttu, natakam). The well-known Christian missionary activities globally, including the Spanish conquest of America (eighteenth century CE), colonization in South Asia, Africa and Southeast and East Asia, produced huge number of translations of the Bible giving rise to many vernacular versions of the Bible varying in the structural features and “nativization” of the Biblical language. For example, in the Bible translated in Hindi, daf and sitar (musical instruments in India) are substituted for musical instrument harp in the Bible in English. Many grammars of the vernacular/regional languages of India (e.g. Father Steven’s Marathi grammar) were written by the Christian missionaries during the colonial period (seventeenth–twentieth centuries CE). It is important to note here that the grammars, which are the sets of conventionalized patterns of language structures, derived their meanings from the underlying conceptualization of reality according to religious beliefs. Kunjuni Raja (1963: 95– 148) has discussed at length different theories proposed by philosophers of religion about the relationship between word, sentence-meaning and its cognition. He has

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clearly shown that the ancient theories of meaning production and cognition are rooted into their theological/philosophical moorings.

3 The Problematic of Language of Religion in Philosophy: Problems as Pointers LR has been discussed in the discipline of philosophy where it is analyzed and evaluated within the framework of non-religious language. As a result, ‘meaningfulness’ and ‘effability’ of LR are denied since the criterion for meaningfulness and effability of non-religious (or secular) language fails to apply to LR. In the following discussion, I will point out that language of religion presents many challenges to the framework of philosophy as well as linguistics. More importantly, I would like to claim that these very problems or challenges provided a positive direction to the research on language and have led us to delve deeper into the nature of language. The question “what makes a language meaningful?” has been discussed in the context of LR. Within the traditional frameworks of philosophy of religion, language of religion has been described as profoundly problematic, and therefore, its very meaning/function is questioned. Since LR is centered on the belief and its expression in linguistic code(s), the philosophers such as the empiricist Hume (1998), Positivist Ayer (1946) and Flew (1945) argue that religious language and the statements made therein are meaningless. The following arguments have been proposed in favor of this view. Hume’s claim in his important work, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, is based on the lack of evidence to verify by experiment the validity of statements made about reality of God (and other realities) in L.R. Ayer (1946), in his work, Language, Truth and Logic, claimed that ‘religious language is meaningless’. He argued that ‘all knowledge must either come from observations of the world or be necessarily true, like mathematical statements’ (Ayer, 1936) . He rejected metaphysics, which accepts ‘the reality of a world beyond the natural world and science and, therefore, is beyond verification’. ‘Because it is based on metaphysics and is therefore unverifiable, Ayer treats religious language, as well as statements about ethics or aesthetics, as meaningless. Ayer challenged the meaningfulness of all statements about God because they all discuss the existence of a metaphysical, unverifiable being’ (Ayer, 1936). Anthony Flew proposed a strong argument against meaningfulness of LR because LR does not meet the condition of falsifiability, i.e. the statements in LR cannot be empirically proven false. Flew (1955) argued that ‘a meaningful statement should simultaneously assert and deny a state of affairs; for example, the statement “God loves us” both asserts that God loves us and denies that God does not love us. Flew claimed that if a religious believer could not state what circumstances would have to exist for their statements about God to be false, they are unfalsifiable and meaningless’ (Flew, and MacIntyre 1955). For example, he claimed that statements such as “God loves us”

