A Comparative Study of Kannada Dialects

Review:This 1968 Poona doctoral dissertation presents the comparative phonology and morphology, in structuralist terms, of four widely-spread regional dialects of Kanarese, a Dravidian language of South India. Supple- mentary selections give sample texts with morphological analysis (but not the same text for all four dialects); a tabulation of the sound changes which each dialect shows with reference to the more conservative standard language; a comparative vocabulary; and a set of elicitation sentences translated into the four dialects. Upadhyaya's presentation echoes concepts (such as 'over-all' vs. 'common-core' pho- nemic systems) which sound rather dated today. His reliance on the taxonomic model also obscures certain significant patterns; thus he sets up Kumta /e/ vs. /e/, but fails to show that [s] occurs only in the environment .C(C) [V, -high], while [el occurs else- where. (This patterning is, however, noted in the historical section.) It is also unfortunate that the work contains no bibliography; a few publications on Kannada dialects exist, which Upadhyaya might have found useful. Never- theless, we must be grateful for the large body of clear and accurate data on Kannada dialect research which is made available her. Review by: William Bright

Geography · Kannada · Linguistics · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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