Malayalam

R Asher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136100840
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Malayalam is one of the four major Dravidian languages spoken principally in the southern part of India. It has a recorded history of eight centuries and is spoken by more than thirty million people on the Malabar coast of southern India
This is the first detailed description of Malayalam, providing an in-depth analysis of the linguistic richness of this language.

Chapter 1
Syntax

1.1. General

Statements, questions and mands are represented by distinct declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences respectively, though in language use there is not universally a one-to-one correspondence between structures in the first set and the types of speech act in the second. As is common in the languages of the world, a request, for example, can be made in the form of an interrogative sentence; a question can be put by using a declarative sentence accompanied by a questioning type of intonation, and so on.

Sentences are either simple or complex, and the clauses comprising the latter can be systematically related to simple sentences. The question of whether there are coordinate sentences is not a straightforward one, in that in terms of superficial structures there will most usually be one clause which can be seen as super-ordinate to the other(s). There are nevertheless structures where it is more meaningful than in the case of Tamil, for instance, to talk of sentence coordination.

The unmarked order of constituents in all types of sentence is SOV. The consistent pattern of constituents of sentences and components of NPs is essentially operator/operand (in terms of the distinction proposed in Vennemann 1974), with adjuncts preceding heads, or, as K. P. Mohanan (1982b: 510) puts it: 'In all structures, the head occurs at the end.' In complex sentences subordinate clauses precede main clauses. Though the basic or neutral position is properly stated as SOV, there is some considerable freedom of word order, which is unsurprising given that the function of a NP is usually clearly shown, either by case marker or postposition, or a combination of both. Freedom of movement of constituents is slightly less in subordinate clauses in that, for example, the head noun is always final in adjective clauses, and the verb form + marker of subordination always conclude noun clauses and adverb clauses.

1.1.1. Sentence types

1.1.1.1. Direct and indirect speech

Reported speech is most usually marked by the quotative particle ennə, which will follow the string representing the reported utterance. The whole sequence may precede, follow, or be embedded within the matrix sentence containing the verb of saying or some other equivalent lexeme. In writing, direct speech is in modern times distinguished from indirect speech by the use of quotation marks. In spoken utterances, there is, as far as the sequence of grammatical items is concerned, no clear distinction between direct and indirect speech; sometimes the actual words uttered by the person whose speech is being reported will be reported verbatim, sometimes not. In either case, ennə may be used. It can be that it is clear from the context whether direct or indirect reporting is intended. Apart from this, suprasegmental features - stress and intonation - give some indication.

In cases of direct speech in the written medium, for example in prose fiction, the quotative particle is commonly not used. The following examples (taken from two of the best known Malayalam novels of the 1940s: Vaikom Muhammed Basheer's Paattummaayuʈe aaʈə 'Pattumma's Goat' and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's Toottiyuʈe makan 'Scavenger's Son') are representative of this usage:

A conversational alternative for (1) would be:

Without entering into a discussion of the careful representation of colloquial forms that is to be found in the conversational parts of Basheer's and Thakazhi's stories (and therefore the lack of a copula in (1) in the narrator's report of what he said), it will be noted that in (3) the exact words used are reproduced. This, however, is not necessarily the case when the quotative particle is present. Compare (4) with (5) and (6), and (7) with (8).

The differences in choice of pronoun and of verbal lexeme in the reported speech in (7) and (8) clearly mark (8) as indirect. The position is equally clear in (5) and (6). Here the retention of the modal -aam as the 'future' ending indicates the willingness of the speaker to perform the action and therefor...