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and “God lives” cannot be verified or falsified because believers cannot describe any circumstances where “God loves us” is not true. Wittgenstein (early 20th century philosopher), in his book, philosophical investigations (1953) accepted religious language as meaningful based on his view of language. According to him, language is a game and similar to other games, religious ‘language has its own rules to determine what is and what is not meaningful’ (Wittgenstein, 1953 (3rd edition 1969)). Using the analogy of game, Wittgenstein asserts that ‘Religion is a possible and legitimate language game, which is meaningful within its own context’ (Wittgenstein, 1953 (3rd edition 1969)). However, Wittgenstein does not specify the difference between the rules of language of religion and those of non-religious language. Hare (1950) claims that human beings have convictions, which are not falsifiable and yet they are not meaningless. He calls them “bliks.” They are not meaningless because they form the basis of people’s worldview. Hare described ‘a lunatic who believes that all university professors want to kill him; Hare claims no evidence of kindly professors will convince him against his belief. Hare called this kind of unfalsifiable conviction a ‘blik’ and claimed that it formed an unfalsifiable, yet still meaningful, worldview. He proposed that people—religious and non-religious— have ‘bliks’ and that they cannot be dismissed by empirical evidence. He maintained that a ‘blik’ is meaningful because it forms the basis of a people’s understanding of the world’ (Hare, 1950 (revised edition 1955)). The other problematic of LR discussed in philosophy is the effability of language to describe the reality (including God) beyond ‘this world.’ Alton (1991: 3) summarizes the problematic of LR in his question, “If we assume that the religious discourse is about transcendent reality or is (putting aside phenomenologically the metaphysical issue) derived from an experience of ultimacy, must we not assert that no finite language can properly express such content or experience?” He points out that “All philosophies of language must grapple with the “fit” between the experience of reality and expressive form, but it seems that any philosophy of religious language must stumble over an irreducible and inevitable “misfit”.” Matilal (1991: 119) succinctly answers this question when he points out that our natural language is a powerful tool as a system of symbols, which is capable of expressing the so-called ‘ineffable’. Matilal (1991: 120) identifies three ways in which the mystic–authors of India have accomplished the task of expressing the ineffable. Quoting Indian literary critic ¯ Anandavardhana, Matilal points out “The boundary of the ineffable domain is transcended by the poetic language and the mystics.” He gives the example of the sages who are excellent poets who break the barrier and reach the ineffable. The second method (Matilal 1991: 120–121) is of the use of paradoxical or contradictory predicates to express transcendent reality. Examples of paradoxical expressions are abundant in the Upanis.ads. All pervasiveness and transcendence of the Divine are described in ¯I´sa¯ v¯asyopanis.ad (5), “tdejati tannejati tadd¯ure tad¯antike” (It moves and it moves not, it is far, it is near). Matilal, quoting from Br.had¯aran.yaka Upanis.ad, chapter 6, section 5, describes the third method used by Y¯ajñavalkya, while describing Brahman, the ultimate reality in Hinduism, as “neti, neti (not (this), not (this)” i.e. “no is the answer.” This is often called “negative dialectis.”

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In contrast to the above, some philosophers have argued that the meaning of language is in its use. Earnst, a contemporary 21st century Islamic philosopher (2004), claims that language of religion is not about truth-claims but rather, it is about establishing authority in the public sphere. Language is not only cognitive, but it is performative, i.e., it does not simply describe a state of affairs, but it brings them about (Austin (1975), Donovan (1982). In Ernst’s opinion, blessings, praying, etc. “come into being” by the use of LR. Thus, for Ernst, meaning of language of religion is what it performs, its use. Brathwaite, a 20th Century British philosopher (1970), an empiricist, agreed with Wittgenstein’s view that the meaning of religious language is in its use. According to him, religious statement are moral statements. The stories, myths etc. in the religious texts are interpreted by the believers as moral statements (for example, “It is thus; therefore, it should be thus!” That is, they are “imperatives.” Philosophers converge on the axis, namely the subject matter of religious language, God or divinity, is beyond human realm of existence, i.e., it is transcendent. However, whether the human language can describe that transcendent reality with the linguistic structures meant to describe reality of ‘this world’ has also been debated. Similar to the Upanis.ads, Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth century philosopher, claimed that LR describes the transcendent Divine/God analogically. Paul Tillich (1963), a late 19th –20th century philosopher, believed that statements about God are symbolic. A symbol in secular language also points to a meaning beyond itself. For example, a national flag symbolically points to a nation it represents and that believer can connect with the Divine through symbols. In summary, philosophers discussed LR as a linguistic code which is used to express transcendent reality, while they examine meaningfulness and effability of LR in both contexts, they compare LR with non-religious language to arrive at their judgment about meaningfulness and effability of LR. The implicit assumption is that LR is a linguistic code, and therefore, it should be subjected to the same criteria used for non-religious language. Additionally, Ernst and Brathwaite have argued the meaning of LR is its performative function. It is important to note here that LR presents arguments to prove that meaningful of a language does not exclusively depend on the falsifiability but rather, it can be meaningful due to its use/function such as its performative function as well as its use to present moral statements. However, the philosophers do not clearly define the difference between LR and non-religious language. Is LR different from non-religious language exclusively in terms of the subject matter similar to the language of business or language of sports? Philosophers do not address this issue. In other words, what is the differentia of LR is not discussed in the discipline of philosophy. Wittgenstein notes that LR is a ‘game’ and its rules are different from non-religious language. However, he does not define what they are and how they differ from its non-religious counterpart. Although philosophers point out that LR describes transcendent reality, there is no discussion on how it relates to the reality of ‘this world’ to its counterpart (nonreligious language). Is LR a register of non-religious language and if it is, how do the two differ in their structure and function?

