Ebert
Fakultäten » Philosophische Fakultät » Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Seminar für » Prof. Dr. Karen Ebert (emeritiert) » Ebert
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | South Asian areal linguistics | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | The project evaluated proposed features of the South Asian sprachbund on a broader basis than was possible 25 years ago in the classical study done by Masica (eg Ebert & Neukom 2000f). Still it proved necessary to do basic descriptive work first, as too many of the smaller languages of the area remain undocumented (Ebert 1997a,b, 2000a; publications by L. Neukom). The South Asian linguistic area as described in earlier sources proved to be untenable. Not only are most of the alleged sprachbund features also found in Turkic and Mongolian languages of Central Asia (as already stated by Masica), but they also seldom spread to Munda and Tibeto-Burman languages of South Asia (Ebert 2001c). Instead of a common linguistic area, it seems more viable to look at subareas, as eg suggested for the Khondmals. We discovered a more or less sharp dividing line around the 84th meridian. Languages to the East of this line show many Dravidian and Austroasiatic traits, but few of the sprachbund features. The IA languages of this area (Assamese, Bengali, Nepali, Oriya) have adopted many features from neighbouring Austroasiatic and Tibeto- Burman speakers that once must have outnumbered them. There are also some surprising correspondences between the southern Kiranti languages (Nepal) and Munda and North Dravidian languages further to the south, which are separated by the Indo-Aryanized Gangetic plains (Ebert 1999a). Currently I am doing a comparative study of compound verbs in Indo-Aryan, the differences from Dravidian, and common features with compound verbs in Turkic languages. |
||
| Publications / Publikationen | K. H. Ebert (1999): The UP-DOWN dimension in Rai grammar and mythology. In: Balthasar Bickel & Martin Gaenszle (eds.) Himalayan space: cultural horizons and practices. Zürich: Völkerkunde Museum. 107-134K. H. Ebert / L. Neukom (2000): Towards an areal typology of relative clauses in South Asian languages. ASAS WP No. 9K. H. Ebert (2001): Südasien als Sprachbund. Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunkationswissenschaft. Bd. 11.2: Language Typology and Language Universals. Berlin: de Gruyter. 1529-1539.Weitere Informationen | ||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | fieldwork, documentation of endangered languages, South Asia, grammaticalization, tense-aspect, converbs, attributive clauses, compound verbs | ||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
|
||
| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
SNF (Personen- und Projektförderung) |
||
| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jan 1997 to Dec 2004 |