Download 1. Introduction The Dravidian language family is spoken in South

THE DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGE OF SPOKEN KANNADA
1.
Introduction
The Dravidian language family is spoken in South Asia, primarily in India, Sri Lanka, and as
far east as Malaysia. This paper will focus primarily on the morphology and morphophonology of
Spoken Kannada, a Dravidian language of the Indian state of Karnataka, with particular emphasis on
the Bangalore/Mysore dialect because it is the most widely accepted (Schiffman 1983: xx). Kannada
shows diglossia between Literary Kannada (LK) and its more colloquial variety Spoken Kannada (SK),
used in more familiar contexts "since to speak the literary variety is to sound like a book" (Schiffman
1983: xviii).
The following conventions are used in this paper (mostly following the conventions used by
Schiffman): T, D, N, S, and L represent the retroflex counterparts of the same symbols representing
those sounds. For example, T is a voiceless retroflex stop, while t is a voiceless alveolar stop.
Retroflex is a contrastive place of articulation in Kannada (Schiffman 1983: 7-8). The glides [j] and [u]
are represented as y and v (as Kannada has no voiced labiodental fricative) respectively. Long vowels
will be written with two symbols, e.g., aa. Morpheme boundaries are given with the symbol '+'. The
symbol '→' is used for 'is rewritten as'. Finally, whenever there is nothing but a page number in
parentheses as a reference, this refers to Schiffman 1983, as he is my main source.
1.1
Morphonology
Kannada's underlying forms are assumed to be those of LK, with representations coming to the
surface in their SK forms "by positing a set of rules that operates on these LK forms" (150, footnote
4). The following are the most important morphophonemics that occur when either two words or
two morphemes within a word come together in SK (16-21). Schiffman does not always say explicitly
which of these rules have applied, nor the order in which they have applied, because the intention of
these rules is descriptive only, to help shed light on the language and not as a strict formalization of its
grammar. I am including them here because of their influence on the language as a whole, as well as
the direct relevance they have for the morphology in the rest of this paper.
(a) Vowel Deletion/Reduction. Very often, when a short vowel follows the first syllable of a
word, it is either deleted or "reduced to an extremely short sound" (19). The precise rules for short
vowel reduction were not known as of the publication of Schiffman's book (151, footnote 8).
(b) Consonant Reduction/Assimilation. This is a rule "that operates on the output of the
short vowel reduction/deletion rule" (20) reducing geminates to a single consonant when they are
followed by another consonant (after short vowel deletion): iddaru → iddru → idru 'he was', or the
reduction of a nasal + homorganic cluster with another consonant: gdmf`rt → gdmfrt → gdMrt
'woman' (20). I assume that here the g left its trace by changing the nasal from an alveolar to a velar.
(c) Consonant Gemination. When a syllable has a short vowel, the consonant in the syllable
coda usually geminates:
kap 'cup' → kapp + u (enunciative) → kappu
(d) Glide Epenthesis. "When words ending in front vowels (i, ii, e, ee) are followed by other
words or morphemes beginning with a vowel, y is generally inserted" (18):
mane 'house' + -aa 'question' → maneyaa 'a house?'
(e) Glide Reduction. Often in casual speech, glides are eliminated when they come between
two vowels. Instead, the initial vowel of the V+glide+V sequence is doubled. For example, a form
such as maneyaa (which has inserted a glide at the morpheme boundary between two vowels) will
undergo one further change (in casual speech) to manee. Here is a schematic of the reduction in
general:
iyV → ii; eyV → ee; uvV → uu; avV → aa
With verbs, however, -uva and -uvu are reduced to -oo:
maaD 'make, do' + -uvudu (adjectival participle affix) → maaDoodu '(the act of) doing'
(f) Vowel Shortening. "After glide reduction [. . .], long vowels (particularly when final) are
shortened:" (20)
irtiiya 'you (sg.) are' → irtiii → irtii (the 3 [i]s are reduced to two).
2. Inflection
As with Dravidian languages in general, SK inflection (and derivation) is primarily suffixal
(Steever 1998: 131).
2.1.
Nominal Inflection. Spoken Kannada has a rich case system. It also inflects for PNG
(Person, Number, Gender), especially on "pronouns that refer to masculine and feminine nouns" (23).
I will discuss PNG on third person nouns first, then mention pronominal inflection, and finally talk
about the case system of SK.
2.1.1.1 Nouns
Gender (3rd Person Nouns). The genders distinguished in Kannada are masculine and
feminine within "rational" beings, or beings capable of thought: humans, gods and spirits, and "some
'higher' animals" (23). All non-rational nouns are neuter, but I could not find any standardized
endings for the neuters.