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It is important to note here the reference point is ‘non-religious’ language with which LR is compared and considered meaningless. I would like to suggest that religious language differs from its non-religious counterpart in its underlying conceptualization of the world. The criterion for truth-value of a statement is based on the conceptualization of the world. For example, a statement such as, He suffered due to an accident in which he got injured,” is a fine statement as it can be verified and falsified in the non-religious material world. However, a statement, such as “He suffered because of his evil deeds in his earlier birth,” is a meaningless statement for those who do not share the underlying worldview according to which human beings suffer due to their own karma in earlier birth. Thus, the meaning of the statements in the LR and non-religious language are derived from their underlying worldview. I want to refer here to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity which was further elaborated in their formulation of cultural relativity by Brown and Lennenberg (1954: 455, 457) according to which cultures/linguistic communities vary in terms of their experience and conceptualization of the world. Brown and Lennenberg further claimed, “The structural difference in languages has correlates in the non-linguistic cognitive difference and that the native language determines the perception of the world of the speakers.” Religious language, whether it is viewed as register or a separate language, informs a very important fact, truth-value/meaning of a linguistic statement is derived from the underlying “worldview.” It is important to note here that the performative function of a language is dependent on the cultural assumptions. For example, a statement, “All is indeed permeated with the Divine,” is interpreted as prayer only by the community/individual where there is a belief in a particular cosmology. Ravenhill (1976: 36) points out that “Fortes and Dieterlen mention that there are two contrasted approaches to African religious system one about body of knowledge and belief about cosmos and the other which links the knowledge and belief to the social organizations.” Thus, in Ravenhill’s view, the speech act theory mediates between cosmology and sociology. Religious language makes explicit what is implicit in Austin’s theory, namely speech acts (illocutionary force of a statement) are connected with the total body of knowledge and belief about the cosmos and its relationship with this world. Thus, I claim that the religious language or register differs from its non-religious counterpart in its perception of the world.

4 Sociolinguistic Approaches to Language of Religion and their Inadequacy “Why study language of religion?” is the question sociolinguists have asked in the recent two decades and they have point out the contribution of LR to the study of

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language variation, and the mutual impact of language and society. In general, sociolinguistics is concerned with the social functions of LR and the structural correlates of those functions in the LR. The research of the prominent linguists such as William Samarin, David Crystal and Joshua Fishman has been influential in the field of language of religion in the late twentieth century. Samarin (1976: 8) points out that “Speech is adapted to culturally relevant functions. In the description of linguistic means at the disposal of religion we are concerned with the parts of language that are exploited and the products of exploitation.” Samarin’s work primarily focuses on identifying those linguistic features (lexicon, phonology, syntax, prosody, style, etc.), which separate religious language from its non-religious counterpart. For example, Gossen’s (1976) work on Chamula ritual language in which certain ancient words are used as performatives (la, la, la), Mantra in Hindu rituals “the Vedic Mantra agnimiile purohitam” when recited in the Vedic sacrificial rituals, performs the act of “praying to the fire god,” and Fergusen’s (1976) work on Christian Collect shows that the linguistic/discourse structure of the Latin Collect changes when it is translated into English. Fishman’s focus is on the relation between religious language and society and their mutual impact through history including present. The volume edited by Fishman with Ominiyi (2006), “Sociology of language of religion,” followed by, the volume edited by Ominiyi (2010), “The Sociology of Language of Religion: Change Conflict and Accommodation,” and the recent volume, “Language Maintenance, Revival and Shift in the Sociology of Religion,” (2019) edited by Pandharipande, David Eisenstein Ebsworth include research across languages and religions, which clearly demonstrate the impact of sociocultural change on LR and vice versa.

