LWM 441: Marathi

Marathi

Kashi Wali
Syracuse University

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Maharashtra state of India by nearly ninty six million people. It is one of the eighteen official languages of India. It shares its northern boundary with Gujarati and Madhya Pradesh Hindi. In the south it borders on two major Dravidian languages -- Kannada and Telugu. The Dravidian vicinity has considerably affected Marathi in several ways specially its causative and anaphoric system.

This grammar describes basic information on the phonology, alphasyllabic writing system, morphology, and syntax of the standard Marathi. The introduction notes the historic information on the origin, and the past and present grammatical works. The phonology includes the information on the vocalic, consonantal and suprasegmental system as well as various morpho-phonological processes. Morphology highlights the significant nominal and verbal features. The chapter on syntax describes in detail the special characteristics such as word order, special features of ergativity, multiple headed correlatives, and distribution of two reflexives, swataah and aapaN which are special to Marathi in IA family. The chapter on text has used free and interlinear translation. The book contains an extensive bibliography including past and present grammars, recent dissertations and scholarly articles in generative linguistic theory.

ISBN 9783895863141. Languages of the World/Materials 441. 82pp. 2005.