Feminine markers: -(a)Lu, -i, -e.
Masculine marker: (a)nu
I assume the notation with parentheses means that either the 'a' or the 'nu' (for stems ending in
vowels) are possible, but this is not made explicit in Schiffman. Also "not all masculine and feminine
nouns are so marked" (23). Here is an example of a rational noun, marked with either the masculine
or feminine ending (I chose this noun because it was the only one that showed two feminine endings
instead of just one):
Stem: sevak- 'servant'
Feminine: sevaki, sevakaLu
'female servant'
Masculine: sevaka(nu)
'male servant'
Number. There are only two numbers in SK: singular and plural. These two are the only
numbers that have been distinguished since Proto-Dravidian (Steever 1998: 21). Furthermore, neuter
nouns (irrationals) in SK are only marked for the plural optionally.
The plural ending is -aru: haD(u)ga 'boy' → haD(u)garu 'boys'. "Feminine nouns ending in a
vowel reduce the sequences -iya and -eya to ii and ee respectively" (24), so that a full representation of
(e.g.) sose 'daughter-in-law' is as follows (see section 1.1 Morphonology for the rules used):
1. sose → sosearu
plural
2. sosearu → soseyaru
(d) Glide Epenthesis
3. soseyaru → soseeru
(e) Glide Reduction
It is interesting that in the Dravidian languages generally, case marking comes after plural
marking (Steever 21; Schiffman 33). We turn to case just after a short discussion on pronouns.
2.1.1.2 Pronouns
Kannada has a rich system of pronouns, marked for every person (1, 2, 3), every number in
the language (singular, plural), and every gender (rational feminine and masculine, and non-rational
neuter), and varying across nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, locative, and instrumental/ablative
cases (40-43). To indicate politeness, Kannada will often use plural pronouns for a singular referent in
the second and third persons. Further, there is an ultrapolite form taavu, also when speaking in the
second and third persons (37). The basic (nominative) pronouns are: naanu/naavu 'I/we'; niinu/niivu
'you/you (pl)'; avanu/avaru 'he/ he, they'; avaaLu/avaru 'she/ she, they'; adu/avu 'it/ they (those things)'
(38).
2.1.1.3 Case Marking
SK has seven case markers that are actually used: nominative, genitive, accusative, dative,
locative, ablative/instrumental, and vocative. It also has an oblique case marker, generally used as the
"form to which some other case markers are added" (27). The oblique form is the same as the
genitive form, and the genitive -a (see below) does not occur twice (i.e., it is not the case that within
the same word, the -a occurs once for the oblique, and again for the genitive). Unless explicitly
mentioned otherwise, all case markers are added to the oblique stem.
Nominative. This is the subject/predicate nominal form of the noun, and "in SK, the
nominative case marker can be considered a 'zero' [Ø]" (25):
mane 'house' (in subject position) and idu mane 'this is (a) house' (predicate nominal).
Genitive. This case is primarily for possession, marked (primarily) with -a. For nonrationals
(neuters) which already end in -a, the genitive is -da. For rationals, -n(u) and -L(u) must come before
the genitive -a, so that we get for example:
magaL(u) 'daughter' + -a (genitive) → magaLa, where the -L(u) comes before the genitive
marker.
Several morphonological rules can apply to particular words marked for case, so that on their
surface these words appear as though they are not marked (25):
1. mane 'house' + -a (genitive) → manea
2. manea → maneya
(d) Glide Epenthesis
3. maneya → manee
(e) Glide Reduction
4. manee → mane
(f) Vowel Shortening.
Accusative. This is the objective case, whereby the noun is the object (or patient) of the verb.
Its ending is -anna, added to the nominative (not oblique) stem (27).
Dative. The dative marker is used to show the goal of an action, or when a noun acts as
benefactor to some action (like giving; 28). The marker is -ige for rationals, -kke for neuters (28).
Locative. The case of location, or the instrumental case for locomotion (29). Nonrationals
take -alli as their Locative case marker. "Rational nouns require the postposition hattira either instead
of or before -alli" (30), like so:
Instead of -alli: nan 'I (obl.) + hattira 'locative' → nan hatra 'by/near/on me' (applying rules (ab) from section 1.1 above).
Before -alli: nan 'I (obl.) + hattirad 'locative (oblique)' + -alli → nan hattiradalli 'by/near/on me'
Ablative/Instrumental -inda is used for both the ablative ('away from') and the instrumental
('by means of') case. Often the locomotive locative (-alli) is freely substitutable with this case.