Crystal’s Research (1965, 1976a, 1976b, 1981, 2018) on LR places LR within the broad framework of language and treats it as a well-institutionalized area of sociolinguistic experience because of its formalized dependence on linguistic traditions. For example, religious practices require certain sacred texts to be used in certain rituals. Sociolinguists have acknowledged that LR has contributed immensely to our understanding of language variation from the ancient times. Crystal presents example of Christianity where there are well-established categories of linguistic variation such as sermons, litanies and prophesies. In ancient practices of Hinduism (2000 BCE), variation in the language is observed in Hinduism from the ancient time in the Vedic prayers, ritual religious discourses and practices. The impact of linguistic variation in LR is seen on the non-religious languages as well. In India, majority of the regional languages have developed styles and genres under of the influence of Sanskrit. In fact, in the major regional languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu and Punjabi, their respective “Sanskritized varieties” emerged, which continue to enjoy a privileged status in the Indian society. Those varieties have introduced grammatical, stylistic and discourse genres in the regional languages. At this point, it is important to note Crystal’s concerns regarding various shortcomings of current work of LR before I discuss the proposal as a response to Crystal’s

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concerns. According to him, the study of religious language is inadequate. I present his concerns below: (a) LR is currently discussed in bits and pieces; it should be analyzed as a whole and not simply in terms of some scattered words such as ‘god’, ‘good’, and ‘evil’. (b) Crystal’s major objection to theological studies is that they do not place religious language within the broader framework of language in general. (c) Crystal claims that theolinguistics should attempt to develop standardization of theological concepts/words such as ‘god’, ‘genesis’, ‘duty’, ‘surrender’, ‘grace’ and ‘karma’. Only when standardization of categories and concepts happens, theologians and linguists alike can investigate the universal dimensions of religious language. (d) He argues after Ladriere (1973: 3), the study of language of faith in the context of language in general should be the goal of the analysis. Crystal would like to see the barrier between language of faith and non-religious/natural language reduced. Crystal’s concern (1981: 266), “There are next to no examples of the application of linguistic analytic frameworks to specific areas of religious language.” “The divergence between the conceptions of language analysis held by theologians, and those held by linguistics, is now so great that, to someone versed in the latter’s literature, the claims about language made by the former group often seem ambiguous, out of date, naïve and curiously selective. There is a great deal to be gained by modeling theological issues in linguistic terms but only if the linguistic terms are themselves compatible with the best thinking on the subject.” According to Crystal (1976b: 203), the work on religious language does not provide evidence for a systematic co-variation between religious language and religious society. He asks, “How are the notions of acceptability, appropriateness determined? And most importantly, how is the competence (after Chomsky), in the variety defined? Religious language study lacks descriptive and explanatory adequacy.” Crystal points out the need for doing surveys for establishing corpora of data concerning reactions to religious language and ‘features of the ‘religious/social situation.’ Crystal does not reject the ‘language game’ hypothesis of Wittgenstein, rather, he asks the questions, (1976b: 205), Who makes the rules, who is allowed to play and who is qualified to act as a referee? What is the counterpart of Chomsky’s ‘native speaker’? Who is seen as Authority? “What constitutes competence of religious language? In other words, Crystal proposes that there is a need to construct a theory of religious language. Jeroen Darquennes and WimVandenbussche (2011:2) point out, “Fishman (in his introduction to the volume on Sociology of language of religion) strongly pleads for the elaboration of a theoretical framework that can serve as a sort of anchorage for the many case studies we are confronted with.” Spolsky (2006) presents a framework to discuss effects of religion on language (language choice, language maintenance and lexical borrowing, language as religious community’s identity, and multilingualism).

