Pramod Pandey

In this paper, I present a new account of word stress in Hindi. I begin with the attempt to show that the apparently different patterns of Hindi stress described in the literature are in fact bound by one core pattern. The core pattern crucially involves an interdependence between rhythm and quantity in the placement of stress within a window of three syllables from the right. The Hindi data pose the following challenge to metrical stress theory and OT: ternary feet arise not from Extrametricality or Nonfinality but from a weight and rhythm-based foot structure in which both the factors are integrated. The new analysis presented in this paper meets the challenge in terms of the constraints Window (Kager, 2012), PERFECTGRID and PG-FORWARDPULL. The latter constraints are proposed following the insights in Prince (1983) and Hayes (1995).

I address some of the key issues relating to scripts for under-resourced languages of India. The topics covered include the following: Scripts as an instrument for representing speech; scripts and writing systems; some salient features of writing systems (e.g. Consistency, Granularity); processes involved in reading acquisition; Factors relevant for the choice of a script by a community; looking at some of the scripts for underresourced languages; some of the features of segmental sounds and tones of Indic languages based on a general survey; some important points to consider for a script.

I address some of the key issues relating to scripts for under-resourced languages of India. The topics covered include the following: Scripts as an instrument for representing speech; scripts and writing systems; some salient features of writing systems (e.g. Consistency, Granularity); processes involved in reading acquisition; Factors relevant for the choice of a script by a community; looking at some of the scripts for underresourced languages; some of the features of segmental sounds and tones of Indic languages based on a general survey; some important points to consider for a script.

The paper argues that Generative Linguistics should examine its rationalist goals vis-a-vis the I-doctrine. A dispassionate examination should show the relevance of Descartes' Problem and of the link between individuality and collectivity within the grammar, leading  to  a major  leap forward  in the theory, and, eventually, to.the attestation of the beneficence of the Project  of Modernity.
(Written in 1998, and published in 2001, the paper is relevant to the issue addressed.)

Voice browser applications in Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems crucially depend on a pronunciation lexicon. The present paper describes the model of pronunciation lexicon of Hindi developed to automatically generate the output forms of Hindi at two levels, the <phoneme> and the <PS> (PS, in short for Prosodic Structure). The latter level involves both syllable-division and stress placement. The paper describes the tool developed for generating the two-level outputs of lexica in Hindi.

This paper focuses on on the evidence for the linguistic significanceof the akshara as a unit of speech (Patel 2004) and not just of writing (Pandey 2003), examines the
relation between the akshara and the syllable as speech units, and explicates the relation in theoretical terms.

This paper reports the results of two identical experiments, one in Hindi and one in Indian English, that elicited semi-spontaneous sentences containing a focused agent or a focused patient. The primary aim of the experiments was to investi- gate the prosodic correlates of information structure in the two languages and
to explain these correlates with a phonological model. The resulting phonologi- cal model proposes that focus is realized with enhanced correlates of phrasing and not with prominence, at least not of the same kind as languages using pitch accents. Secondary aims were to verify the ecological validity of similar data elic- ited with scripted speech (Patil et al. 2008) and to reflect on the place of Hindi and Indian English in a typology of intonation.

The paper is an expository review of a significant although neglected magnum opus of Ashok R. Kelkar (1997) Language in a Semiotic Perspective: The Architecture of A Marathi Sentence. The book presents a theory that integrates formal and functional approaches to linguistic description.

The paper presents a sketch of the segmental phonology based on evidence from the phenomenon of stress. In particular, the paper shows how the stress pattern in Indian English reveals the structure of a majority of the surface diphthongs as vowel sequences.

The proposed book presents phonological sketches of 148 Indic languages with generalizations about the phonological units in the sketches as well as an exhaustive bibliography. Phonological units are of interest in a number of diverse fields such as phonetics, phonology, linguistic evolution (especially the current field of self-organization), comparative philology, linguistic typology, cognitive science, and computational linguistics (especially speech synthesis, phonetic lexicons, phonology-orthography conversion, etc.). The book aim is to present the regularities of phonological units based on the existing work on the languages of India using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The phonological units are limited to the word-level. The book is organized into three main parts. Part I contains introductory material on the languages and the generalizations on their word-phonological properties. Part II contains phonological sketches of Indic languages. And Part III contains an exhaustive bibliography on the phonetics and phonology of Indic languages.