Vocative. The 'calling' case, "used with rational nouns to indicate a calling or summons" (32).
the vocative marker is -ee for all rationals that do not end in -i or -a. For -a, a simple lengthening to
-aa applies. The -i is doubled to -ii.
2.2 Verbal Inflection.
There are two forms any verb can take: its finite form, which "can have nothing added" (51)
and so is complete (a full word), and its non-finite form, which "cannot stand alone" (51) and makes
up the stems to which other morphemes are added. Finite verbs are marked with PNG (Person,
Number, and Gender). Non-finite verbs are not so marked. PNG markers differ for present tense,
past tense, and the contingent, which translates to English as 'might (do something)' (58).
There are too many variations in verbal forms to talk about in this short essay. However,
there are certain key points as follows. The present tense is marked with -tt- (59). The past tense is
marked with -id- or (to a lesser extent) -t-, and the past has many changes that occur in very specific
frames (60). The stems vary depending on whether the root ends in a nasal consonant [n, N], a lateral
[l, L], the glide [j], the approximant [r], the voiced retroflex alveolar D, the front vowel [i] as opposed
to the back vowel [o]. Each of these has a different form in its tenses.
Verbal moods are imperative (which includes hortative and optative, each of which has a
different form but is just another way of giving an order) and indicative. Each of the verbal aspect
markers is really syntactic, "giving certain semantic nuances to the meaning of the sentence" (81) and
not the word, and so lies outside the scope of morphology.
I will give three full verbs, that is, verbs having tense and PNG marking, so that the overall
structure can be seen, where morphemes always occur in the following order (56):
Verb Stem
+
Tense Marker +
PNG Marker
→
Full Verb
hoog- 'go'
+
-tt- 'present'
+
-iini 'first singular [rational]'
→
hoogtini 'I go'
maaD- 'do'
+
-id- 'past'
+
-(a)ru 'second plural [rational]' →
maaDru 'he did'
bar- 'come'
+
-nd- 'past'
+
-e(nu) 'first singular [rational]' →
bande 'I came'
The last verb stem has the rule '/r/ → [n] before [d]' applied (56).
2.2.1
Participles
"Participles are non-finite verb forms that function verbally or adjectivally" (68). For
adjectival participles, see the derivation of the adjective below. However the verbal participle is an
inflectional class, and so I will outline it here.
Participles are divided into the present verbal participle and the past participle. Furthermore,
they have discrete endings (at least) underlyingly for their negative forms. The suffix -aa added to the
present stem -tt-, and creates the present participle: maaDtaa 'making'. Oftentimes -aa is deleted, again
because of the morphonological rules outlined in 1.1. The present participle can form a new tense,
similar to the English progressive, when followed by the (highly) irregular iru 'be' (69): maDt-iddiini 'I
am doing (something)', where maDt- has undergone the -aa deletion.
The past participle has no marker (69). Rather it is the same as the past stem for irregular
verbs (-id-/-nd-); the d of the stem is deleted for regular verbs (69): maaD-id 'did' → maaDi 'having
done'. For regular past tense stems ending in -id-, the [d] is deleted. Those past stems ending in -t- do
not delete the [t].
One of the interesting facts about SK is that the negative form of a participle, either present or
past, is formed in its own way. The negatives cannot take a tense marker (-tt-, -id-, -t-), but instead
take -ade to indicate negativity. For example, bar- 'to come' is barade 'not coming (present) / not
having come (past)' (70). This is true generally: negative forms are created separately from positive
forms, unlike in English where not is simply added.
3. Derivation
In SK, there are "true", i.e., underived, adjectives (44), and by extension, nouns and verbs as
well. The noun is simply the addition of a case-marking suffix onto a root, which is not considered by
Schiffman to be derivation in the true sense. The verb is brought about by adding inflectional
markings onto the root. The "true" adjective has an underlying form that ends in -a, but its surface
representation can vary because of the morphonological processes discussed in section 1.1.
3.1
The Derived Adjective
Adjectives occur before nouns, and although they modify nouns, adjectives "do not vary in
form according to the gender, number, or case of the noun modified" (44). Adjectives can be derived
from verbs or nouns. Forming adjectives from verbs "is the main way of forming adjectives in
Kannada" (70).
Adjectives from Verbs Adjectives can be created from either present or past participles,
changing the category of the verb to an adjective and so making this a case of derivational
morphology.
Adding an -oo suffix to the present verb stem creates an adjective in SK from LK -uva,
undergoing the usual morphophonological transformations delineated in section 1.1, without final
vowel shortening: baroo varaa 'the coming week/next week' (70). Similarly, adding -a will derive the
past adjectival participle, though this -a will not always surface because of morphophonological
processes (especially because of the first morphonological rule mentioned in this paper). In SK,
unlike English, any verb can be used to create an adjective: banD(a) huDga: 'the boy who came' (lit.