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Holt (2006) emphasizes need for a variationist’s approach to find universals across variation in LR. However, he does not propose a framework for cross-linguistic and cross-religions generalizations. In the following discussion, I will summarize the problems with the Sociolinguistic approaches: (a) I argue that the linguistic approaches to the study of language do not adequately describe the features of religious language. LR cannot be described exclusively in terms of its structural features. The approaches assume that language of religion is a variety or register of non-religious natural language and most of the work on LR focuses on distinguishing it in terms of its (linguistic) structural features (lexicon, phonology, syntax, semantics, style, etc.) and functions mentioned above. However, it is important to note that, it is not possible to identify structural features, which uniquely distinguish religious language from its non-religious counterpart. While some structure features may mark a particular linguistic code as LR, the language, which lacks those features is also accepted as language of religion. The obvious examples are of the regional Indian languages, and Marathi, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri and Tamil are as much religious languages of Hinduism as Sanskrit. They do not commonly share all the structural features of Sanskrit, the language of Hinduism par excellence. Romance languages are as much languages of Christianity as Latin. In the US diaspora, Hebrew as well as English is considered language of Judaism. (b) The structural features vary across time and space. Medieval period in India marks emergence of vernacular languages, Marathi, Bangla and Awadhi as legitimate languages of Hinduism. In my own work (Pandharipande, 2006), I have shown the use of English in Hindu rituals in the USA and the use of Bahasa Indonesia in Muslim rituals in Indonesia. Translations of the Bible in Romance and other world languages (South Asian, African, Russian and South Asian languages, etc.) are acceptable as LRs in their respective geographic contexts. (c) One language can express more than one religion (e.g. Hindi is used to express Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, etc.). (d) The structural features of LR are not standardized. (e) LR does not provide the kind of verification or falsification of the statements unlike its counterpart, non-religious language. For example, statements such as “God is merciful” in Christianity and “One is reborn in the lower or higher birth depending on his/her karma.” in Hinduism. Therefore, it is difficult to place it at par with its non-religious counterpart. (f) Current sociolinguistics does not address the issue of religious language in diaspora where LR is a mixed code (e.g. a Sanskrit-English mixed code is used in Hindu rituals in the USA).

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5 A Proposal: An Important Contribution of LR to the Study of Language I propose that LR differs from its non-religious counterpart in its underlying conceptualization of the world. The criterion for meaningfulness and the truth-value of LR should be validated with reference to the conceptualization of the world, which underlies LR. For example, a statement, such as “He suffered due to an accident in which he got injured,” is a fine statement as it can be verified and falsified in the non-religious perception of the world. However, a statement, such as “He suffered because of his evil deeds in his earlier birth,” is a meaningless statement for those who do not share the underlying worldview in which human beings suffer due to their own karma (action) in earlier birth. I want to emphasize here the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, which was further elaborated in their formulation of cultural relativity by Brown and Lennenberg (1954: 455, 457) according to which cultures/linguistic communities vary in terms of their experience and conceptualization of the world. Brown and Lennenberg further claimed “The structural difference in languages have correlates in the non-linguistic cognitive difference and that the native language determines the perception of the world of the speakers.” LR, whether it is viewed as a register or a separate language, informs a very important fact, truth-value/meaning of a linguistic statement is derived from the underlying ‘worldview.’ In this context, I subscribe to Fishman’s (1982) interpretation of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis according to which language is the key to the culture. Different interpretations of interpretations of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis converge on the understanding of the concept ‘worldview.’ I point to the succinct description of ‘worldview’ presented by Apostel. According to Aerts et al. (1994), a worldview, which is succinctly summarized in the Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldview), is a descriptive model of the world. It should comprise these six elements: 1. An explanation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanation) of the world 2. A futurology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurology), answering the question “Where are we heading?” 3. Values, answers to ethical (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical) questions: “What should we do?” 4. A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action: “How should we attain our goals?” 5. An epistemology, or theory of knowledge: “What is true and false?” 6. An etiology. A constructed worldview should contain an account of its own “building blocks,” its origins and construction. If we assume that LR represents religious “worldview,” the problem raised by the philosophers regarding the meaningfulness/truth-value of LR can be solved because the truth-value will be judged against the religious ‘worldview.’

