- Centre for Advanced Studies in Linguistics
Arts Faculty Extension
University of Delhi
Delhi 110007
INDIA
Tanmoy Bhattacharya
University of Delhi, Dept. of Linguistics, Department Member
- I am a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and currently the Head of the Department. I have a PhD each from Un... moreI am a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and currently the Head of the Department. I have a PhD each from University of London (UCL) and Hyderabad (HCU), both focusing on the syntax of Bangla. In the UCL PhD, I developed an antisymmetric account of the noun phrase in Bangla and in my postdoctoral work in Leipzig, I further developed the head-medial property of a so-called head-final language in various syntactic domains. I've since worked on Hindi-Urdu, Sanskrit, Manipuri, Maithili, Bundeli, Tangkhul, Assamese, Angika, Rajbanshi, Indian Sign Language, Sindhi, Magahi, Mara, Liangmai, Malayalam, Gujarati and Arabic, Polish, Vietnamese. Outside syntax, I've worked on Psycholinguistic parsing, Gender, Language Rights, Ethics, and Orientalism. My current research is in areas of Syntax and Disability Studies.edit
Optionality in participial agreement in Hindi was noted in Kachru (2006: 163), where an adverbial participle may optionally agree with the subject NP in number and gender if the NP is in the direct case. For the present paper, I expand... more
Optionality in participial agreement in Hindi was noted in Kachru (2006: 163), where an adverbial participle may optionally agree with the subject NP in number and gender if the NP is in the direct case. For the present paper, I expand this observation further and demonstrate the existence of extensive (syntactic) variation in participial agreement in Hindi with data that has not been reported or analyzed in the literature. In the case of relative participles, where Kachru did not report any variation, the range of judgments indicates a general reluctance of the number feature to be available too low in the structure; this becomes apparent if we use an object relative in these constructions; the optionality in participial subject agreement that Kachru captured seems to take place in the case of participial object agreement as well. For the complex adjectival/ adverbial adjuncts, though Kachru (2006) reported variation by one factor, the extent of variation is found to be much wider. The judgments on these variants indicate that the feature of person seems to be available high up in the clause and gender lower down but it is number that hovers in between. This is in line with the general observation that participle agreement is with number and gender and never with person, unlike subject agreement in general-another reason why this type of agreement should be seen as different from (subject) argument agreement on verbs. Theoretically, the findings indicate that the trigger for the number agreement cannot be lower than at least the main clause aspectual head. The paper proposes three distinct syntactic operations-valuation, relaying, and copying which, together with standard Agree applying top-down, derive the full range of the results obtained.
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There is something wrong with homogeneity; the fact that difference is the norm is socio-politically suppressed by brandishing the weapon of homogeneity. We are made to think that we are all alike. I start this paper by questioning our... more
There is something wrong with homogeneity; the fact that difference is
the norm is socio-politically suppressed by brandishing the weapon of
homogeneity. We are made to think that we are all alike. I start this
paper by questioning our incessant celebration of homogeneity and show
further that normativity is the unifying and underlying force working for
homogeneity. This overwhelming presence of the normative demands an
examination of the system of knowledge, since, in spite of its oppressive
presence, normativity is rarely questioned, more so, in the sphere of
education. I will take up the case of education for marginalised groups
in order to demonstrate the above. In the field of education, whether
it is through the curriculum, the delivery, or the material, normativity
conspires to construe a bias in the mind of the learner. Within a strategy
based on reforms, the question of whether or not to address such an issue
as a ‘special’ case arises, in turn, compelling us to reopen the discussion on
the much-abused issue of inclusion. I will suggest three ways of achieving
inclusion: through empathy, as a right, and through a Dalit/disabilitycentric
knowledge system. I will show that both the empathy and the
right perspectives fail, primarily because the first leads to compassion
and charity and the second to merely structural changes due to its lack
of connection with development and life-value criteria. I will elaborate a
third way, based on the philosophy of Integrative Difference—Integrative-
Difference Based Inclusive Education—which requires us to shift our
ontologies from the disability/Dalit model to that of the ‘normate’,
to shift our gaze to the production, operation and maintenance of
normateism and to study the ‘pathologies of the normate’.