Part I contains five chapters. Together these present an overall picture of the phonological properties of the languages in terms of their typology and frequency of occurrence. Chapter 1 addresses the descriptive and analytical aspects of the study presented in the phonological sketches. Chapter 2 presents a discussion of the complex linguistic situation in India and lists the languages according to their classification based on internal relation. Chapter 3 presents facts and generalizations relating to consonantal segments and their patterns around three sub-topics- consonant phonemes, distributional constraints on consonant phonemes, and consonant allophones. Chapter 4 is organized around three sub-topics, namely, vowel phoneme patterns, constraints on the occurrence of vowels, and the allophonic modifications in the vowel phonemes. Chapter 5 addresses four main aspects of the word phonology of the Indic languages above the segment. These are syllable structure, permissible segment sequences, suprasegementals, and phonological cues for grammatical structure.

Part II is the heart of the book, containing word phonological sketches of 148 Indic languages classified into seven main groups, namely, Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Andamanese, and Contact Varieties, and an additional eighth group, Historical Varieties.
Part III contains an exhaustive bibliography.

Indian English Pronunciation

Indian English is a major dialect of English today with a range of variation across region and educational level. The present chapter focuses on the pronunciation features of the most commonly used variety of Indian English, known as General Indian English (GIE).

The chapter begins with looking at the nature of the forces that have led to the emergence of GIE. The main features of the segmental and prosodic phonology of Indian English are presented next. This is the core section of the chapter, dealing with a synthesis of research on the pronunciation features of Indian English. The chapter then takes up issues relating to the acquisition, education, technology and use of Indian English for critical discussion. The chapter ends with an inquiry into some of the unique features of Indian English pronunciation that lend it stability and character and a discussion of their relation to universal markedness features.


Key words: General Indian English, multilingual setting of IE, segmental and prosodic phonology of IE, Focus in IE, dialectal variation in IE, Anglo-Indian English, markedness universals in IE.

The present paper reviews studies on Indian English prosody, in the main, syllable structure, word-stress, speech rhythm, intonation and information structure. The review is supplemented with a critical discussion of the investigations of the prosodic features, especially those that have a bearing on related issues, such as word stress, and that are a major factor in the difference between native varieties of English (NE, for short) and Indian varieties of English (IndE, for short). The topics are presented with a view to approaching the problem of difficulties in the communicative import of IndE speech.

This paper proposes some significant features of the phonology of second language varieties based on an investigation of a variety of Indian English. The proposals are based on the assumption that a Second Language variety is not a mere interlanguage variety we encounter in a foreign language teaching situation, but a lectal variety that shares properties with other varieties or lects such as sociolects or dialects like Black American English or Belfast English. I take up the case of Indian English as an example of such a variety.

The present paper addresses the issue of the nature of Phonetics-Phonology interface from the following perspectives: modular distinction between phonetics and phonology, mapping the phonological representation onto the phonetic representation, phonetic grounding of phonological processes, and typically interface phenomena. An attempt is made to present a brief overview of the approaches to the discussion of this widely studied topic. The main focus of the paper is on phonetic and phonological aspects of some processes, with examples from Indic languages.

This table is an excerpt from Pandey, P. (2014), Sounds and their patterns in Indic languages, Vol-I. CUP India.
The table gives the canonical syllable structures (CSS) in 148 languages from India belonging to the following 8 groups- Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Andamanes, Tai-Kadai, Mixed Languages and Historical Varieties.
Some of these Indic languages evince asymmetry in CSS in different word positions. The table list them all. Further discussion can be found in the book.