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I would like to propose that the performative function of a language is dependent on the cultural assumptions or more specifically the “worldview.” For example, “All is indeed permeated with the Divine” (a statement in ¯I´sa¯ v¯asyopanis.ad: 1) is interpreted as prayer only by the community/individual when there is a belief in the cosmology of Hinduism. Ravenhill (1976: 36) points out that “Fortes and Dieterlen mention that there are two contrasted approaches to African religious system one about body of knowledge and belief about cosmos and the other which links the knowledge and belief to the social organizations.” Thus, in Ravenhill’s view, the speech act theory mediates between cosmology and sociology. Religious language makes explicit what is implicit in Austin’s theory, namely speech acts (illocutionary force of a statement is connected with the total body of knowledge and belief about the cosmos and its relationship with this world). I claim that the religious language or register differs from its non-religious counterpart and non-religious counterpart in its perception of the world/cosmos. I propose that LR differs from its non-religious counterpart in terms of its meaning, which is variously called ‘worldview’ or underlying ‘conceptualization of the reality.’ With or without the linguistic structures, language of religion differs from its nonreligious counterpart in this specific kind of ‘worldview.’ We can call ‘worldview’ as the framework of reference (Waardenburg, 1979)) or deep structure from which LR derives its meaning-structure. Waardenburg (1979: 443), “In certain cases there is a clear general framework of reference with particular concepts which determine the semantic fields within which the other concepts and words function. “For example, the concepts such as ‘God’, ‘blessings’, ‘God’s will’, ‘Karma’, etc. The framework of reference is not always explicitly mentioned in the language/linguistic structures. It has to be found or decoded.” Rather than specific words, it is the particular use of words, which makes the language religious. It is the religious ‘use’ of a language which makes such language religious.” I would like call the ‘religious worldview’ the frame of reference. Krishna in the Hindu religious text, the Bhagawadg¯ıt¯a (4:8), says, “I am born again and again to uphold the Dharma righteousness.” Within the proposal of the ‘worldview’ of Hinduism, the statement will be judged as meaningful and true. In this context, Waardenburg’s discussion is relevant to understand the relationship between empirical/non-religious and religious realities and says, “religious language becomes a ‘double-decker’ (1979: 444). LR is a particular kind of sign system (1979: 448).” It is a particular trait of religious-signifying process that it does not remain restricted to certain symbols and signs, which function as ‘cores’ of meaning. It has a particular radiation effect by which, in the light of one perceived meaning, a number of other facts are seen according to a new meaning pattern, which determines a whole communal perception of reality and actions with regard to it. According to this interpretation, religion is bound to empirical realities, but sees these realities as transparent in view of certain significations that are assumed to have an absolute origin or to be ‘revealed.’ “This implies that the study of any religion with a view of understanding its ‘meaning,’ basically requires, besides paying due attention to the transparent character of its reference or significations an attempt to reconstitute the

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signifying character of the religious data and look at their radiation effect” (Waardenburg 1979: 444). The ‘double-decker’ nature of religion gives to religious language its particular ‘double-decker’ character. (This can happen through the rituals, texts, myths, sacred histories, descriptions of soul, etc.) This view can be illustrated in the following example. According to this view, a ritual text in a Hindu fire sacrifice, “agnim¯ıl.e purohitam,” “I worship this fire who is the priest (who conveys our prayers to Gods).” signifies the phenomenal reality of fire, and the worshipper. However, it also signifies another reality where the sacrificial fire acts as the priest for the sacrifice who conveys the prayers of the sacrifice to the Gods in the heaven. This is the doubledecker meaning or signification. Thus, the religious meaning is not restricted to any structural features of a language but rather to the religious signification. Thus, in principle, difference in linguistic codes does not necessarily mark difference in their religious meanings. It is not the linguistic code or structure per se but its religious signification which makes the code religious. As Barr (1979: 435) points out, “Thus we suspect that the ‘language of religion’ in Finnish Lutheranism is similar to the language of religion in the Swedish Lutheranism, although the two natural languages are of quite different in structure and type. Conversely English Buddhist and English conservative evangelical Christian may have difficulty in finding a common ‘language of religion’ though the natural language of both is identical.” In my view, this view of religious language answers the question why different natural languages can have the similar religious meaning while the same natural language can have divergent “religious languages for different religions.” In this context, we can ask the question, “When one language is used to express more than one religion, how does the linguistic code handle the semantics?” For example, if Hindi is used for Hinduism and Christianity, and Hinduism, how does it handle multiple meanings? For example, the word Dev ‘god’ used for Hindu God, its referent is “Hindu god” while for Christianity, it is ‘Christ’. I have proposed in my earlier work that sociolinguistics need a concept of ‘Semantic diglossia’. The meaning of the word Dev is determined by the religious context in which it is used (see Pandharipande, 2006). Thus, the sane word Dev expresses the meaning ‘Hindu ´ god, (Siva for example),’ and ‘Jesus’ in the context of Christianity.