the norm is socio-politically suppressed by brandishing the weapon of
homogeneity. We are made to think that we are all alike. I start this
paper by questioning our incessant celebration of homogeneity and show
further that normativity is the unifying and underlying force working for
homogeneity. This overwhelming presence of the normative demands an
examination of the system of knowledge, since, in spite of its oppressive
presence, normativity is rarely questioned, more so, in the sphere of
education. I will take up the case of education for marginalised groups
in order to demonstrate the above. In the field of education, whether
it is through the curriculum, the delivery, or the material, normativity
conspires to construe a bias in the mind of the learner. Within a strategy
based on reforms, the question of whether or not to address such an issue
as a ‘special’ case arises, in turn, compelling us to reopen the discussion on
the much-abused issue of inclusion. I will suggest three ways of achieving
inclusion: through empathy, as a right, and through a Dalit/disabilitycentric
knowledge system. I will show that both the empathy and the
right perspectives fail, primarily because the first leads to compassion
and charity and the second to merely structural changes due to its lack
of connection with development and life-value criteria. I will elaborate a
third way, based on the philosophy of Integrative Difference—Integrative-
Difference Based Inclusive Education—which requires us to shift our
ontologies from the disability/Dalit model to that of the ‘normate’,
to shift our gaze to the production, operation and maintenance of
normateism and to study the ‘pathologies of the normate’.
Research Interests:
The spirit of Disability Studies (DS) is often misunderstood in the excitement associated with the birth of a new field and in the context of an uncertain dissociation from the zeal of activism; I will make a strong point here with... more
The spirit of Disability Studies (DS) is often misunderstood in the excitement associated with the birth of a new field and in the context of an uncertain dissociation from the zeal of activism; I will make a strong point here with respect to the latter. In earlier work, following on the tradition of sounding the alert of leaving activism behind and of reasonable advice on embracing the mutually inter-flowing character of activism and theory-building, I have advocated the necessity of the two-way traffic between the two. However, I now believe that for a specific context like India, the time has come to objectively re-take the shot. Disability related activities in India, with its overemphasis on services, is alarmingly close to creating a hegemonic discourse that shrinks the space for the emergence of a DS discourse, even further. In fact, I am quite certain now to state that what feeds each other within the Indian context is not DS and activism but activism and service, the former accentuating the latter; this is evident from mission statements of various agencies and their policies. In fact, I believe that this association is showing signs of crystallizing into a nexus that will steadfastly keep DS out forever. All the signs are in place and the lesson from other aspects of life around us, will reinforce and maintain this exclusionary character of the nexus as a matter of strategy. Therefore, it is time, in fact, to sound a caution from the other end – it is time now to move away for a while from the excitement of sloganeering, and to build a tradition of true scholarship in DS. A diplomatic compromise is the easy way out, it is difficult to engage in true scholarship. It is futile to pretend an activists’ posturing in an academic discourse – often by ever too willingly stretching the notion of activism at the cost of the necessary politics associated with it – and completely unnecessary. Having said this, it is necessary to also point out that DS cannot be built on the ashes of activism, and I am certainly not suggesting an either/or existential frame. My words ‘move away for a while’ clearly construct an imagery that keeps activism at bay but also in view. The formality of this estrangement is best attempted, I suggest, by looking at existing practices through the lens of ableism and by engaging in a disability-centric understanding of various themes within the academia.
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There is a potential conflict between the value of diversity at workplace—a concept touted and encouraged since the mid-1990s in America among private business/corporates—and the findings of the rights-based disability movement, namely... more
There is a potential conflict between the value of diversity at workplace—a concept touted and encouraged since the mid-1990s in America among private business/corporates—and the findings of the rights-based disability movement, namely (i) a person with disability (PwD) does not need charity, and (ii) disability is not a spectacle. A PwD represents in some sense the “spectacle of diversity” to an extreme in the mainstream unconscious imagination: if a prospective employer encourages hiring an employee with disability solely for the reason of diversity, then there is a problem. However, there ought to be some value to a practical implementation of a policy; i.e., if an organization wishes to implement a policy that encourages diversity in the workplace/institution, it ought to be considered an affirmative action. This is equally true of any possible future attempt at designing an instrument to ‘implement’ a theoretical perspective, be it from within the humanities or the social sciences; that is, actually hiring/admitting people as per a policy requirement may eventually lead to designing of an “instrument” or a set of algorithms, or a programme, to follow in cases of any such implementations. Nonetheless, designing instruments can address some of the issues which are often projected as problems which differentiate the social sciences from the humanities, since it has been argued that “designing” or “instrumentation” per se leads to a mechanistic world where human values are neglected—a bone of contention between the humanities and social sciences. A return to humanistic studies seems to be the only sure way of arriving at the truth. This is true in education as well as in employment, where the mere reportage of managers’/teachers’ or employees’/students’ satisfaction over employing PwDs and ignoring the axis of domination to investigate such status of employment, i.e. whether the person was employed/admitted “only” because of his/her disability to add to the so-called spectacle for the institute or whether because the organization truly believed in doing a good thing like diversity, does not constitute an analysis. This chapter thus critically examines the construction of diversity at workplace and in education with a view to comprehending the underlying notions.
