1st Edition
Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia
Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia explores the intricacies of the grammars of several of the languages of the South Asian subcontinent. Specifically, the contributors to this volume examine grammatical resources for shaping elaborative, rhyming, and alliterative expressions, conveying the emotions, states, conditions and perceptions of speakers. These forms, often referred to expressives, remain relatively undocumented, until now.
It is clear from the evidence on contextualized language use that the grammatically artistic usage of these forms enriches and enlivens both every day and ritualized genres of discourse. The contributors to this volume provide grammatical and sociolinguistic documentation through a typological introduction to the diversity of expressive forms in the languages of South Asia.
This book is suitable for students and researchers in South Asian Languages, and language families of the following; Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic.
Table of Contents
List of Figures & Tables
List of Appendices
List of Contributors
1 Introduction Jeffrey P. Williams
Part I: South Asia in Comparative Perspective
2 Expressives as a Semantically Complex Category in South Asian Languages
Anvita Abbi
Part II: Expressives in the Indo-Aryan Sphere
3 Expressives in Hindi
Annie Motaut
4 Nepali Expressive Morphology
George van Driem
Part III: Expressives in the Dravidian Family
5 Morphosyntax of Expressives in Malayalam
P. Sreekumar & S. Prema
6 Expressive Morphology: A Study of Iraṭṭaik Kilavi in Tamil
Vridhachalem Pillay Subramaniam
Part IV: Expressive Morphology in Tibeto-Burman
7 Reduplication in Lamkang: Form, Function, Feeling
Shobhana Chelliah, Evaline Blair, Melissa Robinson, Rex Khullar, and Sumshot Khular
8 The Functional Value of Formal Exuberance: Isomorphism and Expressive Intensification in Adi and Milang
Yankee Modi and Mark W. Post
Part V: The Tai Presence in South Asia
9 A Study of the Poetics of Tai Ahom
Stephen Morey
Part VI: The Munda World
10 Expressives in the Munda Languages
Gregory D. S. Anderson and Bikram Jora
Index
Biography
Jeffrey P. Williams is Professor of Ethnology and Linguistics in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Texas Tech University. He is coeditor on three books (excluding the present contribution) and editor of another. His field-based research has been in the West Indies, Australia, Papua New Guinea and with Native American tribes in Oklahoma (USA) and Montagnard refugees in North Carolina and Texas (USA). He is presently writing a monograph entitled Expressives for Cambridge University Press.
