Localist studies in Telugu syntax

• Main Author: Reddy, Bandi Ramakrishna
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1977
• Subjects: 410
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.660984

The aim of this work is two-fold, being, firstly, to describe certain important areas of the syntax of modern spoken Telugu and, secondly, by formulating the description in terms of localise case theory, to contribute something to the understanding of this approach. Illustrative support for the localist hypothesis has hitherto been drawn largely from languages of the Indo-European family. This thesis attempts to provide a supplement to this by drawing on a language of the Dravidian family, which is genetically entirely unrelated to Indo-European. After an introductory chapter surveying earlier work on the grammar of Telugu, from which it will become apparent that there has so far been only a modest amount of work on Telugu syntax in terms of any recent theoretical model and nothing in terms of the localist approach, there follows an account of Telugu sentence patterns and the major elements of Telugu sentence construction. This is intended to provide the necessary data on the surface grammar of the language to make the subsequent proposals regarding underlying structures more readily comprehensible. Chapter 3 gives an outline of the theory of generative localism and makes comparisons with other current syntactic theories, in particular the case grammar of Fillmore and generative semantics. The fourth chapter examines one of the primitive case relations, namely the one that specifically underlies the spatial locative constructions of Telugu. Attention is drawn in the discussion to the co-relationship between word-order and definiteness and the bearing this has on a statement of the derivation of existential clauses. Chapter 5 attempts to show the underlying uniformity between the concrete locatives (spatial locatives) and certain apparently nonconcrete phenomena such as possessive and stative expressions, including verbs of cognition, perception and wanting. The examination of equative clauses that is presented'-in Chapter & focuses attention on agu, the 'copula' of Telugu. The presentation leads to the conclusion that this 'copula' needs to be taken as a basic verb rather than as a dummy element. It also becomes necessary to suggest the need to abandon the Fillmorean principle of one instance per clause of a given case relation. The locative discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 has been non-directional. Chapter 7 is concerned with directional locatives, that is to say with 'source' and 'goal'. It is shown that these two do not involve two further case relations, since 'goal' can be accounted for as a sub¬ type of static locative. The thesis concludes with a summary account of further worthwhile avenues of research in Telugu syntax which might usefully be handled in localist terms.