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Many natural language quantifiers (like many, most, few, etc.) were shown in a groundbreaking paper by Barwise and Cooper in 1981 to be not definable through FOPC quantifiers like and . Furthermore, they showed that these quantifiers... more
Many natural language quantifiers (like many, most, few, etc.) were shown in a groundbreaking paper by Barwise and Cooper in 1981 to be not definable through FOPC quantifiers like and . Furthermore, they showed that these quantifiers combine with a set expression and produce a quantifier, they thus correspond to the structure of determiners, hence the term, ‘universal determiners’. For the purpose of this paper, we investigate the universal determiners each, every and all; prottek ‘each/ every’, SOb/ SOkol/ puro/ goTa/ Sara in Bangla, respectively, and show that, a series of language specific factors influence the behaviours of these strong determiners. In particular, due to classifiers inducing specificity and the emphasiser –i inducing exclusivity, the results of a potential ‘test’ to distinguish between the uses of each of these determiners (the ‘exceptionality test’) turns out to be predictable on independent grounds. In addition, indefinites, which correspond to the weak determiners, are investigated across four properties as discussed in Farkas (2002), namely, Dependent reading (>), Existential Binding (>), Genericity (GENi [xi]) and scope of the existential over negation (). The indefinites discussed are Ek ‘one’, keu/ kono/ kichu ‘some’, and keu-na-keu/ kono-na-kono/ kichu-na-kichu ‘someone or other’. For ‘some’, it is shown that readings are only apparent as they involve contexts that otherwise license negative polarity items as in (1). (1) ami kichu khaini I some eatNEG ‘I haven’t eaten anything’ The generic reading for Ek ‘one’, furthermore, introduces a complexity not seen in Farkas (and perhaps not in Hungarian); its use is felicitous with a specific modality reading as in (2) where the use of the human classifier (CLA) need not be responsible for this particular reading as shown by an equivalent Hindi/ Urdu example in (3). (2) Ek-jon manus jOkhon nijer kOpal-ke doS dEy … one-CLA human when selfGEN forehead-DAT fault gives ‘When a (hu)man faults his/ her own luck …’ (3) Ek aadmi jab apne-aap-ko kostaa hai … one human when selfGEN-self-DAT blames be Furthermore, the Bangla reduplicated indefinite (Ek-Ek) differs from its Hungarian counterpart in being felicitous without being dependent on the scope of a universal quantifier: (4) Sonia Ek-Ek-joner SOnge dEkha korbe one-one-CALGEN with meet do.will ‘Sonia will meet each and every person.’ Some readjustments, therefore, are suggested in the model of Farkas (2002) with the view that morphological reduplication may not signal semantic dependence.
ABSTRACT
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1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction (by Bayer, Josef) 3. Clause Structure 4. What is 'Argument Sharing'?: A Case Study on Argument Sharing under VP-Serialization in Oriya (by Beermann, Dorothee) 5. Pseudoclefts: a Fully... more
1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction (by Bayer, Josef) 3. Clause Structure 4. What is 'Argument Sharing'?: A Case Study on Argument Sharing under VP-Serialization in Oriya (by Beermann, Dorothee) 5. Pseudoclefts: a Fully Derivational Account (by Boeckx, Cedric) 6. The Cleft Question and the Question of Cleft (by Madhavan, P.) 7. Clausal Pied-piping and Subjacency (by Srikumar, K.) 8. Modification in DP 9. On the Syntax of Quantity in English (by Kayne, Richard S.) 10. Binding 11. Coreference Violations 'Beyond Principle B' (by Gueron, Jacqueline) 12. Perspectives on Binding (by Reuland, Eric J.) 13. Raising from a Tensed Clause and Linguistic Theory: Evidence from Maithili (by Yadava, Yogendra P.) 14. Complementizers and Complementation 15. The Ubiquitous Complementizer (by Dasgupta, Probal) 16. Word Order, Parameters, and the Extended COMP Projection (by Davison, Alice) 17. The Particle ne in Direct yes-no Questions (by Barbora, Madhumita) 18. Phonology 19. Underspecification and the Phonology of *NC -Effects in Malayalam (by Das, Shyamal) 20. The Disyllabic Word Minimum: Variations on a Theme in Bangla, Punjabi and Tamil (by Vijayakrishnan, K.G.) 21. Writing Systems and Phonological Awareness (by Sailaja, Pingali) 22. List of contributors 23. Bibliography of K.A. Jayaseelan 24. Index of names 25. Index of languages 26. Index of topics
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"This chapter establishes a profile of sluicing constructions in two widely-spoken Indo-Aryan languages of South Asia: Bangla and Hindi. Although traditionally described as being wh-in-situ languages, both Bangla and Hindi have a... more