The greatest challenge we face today, by general admission, is the “climate crisis”, also known as Climate Change and Global Warming. A quick glance at the vast emerging literature in the fields of social, economic, educational, environmental and medical, not to say, political, activism shows the varied semantic shades in which the phenomenon is described. In this presentation, I try to discuss the main issues reflected in the use of the various terms and ideas- such as Climate Progress, Climate Justice, Degrowth Movement, Green Window- that are streaming from the ongoing discussion of the problem. These ideas essentially group themselves into two-  of Nature and of Society or Community. I try to bring up questions related to the dangers arising from sanctions for the perfidous use of technology and attempt to bring up answers proposed by activists and thinkers. The  end question is, Can a requiem for the Modernity Project be obviated, and How?

I address some of the key issues relating to scripts for under-resourced languages of India. The topics covered include the following: Scripts as an instrument for representing speech; scripts and writing systems; some salient features of writing systems (e.g. Consistency, Granularity); processes involved in reading acquisition; Factors relevant for the choice of a script by a community; looking at some of the scripts for underresourced languages; some of the features of segmental sounds and tones of Indic languages based on a general survey; some important points to consider for a script.

In this presentation I try to bring in the main turns in linguistic theory, which centre around two approaches- formal and usage-based. They provide evidence for a loop model , and not for the paradigm shift model of the development of knowledge in linguistics

— Hindi is known to have a general process of schwa deletion, whereby unstressed schwas in open syllables are dropped when preceded by stressed syllables, as in /ʧa:həte:/ >[ʧa:hte:] 'like-OBL', /kəhəna:/ >[keɦna:] 'say-INF', but not in /ʃəhər/ [ˈʃəhər] 'city' (closed syllable), and /bəhəttər/ > [bəˈhəttər] 'seventy-two' (stressed). It has been found by the present authors that although the schwa following a /h/ may be 'heard' to be deleted, in speech synthesis based on trained data, the deletion of the schwa leads to problems. Along with the schwa, /h/ too gets dropped. The acoustic features of /h/ in relation to the presence of flanking vowels and a following consonant after the deletion of the following schwa need examining. In the present study a total number of 22 words including content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and grammatical words (pronouns, auxiliary verbs) were recorded in the speech of 8 speakers-four female and 4 male. Thus, the total number of tokens analyzed for the data were 22x8 =176. An attempt is made in the paper to account for the merger of /h/ with schwa in intervocalic unstressed contexts. It is shown that speech synthesis programmes must treat these contexts of schwa deletion as exceptions.

The present module presents an overview of two main approaches to the study of language current in the present day linguistics, broadly known as  ‘Formal’ and ‘Functional’. We will look at the theory Language in a Semiotic Perspective (LSP) proposed in Kelkar (1997) as an instance of a theory (by a modern Indian linguist) that integrates both the approaches.

The module introduces students to the Phonological Word and Phonological Phrase as units of Prosodic Phonology by discussing the criteria used in defining the units, the motivatiions for positing them by showing how they function as domains of phonological rules and how prominence patterns in languages are expressed at both the phonological word and the phonological phrase levels.

The present module and the following introduce students to the sub-theory of generative phonology known as Metrical Phonology. Two versions of the theory- a tree-based original version and a grid-based later version- are presented. In order to fully understand the working of the current version, it is necessary to have an introduction to the original version.

The present module continues from the previous module (Metrical Phonology-Word-Stress-I), to familiarize students with the background to the main aspects of the metrical grid theory of stress and to present the theory in its basic essentials

The present module deals with some of the significant issues relating to the syllable as a phonological unit- its origin and development in generative phonology, its inclusion in Metrical Phonology, universal principles related to syllabification, the role and status of syllabification in phonological derivation, its relation to Mora as a minimal prosodic unit and problems in current understanding of the syllable.

This module takes a close look at some of the main phonological features of linguistic groups among Indic languages. The focus here is on the different aspects of word phonology from a typological point of view. Section 2 begins with giving details about the language groups. Section 3 presents the main aspects of the description of word phonology. Sections 4, 5 and 6 present the main features of the patterns of consonants, vowels, and prosodic phenomena, respectively.