Semantics and Pragmatics of Non-Canonical Word Order in South Asian Languages: oflag- ‘Begin’ as an Attitude-Marker in Hindi-Urdu

• Authors: Peter Hook
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper examines possible motivations for departures from canonical clause-final word order observed for the finite verb in Hindi-Urdu and other modern Indo-Aryan languages. Depiction of speaker attitude in Premchand's novel godān and the imperatives of journalistic style in TV newscasts are shown to be prime factors. The emergence of V-2 word-order in Kashmiri and other Himalayan languages may have had a parallel history.

Keywords

EN

Indo-Aryan; word order; semantics; pragmatics

• Publisher: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk
• Journal: Lingua Posnaniensis
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 25-34

Dates

published

2011-01-01

online

2012-04-26

Contributors

author

Peter Hook

• Universities of Michigan and Virginia

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10122-011-0010-9