"This chapter establishes a profile of sluicing constructions in two widely-spoken Indo-Aryan languages of South Asia: Bangla and Hindi. Although traditionally described as being wh-in-situ languages, both Bangla and Hindi have a distribution of wh elements that suggests that they are actually languages with overt whmovement (Simpson and Bhattacharya 2003) and so might be expected to permit sluicing formed by wh-movement and PF clausal deletion, as hypothesized for languages such as English (Ross 1969,Merchant 2001, Fox and Lasnik 2003). The chapter consequently attempts to determine the degree to which sluicing in Bangla/Hindi may parallel or differ from the production of sluicing in English-type languages, and also how it may relate to sluicing patterns in typologically closer Japanese, where sluicing is often assumed to have a rather different syntactic derivation from that in English (Nishiyama et al. 1996, Fukaya and Hoji 1999, Hiraiwa and Ishihara 2001). The structure of the chapter is as follows. Section 9.2 first outlines basic properties of Bangla/Hindi and the formation of wh-questions in these languages. Section 9.3 then introduces sluicing proper, and examines what kind of analysis would seem to be supported by the patterning observed in Bangla/Hindi, considering with some care whether a form of the reduced cleft/copula analyses of sluicing in Japanese and Chinese might be appropriate for Bangla/Hindi. Arriving at the conclusion that it is wh-movement rather than copula deletion or cleft reduction that underlies Bangla/Hindi sluicing, Section 9.4 proceeds to investigate the potential effect of movement-associated constraints on sluicing in Bangla/Hindi, in particular Superiority and Subjacency/the CED. This leads to the observation of an unexpected difference in patterning in Bangla and Hindi, and an interesting challenge for the construction of theories on cross-linguistic variation in island-sensitivity in sluices. After someconsideration of the potential causes of the variation, Section 9.5concludes the chapter with an outline of the further comparative research into Indo-Aryan (and other) languages that seems to be required as a result of the present investigation of Bangla and Hindi."
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Recent developments in the generative tradition have created new interest in matters of argument structure and argument projection, giving prominence to the discussion on the role of lexical entries. Particularly, the more traditional... more
Recent developments in the generative tradition have created new interest in matters of argument structure and argument projection, giving prominence to the discussion on the role of lexical entries. Particularly, the more traditional lexicalist view that encodes argument structure information on lexical entries is now challenged by a syntactic view under which all properties of argument structure are taken up by syntactic structure. In the light of these new developments, the contributions in this volume provide detailed empirical investigations of ...
Research Interests: Genetics, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Syntax, Japanese, and 8 moreLinguistics, Scrambling, Transitivity, Bengali, Bangla, Theme, Lingua, and Locative
... Tanmoy Bhattacharya Children with disability were included as early as 1968 in the National Policy on Education, but the rhetoric of integrated education has been ambivalently used to keep at bay the broader concept of inclusion. ...... more
... Tanmoy Bhattacharya Children with disability were included as early as 1968 in the National Policy on Education, but the rhetoric of integrated education has been ambivalently used to keep at bay the broader concept of inclusion. ... Tanmoy Bhattacharya (tanmoy@linguistics. ...
In this part of the story of peopling of the northeast of India, I zoom into exploring the cultural and linguistic dynamics within a particular state in the region, namely, Manipur. As before in many of the little stories in the last 4... more
In this part of the story of peopling of the northeast of India, I zoom into exploring the cultural and linguistic dynamics within a particular state in the region, namely, Manipur. As before in many of the little stories in the last 4 parts, I show that the dynamics of a dichotomy inside this state is but a reflection of a bigger dynamics outside it, and in fact, in Southeast Asia, especially, Myanmar. In particular, I take up the dichotomy of valley versus mountain, and locate it in Myanmar in terms of the dichotomy between the Shans and the Kachins. In exploring these and other dichotomies, I identify a very significant character of the Manipuri or Meitei/ Meetei society, namely, their deep association with the land that they have been a part of for millenia.
Research Interests: Southeast Asian Studies, Burma Studies, Tibeto-Burman Linguistics, Myanmar, The Myanmar/Burma Pyu period, First Millennium CE, and 5 moreManipur, Genetic Structure of Tibeto-Burman populations of India, Tibeto-Burman populations of India, Population Genetics: Cultural Evolution, and peopling of the Northeast
This part introduces a surprising element in the peopling of the northeast (of India) story, it argues for an interaction just outside the northeast corridor that has not been conjectured by any other scholar before. In the process, it... more
This part introduces a surprising element in the peopling of the northeast (of India) story, it argues for an interaction just outside the northeast corridor that has not been conjectured by any other scholar before. In the process, it also demonstrates that the east is the real melting pot of India.
