[INDOLOGY] FYI: Spoken Sanskrit blog entry plus discussion at "Language Log"

[Jean-Luc Chevillard]

Inside that blog entry, see one statement made by David Shulman:


// Spoken Sanskrit uses the classical morphology (the verbal system 
perhaps somewhat reduced in its range), but its syntax often follows 
whatever spoken mother tongue the speaker uses. In this, however, it is 
continuous with medieval written Sanskrit which, despite what one reads 
in various primers and other works, is actually a left-branching 
language (like all other South Asian languages in the Dravidian and 
Indo-Iranian families), unlike Vedic, which is right-branching (like 
Greek, Latin, English, German, etc.).  Also, medieval Sanskrit has the 
same profusion of modal and aspectual forms that we find in other South 
Asian languages, although these forms have largely gone unnoticed by 
scholars trained in the old Indo-European paradigms. //

((David Shulman, inside "http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=23412")


That statement reminded me of earlier remarks, on INDOLOGY, concerning 
the features labeled "left-branching" and "right-branching", discussed 
in August 2015 on this list.

See for instance Hans Henrich Hock's message, dated 18th August
which started with:

"Let me add a few more cents’ worth.
The idea that Indo-Aryan, including Sanskrit, fundamentally differs from 
Dravidian in its syntactic typology, though sanctioned by a certain 
“tradition” in South Asian linguistics, is problematic on several 
counts. [...]"

(("http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/2015-August/041998.html"))

I, for one, would welcome seeing more pointers towards published literature

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard (in Paris)


"https://univ-paris-diderot.academia.edu/JeanLucChevillard"

"https://plus.google.com/u/0/113653379205101980081/posts/p/pub"

"https://twitter.com/JLC1956"




On 10/01/2016 11:59, Birgit Kellner wrote:
> FYI: Victor Mair posted an interesting entry on Spoken Sanskrit on the
> weblog "Language Log" (that some of you might already follow):
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=23412
>
> It's related to a recent workshop in Jerusalem ("A Lasting Vision:
> Dandin’s Mirror in the World of Asian Letters"), and also includes
> reports and reflections by some of the workshop participants.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Birgit Kellner
>
> -------
> Prof. Dr. Birgit Kellner
> Director
> Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia
> Austrian Academy of Sciences
> Apostelgasse 23
> A-1030 Vienna / Austria
> Phone: (+43-1) 51581 / 6420
> Fax: (+43-1) 51581 / 6410
>
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