[INDOLOGY] /to/

[Elliot M. Stern]

taavat

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Elliot



> On Jun 4, 2015, at 13:35, patrick mccartney <psdmccartney at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Friends,
> 
> I'm currently collecting some data on spoken Sanskrit. 
> 
> One dominant feature I have noticed in several different language nests across geographically diverse parts of North India is the use of /to/. During countless conversations over the last two months I have heard this particle used many times, albeit always in the same syntactic position and for the same semantic reason. 
> 
> My question regards whether this /to/ particle is in any way to be considered a Sanskrit particle or not? 
> 
> 
> This /to/ particle, as far as my understanding allows, is the intensifier particle from Hindi and other MILs. It is located consistently following the agent like in a Hindi sentence. This demonstrates, perhaps that the grammatical scaffolding of spoken Sanskrit relies implicitly on the syntactical structure of MILs like Hindi as a potential first language (L1) of a speaker. Contextualising some more, I have heard this particle used by my language consultants whose L1s are Malvi, Hindi, Assamese and Nepali.
> 
> 
> Below are some brief examples to clarify my query.
> 
> 
> 1) Hindi            maiñ      to       ghar    (ko)    jātā   hūñ
>                 
> 
> 
> 2) Sanskrit       ahaṁ     to       gṛhe             gacchāmi
> 
> 
> As a Hindi speaker myself, I find I am also using this /to/ particle in the same way to create emphasis.
> 
> 3)                     ahaṁ    to      bubhukṣā       asmi 
> 
> 
> I understand that the particle /tu/ in Sanskrit serves a similar semantic function and I'm guessing it is the historical precedent of /to/. However, my consultants are not using /tu/ they are using /to/!
>  
> 
> For an audible example, in the latter stages (1 min 57-58 sec) of this clip  you can here the phrase 
> 
> 4)                   ahaṁ   to       saṁskṛtaṁ     jānāmi' 
> 
> 
> The speaker in this clip is an L1 speaker of Malvi. More specifically Umawadi Malvi, which is the dialect of Rajgarh Jhila, MP.
> 
> 
> Reiterating my query more precisely, can I consider this to be a case of code-mixing?
> 
> Thanks in advance for helping to clarify this point of interest for me.
> 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Patrick McCartney 
> 
> PhD Candidate 
> School of Culture, History & Language
> College of the Asia-Pacific
> The Australian National University
> Canberra, Australia, 0200
> 
> 
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> 
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