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In Part 1 (see vol. 02, issue 03, p. 66-73), we saw that based on the archaeological evidence for the proposed Northeast Indian Neolithic culture, it can be established that the “Western” Tibeto-Burman group (to which, Meeteilon belongs)... more
In Part 1 (see vol. 02, issue 03, p. 66-73), we saw that based on the archaeological evidence for the proposed Northeast Indian Neolithic culture, it can be established that the “Western” Tibeto-Burman group (to which, Meeteilon belongs) split off the earliest from a common ancestor inhabiting most probably the South-western Sichuān province of China; and the earliest date for such an intrusion into the northeast of India was set at 7000 to 6000 BCE. It was also pointed out that this is by far the earliest intrusion into India of a Neolithic culture, as the aceramic culture of Burzahom in Kashmir is dated around 2800-2500 BCE.
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The law of universal gravitation came about, as the legend goes, from experiencing (or 'observing', as a variation on the theme) an apple fall. This was 1666 and the famous question that arose in the mind of one of the premier scientific... more
The law of universal gravitation came about, as the legend goes, from experiencing (or 'observing', as a variation on the theme) an apple fall. This was 1666 and the famous question that arose in the mind of one of the premier scientific minds of all times was: Why did the apple fall down (and not rise up)? From this initial puzzle, started much of the scientific ideas about the earth and the moon. In fact, we can take this to be the necessary condition for any scientific enquiry, namely, curiosity. Compare this questioning spirit with another question that was posed about 300 years later: Why does the word " can " appear at the beginning of the following sentence when it is clearly associated with the verb " swim " ?
(1) Can the eagles that fly swim?
(1) Can the eagles that fly swim?
Research Interests: Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Neolithic Archaeology, Northeast India, Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, and 14 moreTai-Kadai Linguistics, Pleistocene, Tibeto-Burman Linguistics, Yunnan, Manipur, Sichuan, Yangtze River, Southwest China, Archeology, Hoabinhian, Tharu, Pre-Han in Eastern Yunnan, peopling of northeast India, and pengtoushan
PART 1 (vol.2, issue 3, 2016) and Part 2 (vol.2, issue 4, 2016) of this series respectively dealt with the migration of people speaking Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages into India from the Southwest of Sichuan province of China around 7000... more
PART 1 (vol.2, issue 3, 2016) and Part 2 (vol.2, issue 4, 2016) of this series respectively dealt with the migration of people speaking Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages into India from the Southwest of Sichuan province of China around 7000 BCE (Before Common Era) and of speakers of Bodic languages into the Tibeto-Himalayan region from the north much later around 3000 BCE. However, this cannot be the full story about migrations into the northeast or of the TB group of speakers. We need to take into account the presence of at least one more major language group in the northeast, namely, the speakers of Austroasiatic (AA) languages. At present, a major AA language of the northeast is Khasi, spoken by about 1.5 million people in the State of Meghalaya. Although, it is a major language of a state, it has not yet been included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India, in spite of demands since the early 1970s.
Research Interests: Southeast Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Archaeology, Northeast India, Southeast Asian Linguistics, Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, and 10 moreTibeto-Burman Linguistics, mtDNA, Human Migration, Y chromosome, Austroasiatic languages, Haplogroups, Aslian Mon-Khmer Austroasiatic, Austroasiatic linguistics, Austroasiatic identity, and peopling of northeast India
The denial of rights for a community may extend to and have direct effect on their being denied entry into the general education, employment and cultural system of a nation. For the deaf population, the denial of rights springs from the... more
The denial of rights for a community may extend to and have direct effect on their being denied entry into the general education, employment and cultural system of a nation. For the deaf population, the denial of rights springs from the denial of language rights of a minority by not encouraging the use of Signed Languages, Indian Sign Language (ISL) for the D/deaf18 population of India, overtly, and covertly by encouraging the use of speech training or a very inapt and weakened version of sign language in education of deaf children in deaf schools as well as regular schools. This state of affairs in India has led to a lamentable situation with regards to penetration of education among the deaf population.
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6 This paper proposes a typological bifurcation of South Asian languages into two major groups: Gender language." like Hindi, and Class languages, like Bangia. We suggest a particular formalization, in terms of a Badge node exhibiting... more
6 This paper proposes a typological bifurcation of South Asian languages into two major groups: Gender language." like Hindi, and Class languages, like Bangia. We suggest a particular formalization, in terms of a Badge node exhibiting either Class or Gender, of the correspondence between the classifier l system in Class languages and the gender system in Gender languages. We accept as our point of departure some of the key assumptions of the minimalist version (Chomsky, 1992) of the principles and parameters approach to syntax. In particular, we take it that fully inflected lexemes are inserted at lexical sites, raised to positions where they trigger 'checking' mechanisms ensuring that all nodes get licensed, and finally-.after finishing all syntactic work-'spelled out' as a specific pbonological shape. Further details are given, where relevant, in the body of the paper.