'came boy') (70).
Adjectives from Nouns. Usually when an adjective is derived from a noun, the suffix -aada or
-iroo is added to a noun (45). These are in fact the past participles of the verbs aagu 'become' and iru
'be' (45), but they are treated as derivational affixes that can be added to nouns, and not the actual
participles of those verbs which indicate "that the action or state of the participial verb preceded that
of the main verb" (68).
Adjectives with -aada "indicate an intrinsic, inherent, or inalienable quality" (45) while
adjectives formed from -idoo "suggest an alienable, extrinsic, or temporary state"1 (45).
3.2
The Derived Noun.
Nouns are either 'true' (underived), or they can be derived.
Adjectival Nominals Adjectives of any sort, including adjectives that have been derived from
nouns, can create nouns (45). Of interest is that Kannada has no predicate adjectives; any time, then,
that an adjective "does not precede a noun [as is the usual case], it must be nominalized" (45-46). If a
third person pronoun is added to an adjective, it becomes a nominal:
1. doDDa 'big' + avanu 'he' → doDDavnu
(f) Vowel Shortening (-DDaav- → -DDav-)
2. doDDavnu → doDDoonu
(e) Glide reduction.
Nominals from Verbs To derive an element that functions like a noun from a verb, a
demonstrative pronoun must be added to an adjectival participle (71):
maaD 'do' + -oo (present adjectival participle) + adu (third person neuter demonstrative) →
maaDoodu 'the act/fact of doing' (71).
1
As a side note, I would think they would be the other way around: -aada means (in its verbal form) 'to become', i.e., it is
taking on an extrinsic state, while -idoo means 'to be', so that this state simply is (and so is intrinsic).
Negative Nouns from Verbs Negativity in nouns can be expressed much the same way that it
can for adjectives: -ada is affixed to the stem, forming a negative adjectival participle, and then adding
a nominalizing suffix:
maaD + -ada (negative adjective) + -adu (third person neuter demonstrative) → maaD + -ada +
-adu → maaDaddu ~ maaDdaddu 'the act/fact of not doing' (71).
3.3
The Derived Verb. Yet another interesting fact about Spoken Kannada is there appears to
be no way to derive verbs (in the special sense of derivation given in section 3) by adding an affix
(equivalent to e.g., the English -ize). The way to turn nouns into verbs is through compounding, to
which we now turn and with which I will close my brief exposition.
4. Compounding
In SK, there are several verbs that can be added to (primarily) nouns to create VPs (91).
Compounding is very productive in SK. The two most common of these verbs are maaDu 'make, do'
and aagu 'become'. The causative suffix -isu is added to maaDu to derive maaDisu 'make (someone) do'
(90). In LK causative verbs can be made double causative by adding another causative affix: maaD-isisu, but this "does not seem to be the case in SK" (90).
The verb maaDu is used to create transitive action verbs, especially out of borrowed words.
The verb aagu on the other hand is used to create "stative [verbs] rather than active [verbs] (indicating
a state or change of state rather than an action performed on an object)" (92).
My source for compounds (Steever 1993: 28-29) keeps the words separate while explicitly
stating that they are compounds, e.g.:
1. maduve 'marriage' → maduve aagu 'get married'
2. haaLu 'destruction' → haaLu maaDu 'destroy'
We can see in the first example that that had these words should, according to our
morphonological rules, continue being derived at least until we get:
1. maduveaagu → maduveyaagu (d) Glide Epenthesis
2. maduveyaagu → maduveeagu (e) Glide Reduction
3. maduveeagu → *maduveagu
(f) Vowel Shortening
As far as I can see, then, compounding, or creating one free morpheme from two roots, does not
involve any distinct morphonological rules; rather, it avoids applying normal morphophonological
rules to compounds. The same rules (or lack of rules) seem to apply in Schiffman 91-93, where he
terms compounds the product of "verbalizers"; however there he gave no compounds which
consisted of two words, one ending in a vowel before the next word which also begins in a vowel.
Unfortunately, a detailed guide to Spoken Kannada compounding is lacking.
References
Schiffman, H. F. (1983). A reference grammar of spoken Kannada. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Steever, S. B. (1998). Introduction to the Dravidian languages. In Steever, S.B. (Ed.), The Dravidian
languages (pp. 1-39). London: Routlidge.
Steever, S. B. (1998). Kannada. In Steever, S.B. (Ed.), The Dravidian languages (pp. 129-157). London:
Routlidge.