6 A Parameter for Differentiating Registers: Registers Can Vary in Their Underlying, ‘Conceptual Reality’ and the System of Its Signification The above discussion shows that LR provides a criterion for identifying a ‘register’ as unique. That is, a register can differ from other registers in its sign system or underlying conceptual framework and thereby provides a mechanism for objectively constructing a scale on which certain languages or registers are closer to or distant from other registers. Let us look at two different languages with mutually exclusive ‘significations.’

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(a) ‘Signification’ in Non-Religious Language The signification of each part of language, words, sentences, etc., is based on the underlying conceptualization of the phenomenal/physical reality shared by the members of a culture within which the speech community is located. For example, a sentence, such as “He will go to New York tomorrow,” assumes the notions of space, time as well as special and time delimitations and travel (movement). (b) ‘Signification’ in Religious Language In contrast to (a), religious language signifies or indexes a set of meanings based on the underlying reality of religion or faith. This reality is believed to have been ‘revealed.’ For example, in the Bhagawadg¯ıt¯a (4:8), a sacred scripture of Hinduism, God Krishna says, “I am born again and again to uphold Dharma (righteousness).” I suggest that this statement signifies the meaning based on the underlying religious conceptualization of the world, the transcendent Divine and its relationship with the phenomenal world, i.e. God incarnates in this world repeatedly for the sake of establishing righteousness (which is lost periodically). If this religious meaning (conceptualization of reality within Hinduism) is taken out of the meaning, the statement will be meaningless or at best, merely fictional. An in-depth analysis of sign-systems of religious and non-religious language is needed at various levels of linguistics. It will be important to formally construct mechanism to show how meaning is derived from the underlying system of faith. This mechanism will allow comparison of religious/ non-religious languages across cultures. This analysis will provide a method to arrive at universals of religious language across religions and allow linguists to distinguish one register from another. For example, at this point, there is no mechanism in linguistic theory, which allows this comparison of registers.

7 Implications of the Proposal: Religious and Non-language (Language: Toward a Theory of Di-system) The above discussion claims that speech communities can have more than one system of conceptualizations of reality. People use those according to the domain, i.e. religious conceptualization in the context of religion and non-religious context, the secular (assumed by the science) conceptualization of reality. If we assume religious and non-religious languages are two different systems of signification, a question may be asked, can a community’s repertoire of systems of signification (or sign-systems) include more than one system? If it does, this situation presents a parallel to the bi/multilingualism. Fishman (after Ferguson’s concept of Diglossia) has proposed Diglossia as a state where speakers of a multilingual speech community use languages according to the functional contexts (e.g. English at work, Hindi in the market and Maithili at home). I would like to suggest that sociolinguistics need a similar concept of di-system of conceptual frameworks where people use

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different frameworks of signification in different contexts, in this case, the context of religious and non-religious language, respectively. In my earlier work, I had proposed (Pandharipande, 2010) that in the diasporic context of the USA, a religious speech community of Hinduism (which comprises of devotees of the saint Saai Baabaa) uses two codes (mixed or separate), English and Sanskrit in the ritual contexts. For example, the following text is of a prayer in English (mixed with the well-known Hebrew devotional expression “Halleluija!”) and is taken from the Booklet, ‘Saaii Devotional Songs.’ (Song 691: Page 18). The Hindus in the US diaspora who are devotees of a saint named Saaii Baabaa recite this prayer in chorus. Love is my life, Saaii is love. Saaii is my heart, Saii is my home. is my Life, Saaii is my own. Love, Love, Love is God. Live, live, live in Love. Love Love, Love in God. Live, Live Live in Love. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!!!.

If the context of the prayer functions as a ‘trigger’ “to reconstruct the entire discourse a Hindu discourse (although the code is English), what happens to the semantics of the typical Judeo-Christian expression such as Hallelujah is used in the Hindu ritual discourse? (See example above) Does it refer to the Hindu ‘God’? Is it not logical to assume that the Judeo-Christian expression such as Hallelujah would function as a ‘trigger’ to reconstruct the discourse as Judeo-Christian? Will this not create a clash of semantics as well as (Hindu and Judeo-Christian) theologies? Another question can be raised, what is the mechanism for interpreting the discourse in English (example above) as Hindu, where there are no ‘triggers’ from the Indian languages to reconstruct the English discourse as Hindu?” (Pandharipande, 2013). In this context, the following proposal can be made as a viable solution to the problem. “When one language is used for expressing two mutually exclusive systems of thought (theologies in this case), it is the context (Hindu or Judeo-Christian) which determines which of the two is operational in that context. Thus, in the context of the Hindu rituals, the Hindu system of thought/theology operates throughout the religious discourse in which semantics of the code is embedded in the Hindu theology, which serves as the macro level framework from which the meaning/function of the linguistic code (with all its parts) is derived. Thus, all components of the linguistic code (English in this case) are interpreted as signifying the Hindu meaning. In contrast to this, in the context of the Judeo-Christian practices, the components of the linguistic code would be interpreted as signifying the Judeo-Christian meaning. Therefore, the Judeo-Christian phrase Hallelujah refers to the Judeo-Christian God in this context while it would refer to the Hindu God in the context of the Hindu ritual practices.” (Pandharipande, 2013).