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Although most of the languages to be discussed in this paper are at one time or another have been considered dialects of Hindi, they are all genetically unrelated to Hindi as they originate from Māgadhan Prākrit (the Eastern branch of... more
Although most of the languages to be discussed in this paper are at one
time or another have been considered dialects of Hindi, they are all
genetically unrelated to Hindi as they originate from Māgadhan Prākrit
(the Eastern branch of Middle Indo-Aryan) whereas Hindi originates
from Saurasenī Prākrit (the Central branch of Middle Indo-Aryan). The
languages to be discussed in this paper are Maithili, Magahi, Angika and
Kurmali, out of which the first two have been studied to some extent
but not the latter two, I will designate this group collectively as Central
Māgadhan Prākrit (CMP). Within the Māgadhan group of Eastern MI
languages, what distinguishes these languages from other languages of
the Eastern group as well as from the Central Middle-Indic languages
is their agreement system. All these four languages show what is called
Multiple Agreement Phenomenon (MAP). Furthermore, the pattern of
agreement is seen to be crossing rather than nesting.
These languages add to their uniqueness further by showing a rare
phenomenon of Addressee/ Allocutive Agreement phenomenon (AAP),
where politeness also has a later, wider dimension. I will argue that what
connects the two is the feature of honorificity. The feature of honorificity
that controls MAP is seen as a matter of the vP domain, whereas the
full-blown expressivity of AAP is a matter of a higher head responsible
for speech act. Though the paper ends up arguing for the position that
MAP/ AAP requires two different types of Agree, the general claim that
the paper makes is that CMP languages have potentially two agreement
slots, both of which are morphologically overt.
time or another have been considered dialects of Hindi, they are all
genetically unrelated to Hindi as they originate from Māgadhan Prākrit
(the Eastern branch of Middle Indo-Aryan) whereas Hindi originates
from Saurasenī Prākrit (the Central branch of Middle Indo-Aryan). The
languages to be discussed in this paper are Maithili, Magahi, Angika and
Kurmali, out of which the first two have been studied to some extent
but not the latter two, I will designate this group collectively as Central
Māgadhan Prākrit (CMP). Within the Māgadhan group of Eastern MI
languages, what distinguishes these languages from other languages of
the Eastern group as well as from the Central Middle-Indic languages
is their agreement system. All these four languages show what is called
Multiple Agreement Phenomenon (MAP). Furthermore, the pattern of
agreement is seen to be crossing rather than nesting.
These languages add to their uniqueness further by showing a rare
phenomenon of Addressee/ Allocutive Agreement phenomenon (AAP),
where politeness also has a later, wider dimension. I will argue that what
connects the two is the feature of honorificity. The feature of honorificity
that controls MAP is seen as a matter of the vP domain, whereas the
full-blown expressivity of AAP is a matter of a higher head responsible
for speech act. Though the paper ends up arguing for the position that
MAP/ AAP requires two different types of Agree, the general claim that
the paper makes is that CMP languages have potentially two agreement
slots, both of which are morphologically overt.
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This paper is an attempt to unify the apparently unrelated sentence types in Bangla, namely, copula-less nominal sentences and matrix-C clauses. In particular, the paper claims that a " Planar " view of clause structure affords us,... more
This paper is an attempt to unify the apparently unrelated sentence types in Bangla, namely, copula-less nominal sentences and matrix-C clauses. In particular, the paper claims that a " Planar " view of clause structure affords us, besides the above unification, a better account of the Kaynean Algorithm (KA, as in Kayne (1998a, b; 1999)) in terms of an interface driven motivation to break symmetry. In order to understand this unification, the invocation of the KA, that proclaims most significantly the 'non-constituency' of the C and its complement, is relevant if we agree with the basic assumption of this paper that views both Cs and Classifiers as disjoint from the main body (plane) of the clause. Such a disjunction is exploited further to introduce a new perspective of the structure of clauses, namely, the 'planar' view. The unmistakable non-linearity of the KA is seen here as a multi-planar structure creation; the introduction of the C/ CLA thus implies a new plane introduction. KA very strongly implies a planar view of clause structure. The identification of a plane is considered to be as either required by the C-I or the SM interface and it is shown that this view matches up with the duality of semantics, as in Chomsky (2005). In particular, EM (External Merge) is required to introduce or identify a new plane, whereas IM (Internal Merge) is inter-planar. Thus it is shown that inter-planar movements are discourse related, whereas intra-planar movements are not discourse related.
