Indian Linguistic Studies: Festschrift in Honor of George Cardona (review)

Indian linguistic thought begins around the 8th–6th centuries bce with the composition of Padapāṭhas (word-for-word recitation of Vedic texts where phonological rules generally are not applied). It took various forms over these 26 centuries and involved different languages (Ancient, Middle, and Modern Indo-Aryan as well as Dravidian languages). The greater part of documented thought is related to Sanskrit (Ancient Indo-Aryan). Very early, the oral transmission of sacred texts—the Vedas, composed in Vedic Sanskrit—made it necessary to develop techniques based on a subtle analysis of language. The Vedas also—but presumably later—gave birth to bodies of knowledge dealing with language, which are traditionally called Vedāṅgas: phonetics (śikṣā), metrics (chandas), grammar (vyākaraṇa), and semantic explanation (nirvacana, nirukta). Later on, Vedic exegesis (mīmāṃsā), new dialectics (navya-nyāya), lexicography, and poetics (alaṃkāra) also contributed to linguistic thought. Though languages other than Sanskrit were described in premodern India, the grammatical description of Sanskrit—given in Sanskrit—dominated and influenced them more or less strongly. Sanskrit grammar (vyākaraṇa) has a long history marked by several major steps (Padapāṭha versions of Vedic texts, Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali, Bhartṛhari’s works, Siddhāntakaumudī of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, Nāgeśa’s works), and the main topics it addresses (minimal meaning-bearer units, classes of words, relation between word and meaning/referent, the primary meaning/referent of nouns) are still central issues for contemporary linguistics.

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American Indian Linguistic Contributions of Gladys A. Reichard: A Bibliography

International Journal of American Linguistics ◽

10.1086/465628 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 37-40

Author(s):

Herbert Landar

Keyword(s):

American Indian ◽

Indian Linguistic

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Observations on Middle Indian Morphology

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies ◽

10.1017/s0041977x00141187 ◽

1936 ◽

Vol 8 (2-3) ◽

pp. 563-577

Author(s):

Louis H. Gray

Keyword(s):

Point Of View ◽

The Other ◽

Sentence Structure ◽

Linguistic Development ◽

General Terms ◽

Other Hand ◽

History Of ◽

Indian Linguistic

Investigation of Middle Indian morphology from the strictly linguistic point of view can fairly be said to have been made thus far only by Jules Bloch, notably in his L'Indo-aryen du Véda aux temps modernes (Paris, 1934). However valuable as descriptive grammars and as collections of material the Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen of Richard Pischel (Strasbourg, 1900) and the Pāli Literatur und Sprache of Wilhelm Geiger (Strasbourg, 1916) undoubtedly are, both works are far from linguistic in purpose. In Bloch's masterly survey of the history of Indian linguistic development from Vedic through Sanskrit and Middle Indian to Modern Indian, on the other hand, embracing phonology, morphology, and sentence-structure, it was scarcely possible, in view of the mass of material, for him todiscuss every detail. It is my purpose, then, as a comparative linguist, to consider in the following pages certain phenomena in Middle Indian which seem to merit further study, omitting on principle all that appears already to have been satisfactorily explained, such as the pronouns (cf. Bloch, pp. 145–7). Speaking in very general terms, Middle Indian would seem to present a mixture of forms common to Vedic and Sanskrit, number of survivals to be paralleled only in Vedic or Iranian, and a considerable amount of contamination of formations whose functions were, at least approximately, identical.

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