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I call this the theoretical framework of di-system, which can be described as follows: “When the same linguistic code is used to express two mutually exclusive systems of thought, theologies in this case, the context of situation determines which of the two systems functions as the meta-framework within which the discourse (with its components) is interpreted.”

“This proposal can be extended to apply to a wider range of the data where one code is used to express many systems of thought/theologies. For example, this framework can explain how the Indian languages (the same codes) can be used in India for expressing different religions. This framework will be able to explain how Hindi is used to express Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Christianity. The same linguistic code (Hindi) can signify different sets of meanings in different contexts. This proposal shares the assumption which underlies the concept of Diglossia where two codes are used in mutually exclusive contexts. The proposal presented here assumes that the repertoire of the speech community includes more than one system of thought/frame each of which functions in their respective, mutually exclusive contexts”. (Pandharipande, 2013). In conclusion, I would like to claim the following: a. Treating underlying conceptual framework of reality as the differentia of LR explains why one many linguistic codes can be used to express many religions. b. The proposal of Di-system presents a counterpart of Diglossia of conceptual frameworks and explains why one language can be used for many religions. c. The discussion here suggests that the competence in LR is determined by the competence of the user in the signification of the religious conceptual framework/religious ‘worldview.’ The proposal answers Crystal’s concerns and questions about the criteria for determining acceptability of the statements in LR, i.e. their acceptability will be judged on the basis of the conceptualization of the reality/‘worldview.’ Similarly, competence of the users of LA will include the knowledge of the ‘worldview’ or the system of signification. d. It also explains why earlier interpretation of LR as meaningless was based on the assumption that LR and non-LR share the same ‘signification/worldview.’ e. Finally, I would like to point out the relevance of pragmatics in interpreting LR. Crystal (2018:11) mentions three aspects of pragmatics: the choices people make when they use language, intentions and assumptions behind those choices, and the effects those choices convey. I would like to propose in the context of Pragmatics discussed by Crystal above, that the analysis of LR should include religious beliefs (more specifically, religious worldview) as part of the ‘assumptions’ behind the use of LR. The discussion here points out that the need to examine cross-linguistic data of the commonly shared concepts in LR, and the religious worldviews and their expression in linguistic structures. As Crystal recommends, it should be possible to make an

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inventory of samples of LR of diverse religions. This endeavor will be necessary for comparing LRs and for arriving at universals of religious languages. Endnotes: 1. An interesting piece of information in Patanjali’s Mah¯abh¯as.ya (the commentary on Panini’s grammar As.t.a¯ dy¯ay¯ı ) occurs in the context of explaining why one should study grammar. Patanjali says that without studying grammar, one does not know the correct pronunciation of words, and this can have negative impact on you. The as asuras (demons) apparently did not study grammar and mispronounced words, and hence their yajnas (sacrificial rituals) were ineffec¯ tive, and thus they were defeated by the Devas.Mahabhashya paspa´s Ahnikam 1.1.1 “… te asur¯a helayo helaya iti kurvantah par¯ababhuvuh….” (Those Asuras, mispronouncing the /r/ as /l/, were defeated (by gods). 2. The English prayers is taken from the Booklet used in t worship ritual offered to the contemporary Hindu saint Satya Saaii Baabaa in the congregation of his devotees in the US. The group recites/sings the Saaii Bhajan (devotional prayers) together. The booklet is an unpublished manuscript. I have not changed the spelling and punctuation used in the booklet, rather, I have kept the text as it is in the booklet. Capitalization of the first letters of the words is not necessarily systematic not it is consistent.

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