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This paper sets out to show that what has previously been thought to be a wh in situ language in fact has obligatory overt wh-movement, and then attempts to explain why this property has been missed in the past. Essentially, we will argue... more
This paper sets out to show that what has previously been thought to be a wh in situ language in fact has obligatory overt wh-movement, and then attempts to explain why this property has been missed in the past. Essentially, we will argue that this is due to two basic reasons; first Bangla is not underlyingly SOV in its word order, but rather SVO, and secondly, it will be suggested that wh-movement does not necessarily occur to a sentenceinitial Comp-position in all languages, and that sometimes the wh-licensing position may actually be lower than the regular surface position of the subject. To the extent that the wh-paradigms justify an underlying SVO analysis of Bangla rather than SOV analysis, the paper also provides good empirical support for a Kaynean account of strongly-head-final languages.
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We present a universal Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagset framework covering most of the Indian languages (ILs) following the hierarchical and decomposable tagset schema. In spite of significant number of speakers, there is no workable POS... more
We present a universal Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagset framework covering most of the Indian languages (ILs) following the hierarchical and decomposable tagset schema. In spite of significant number of speakers, there is no workable POS tagset and tagger for most ILs, which ...
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There is a potential conflict between the value of diversity at workplace -- a concept touted and encouraged since the mid- 90’s in America among private business/ corporates -- and the findings of the rights-based disability movement,... more
There is a potential conflict between the value of diversity at workplace -- a concept touted and encouraged since the mid- 90’s in America among private business/ corporates -- and the findings of the rights-based disability movement, namely, (i) a Person with Disability (PwD) doesn't need charity, (ii) disability is not a spectacle. A PwD represents in some sense the “spectacle of diversity” to an extreme in the mainstream unconscious imagination; if a prospective employer encourages hiring an employee with disability solely for the reason of diversity from such a perspective, then there is a problem. However, there ought to be some value to a practical implementation of a policy. This is equally true of any possible future attempts to designing an instrument to “implement” a theoretical perspective, be it coming from within the humanities or the social sciences. However, designing of instruments, I believe, will address some of the issues which are often projected as problems that differentiate the social sciences from the humanities. A return to the humanistic studies seems to be only sure way of arriving at the truth. This is true in education as well as in employment, where, the mere reportage of either managers’/ teachers’ or employees’/ students’ satisfaction over employing PwD and ignoring the axis of domination to investigate such status is not an analysis. This paper thus critically examines the construction of diversity at workplace and in education with a view to arrive at a possible base for understanding the notions that lie behind.
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By looking at a cluster of syntactic operations/ constructions like Modifiers and their positions, Word order, Complex Sentences, Verbal complexes, Argument structure of verbs, Verb ellipses and verb movement, Complex predicates,... more
By looking at a cluster of syntactic operations/ constructions like Modifiers and their positions, Word order, Complex Sentences, Verbal complexes, Argument structure of verbs, Verb ellipses and verb movement, Complex predicates, Incorporation, and Pro-drop, what I hope to have achieve is that there is absolutely nothing in the pieces picked randomly for the analysis, namely, poems from Class IV textbooks from the MP state board and NCERT (Rimjhim), that violates any known principle of grammar -- this itself is a valuable lesson to impart to students that everything in language is for a reason and as per the principles of universal grammar.
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Review of Schramm, Katharina; Skinner, David; Rottenburg, Richard, eds., Identity Politics and the New Genetics: Re/Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. December, 2012. URL:... more
Review of Schramm, Katharina; Skinner, David; Rottenburg, Richard, eds., Identity Politics and the New Genetics: Re/Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. December, 2012. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35252
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The spirit of Disability Studies (DS) is often misunderstood in the excitement associated with the birth of a new field and in the context of an uncertain dissociation from the zeal of activism; I will make a strong point here with... more
The spirit of Disability Studies (DS) is often misunderstood in the excitement associated with the birth of a new field and in the context of an uncertain dissociation from the zeal of activism; I will make a strong point here with respect to the latter.
In earlier work, following on the tradition of sounding the alert of leaving activism behind and of reasonable advice on embracing the mutually inter-flowing character of activism and theory-building, I have advocated the necessity of the two-way traffic between the two. However, I now believe that for a specific context like India, the time has come to objectively re-take the shot. Disability related activities in India, with its overemphasis on services, is alarmingly close to creating a hegemonic discourse that shrinks the space for the emergence of a DS discourse, even further.
In fact, I am quite certain now to state that what feeds each other within the Indian context is not DS and activism but activism and service, the former accentuating the latter; this is evident from mission statements of various agencies and their policies. In fact, I believe that this association is showing signs of crystallizing into a nexus that will steadfastly keep DS out forever. All the signs are in place and the lesson from other aspects of life around us, will reinforce and maintain this exclusionary character of the nexus as a matter of strategy. Therefore, it is time, in fact, to sound a caution from the other end – it is time now to move away for a while from the excitement of sloganeering, and to build a tradition of true scholarship in DS. A diplomatic compromise is the easy way out, it is difficult to engage in true scholarship. It is futile to pretend an activists’ posturing in an academic discourse – often by ever too willingly stretching the notion of activism at the cost of the necessary politics associated with it – and completely unnecessary.
