Reviews Of Different Books

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238 REVIEWS occurs initially, but an inspection of his data reveals even stronger restrictions. In word-initial syllables, short u, e.g. in uri 'fire', occurs to the exclusion of short i (except in some Sanskrit loanwords with r- in the original). In medial syllables, short i occurs to the near exclusion of short u, as the counterpart of Lit. Ka. u (Barkur elibi 'bone', Lit. elu(bu); of Lit. Ka. i, with which it sometimes varies freely (he:lida~ he:lida 'he said', Lit. he:lida); and of Lit. Ka. a (entidi'what', Lit. enthadu). In a few cases, however, medial u occurs after an initial syllable containing u (kurule 'young plantain plant'), and in future forms like ma:d-uv-a 'doing' (participle). Finally, short s occurs as the wellknown Dravidian "enunciative vowel", corresponding to Lit. Ka. u (no:vi pain', Lit. no:vu), but Barkur has final u in two kinds of examples - namely in nouns of the shape CVCV (suru 'beginning', magu 'child'), and in 3rd person neuter verb forms of the future tense (ma:du 'it may do', cf. ma:dido!'). All this is to say that the superficial difference between i and u is largely predictable if Lit. Ka. forms are taken as basic, as is the case in many other Kannada dialects. Acharya's description of the morphology of nouns and verbs is as rigorously taxonomic as his phonology, with abundant use of zero allomorphs. E.g. ma:du 'it may do' is analysed as ma:di 'do', plus a zero variant of the future (otherwise -p, -6, -v), plus -u *3sg. neuter'; one wonders if a preferable analysis would not be as ma:d-uv-u with a rule contracting uvu to u. Much reference is made to free variation of allomorphs; thus the accusative of adi'it is said to be adinnar adanna- adi; little attempt is made to describe such phenomena in terms of general phonological rules (such as a frequent change of medial a toi), and no clue is given as to the possible sociolinguistic background of such variation. Apart from such matters of presentation, Acharya's description presents some interesting data. Although noun morphology seems much like that of other colloquial Kannada dialects, here Archarya muddies the waters by positing a comparative case morpheme' -iginta (with other allomorphs, p. 25) which is clearly a combination of the dative case suffix with a postposition inta. The verb morphology shows full paradigms for present, past, future (usually translated with 'may') and negative. In the future, there are some interesting stem-formations in -p, -b which are not used in Lit. Ka.: e.g., from bart 'come', bappa 'he may come'; from tinni 'eat', timba 'he may eat'. The corresponding 3sg. neut. forms, where one would expect *bar-uv-u etc., are bakki: 'it may come', tingi'it may eat'. Various inconsistencies are discoverable in Acharya's description. Thus verbal nouns like ma:di:di 'doing' are treated along with derivative and compound nouns (p. 16), though they are best understood as a type of non-finite verbal form, built in fact on participles (pp. 42-3). In describing the participles themselves, Acharya holds (p. 43) that they are formed by adding -a to a past stem (ma:did-a 'done'), to a future stem (ma:duv-a 'doing', evidently taking the place of a PRESENT participle), and to a negative GERUNDIAL; but why not recognize a negative STEM in ma:dad-a? An "Assertive" form like tarki 'one should bring' is treated as a "finite verb form" though it makes no distinction of persons (pp. 42-3); but this looks like a reduced combination of verb plus impersonal "modal", perhaps indeed be:ki 'it is required' (p. 47). Misprints are more numerous in this volume than they have been in some other linguistic publications from Deccan College; but most will be self-correcting for the 4 Cf. W. Bright, "The enunciative vowel", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 1 (1972), pp. 26-55, esp. pp. 44-5. The long i of Barkur is more unusual. It apparently results from two phonological rules: (1) contraction of uva to i: in forms like ma:duva 'doing' (participle) +-di + ma:di:di 'doing' (verbal noun); and (2) contraction of i with the a of anni 'to say', e.g. e:li 'get up!', eli:ndre 'if one says "get up!"