Having said this, it is necessary to also point out that DS cannot be built on the ashes of activism, and I am certainly not suggesting an either/or existential frame. My words ‘move away for a while’ clearly construct an imagery that keeps activism at bay but also in view. The formality of this estrangement is best attempted, I suggest, by looking at existing practices through the lens of ableism and by engaging in a disability-centric understanding of various themes within the academia.
In earlier work, following on the tradition of sounding the alert of leaving activism behind and of reasonable advice on embracing the mutually inter-flowing character of activism and theory-building, I have advocated the necessity of the two-way traffic between the two. However, I now believe that for a specific context like India, the time has come to objectively re-take the shot. Disability related activities in India, with its overemphasis on services, is alarmingly close to creating a hegemonic discourse that shrinks the space for the emergence of a DS discourse, even further.
In fact, I am quite certain now to state that what feeds each other within the Indian context is not DS and activism but activism and service, the former accentuating the latter; this is evident from mission statements of various agencies and their policies. In fact, I believe that this association is showing signs of crystallizing into a nexus that will steadfastly keep DS out forever. All the signs are in place and the lesson from other aspects of life around us, will reinforce and maintain this exclusionary character of the nexus as a matter of strategy. Therefore, it is time, in fact, to sound a caution from the other end – it is time now to move away for a while from the excitement of sloganeering, and to build a tradition of true scholarship in DS. A diplomatic compromise is the easy way out, it is difficult to engage in true scholarship. It is futile to pretend an activists’ posturing in an academic discourse – often by ever too willingly stretching the notion of activism at the cost of the necessary politics associated with it – and completely unnecessary.
Having said this, it is necessary to also point out that DS cannot be built on the ashes of activism, and I am certainly not suggesting an either/or existential frame. My words ‘move away for a while’ clearly construct an imagery that keeps activism at bay but also in view. The formality of this estrangement is best attempted, I suggest, by looking at existing practices through the lens of ableism and by engaging in a disability-centric understanding of various themes within the academia.
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The talk outlines the various policies and acts that trace the inclusive educational practices in India. It was delivered in absentia on the ocassion of the 25th Foundationa day celebration at the NCERT, Delhi, 1st September, 2013.
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The thesis offers a description and analysis of the DP in the Eastern Indo-Aryan language Bangla (Bengali). In particular, it re-establishes the dominant theme in the DP literature of showing the syntactic equivalence between the... more
The thesis offers a description and analysis of the DP in the Eastern Indo-Aryan language Bangla (Bengali). In particular, it re-establishes the dominant theme in the DP literature of showing the syntactic equivalence between the structure of the clause and that of the DP. This is done on the one hand by investigating various clause-like syntactic phenomena like specificity, deixis and aspect inside the DP and on the other by working out NP movement inside the DP -- the common theme across chapters 2-4. Chapter 1 provides an outline of the thesis and introduces relevant parts of the minimalist and the antisymmetry framework adopted for this study. In addition, it suggests a trigger for Merge and proposes that a condition governing XP movements to multiple specifiers in clauses is operative in DPs as well. The second chapter discusses a three layered structure of the DP structure for Bangla where the layer intermediate between DP and NP is the Quantifier Phrase. The proposed structure accounts for the DP-internal specificity in Bangla and suggests that specific NPs move out of the deepest NP-shell by LF. This is identified as the DP-internal ‘Object’ Shift and constitutes the first instance of DP-internal NP movement. In the following chapter, the three-layered DP structure is re-examined on the basis of data from kinship terms. Specifically, it is shown that the possessive is generated in the nP shell of the DP but moves up to its derived position of [Spec,DP] for reasons of feature checking. It is proposed that the demonstrative is an XP and is the specifier of a ‘focus-related’ head F, located between the D and the Q heads. NP movement proposed in this chapter is identified as Kinship Inversion and is shown to be triggered by the same feature of specificity explored in chapter 2. The analysis exploits two different types of NP movement within the DP which accounts for DP-internal deixis. The last chapter discusses the structure of the gerund phrase and proposes that it too has the structure of a DP. Both the external and the internal distribution of the gerund is investigated which show that they exhibit both nominal and verbal properties. This is reflected in the proposed derivation of gerunds which involve leftward NP movement out of a VP embedded inside an Aspect Phrase. The presence of aspectual features like [±PERFECT] and [±DELIMITED] drive this movement. This final evidence for DP-internal NP movement leads us towards the conclusion that NP movement inside the DP is a pervasive phenomenon in Bangla