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Comparative Dravidian phonology
Lingua 39 (1976) 139-153 0 North-Holland Publishing Company
REVIEW ARTICLE Kamil Zvelebil, Comparative Dravidian phonology. Mouton, The Hague/Paris (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 80), 1970. 202 pp. Dfl. 54.-. This book presents a readable summary of the results of research published on comparative Dravidian phonology since the days of Robert CUdwell’s Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family oj‘ larlgrtagcs ( 18 5 6). 1 Such research is scattered over scores of journals and books, some of which are no longer available to interested scholars. Zvelebil has added to what is already known his own data on Tamil dialects and inscriptions, which is useful in explaining the historical developments in TamiI since its separation from PSDr. With the publication of A Dravidian etymological dictionary (DED, 196 1) and its Supplement (DEDS, 1968) by Burrow and Emeneau, it is now possible to work out Dravidian correspondences with a greater degree of ease and accuracy than it had been possible earlier. This volume has three main chapters: I. Vowels (35-75), II. Consonants (76- 167), and III. Consonant clusters (168-83). There is an Introduction (1 l-3 1) which provides basic information on the Dravidian languages like the number of speakers, geographical location, etc., and a brief discussion on subgrouping, followed by a select bibliography and abbreviations. There are two Appendixes (184-9) and riddenda (190-6) all of which may be taken as a postscript to the volume dealing with problems and issues which came to the author’s attention after the copy had gone to the press. The Index (197-202) has names of‘the languages, authors, books, and some topics.
r Abbreviations of languages: Dr = Dravidian; P = Proto-, S = South, C = Central, N = North; Ta. = Tamil, Ma. = Malayqam, Ko. = Kota, TO. = Toda, Jr. = Iru!a, Kod. = Kodagu, Ka. = Kannada; Go. = Gondi, Pe. = Pengo; Kol. = Kolami, Nk. = Naiki, Pa. = Parji. 011. = Ollari, Gad. = Gadaba (Salur dialect); Kur. = Kurux, Malt. = Malto, Br. = Brahui. Konda, Kui, Kuvi, Manda are not abbreviated. Abbreviations of works: DEL)(S) = DED and DEDS
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In view of its scope and coverage, this volume is a welcome contribution to the field of comparative Dravidian. It does not, however, claim to be exhausltive or to solve problems, hitherto unsolved (24). My observations and comments on this volume are made under two heads, ‘general’ and ‘specific’. The former deals with the broader and major issues discussed in this volume, and identifies some of the areas in which further clarification and improvements are either possible or needed. These may be of interest to a general reader of this review. The ‘specific’ comments concern statements made in this volume which, according to the reviewer, need to be elaborated or modified or corrected; they will be of interest to scholars in Dravidian.
1a,General comments
Zvelebil’s diagram of the subgrouping of the Dravidian languages (13) suggests independent descent of Telugu and Tulu from Proto-Dravidian. It is now established, beyond doubt, that Telugu subclassifies with the Gondi-Konda-Kui-Kuvi-Pengo-Manda group and not with the TamilKannada (Krishnamurti 1961: 236-74). The position of Tulu is, however, still doubtful. Even then, there is no evidence to make it an independent branch of Proto-Dravidian. The position of Telugu-Manda languages (see above) in relation to Parji-Kolami on the one hand, and Tamil-Kannada, on the other, is still a problem. All scholars including this reviewer had earlier believed that Telugu-Gondi-Kui, etc., go with Parji-Kolami, etc., as two branches of Central Dravidian. I now believe that Proto-South-Dravidian consists of two branches as follows: SDr I: Kannada, Toda, Kota, Kodagu, Malayalam, Tamil. SDr II: Telugu, Gondi, Konda, Kui, Kuvi, Pengo, Manda. At least three clear phonological inr,ovatitins cover both SDr I and II. (1) The merger of PDr *i*u with *e*o in the environment -Ca. (2) The weakening of *c- wherever it had a phonetic variant s- (in regional or social dialects) into @ through an intermediate stage of h-, which is prehistoric in SDr I but h$&ic and attested1 in SDr II. (3) The analogical formation of *En-/*iian- ‘I’ from the PDr inclusive plural *%im-/*km‘we’, in addition to the retention of PDr *yan-/*yan- ‘I’ (IWhnamurti
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1968b). (4) The metathesis rule which puts PDr alveolar and retroflex
consonants in the word initial position seems to be a PSDr tendency which had limited operation in SDr I but progressively extended its scope in SDr II. I shall go no further here on the question of sub-grouping, since it requires a full-length treatment elsewhere. However, I shall refer in this review to any or all of the Telugu-Man& languages as SDr II and not as CDr. The CDr languages consist of Parji, Ollari, Gadaba, Kolami and Naiki only. 1.2.
The Dravidian etymological data is not of uniform quality and quantity for all the languages. The entries in DED(S) give us cognates which are &awn.I LBfrnm It is 11V1.. thP ..*w avnilahlp .e..+s R..“11 dirtinnnri+s -*.s..-Y..U*-“Y nf v 3,3 0~ so !anguages. phonologically more reliable for the southern languages than for others. For many items we have more than one variant cited without any clues for such variation, because such information is missing in the source dictionaries. These variants apparently represent different ;.egional and social dialects and also different periods of history in the case of the iiterarl languages. Even in the case of the non-literary languages there is a great deal of unidentified lexical variation, sometimes dialectal and sometimes orthographic depending on different authors’ ability to hear and record. Qualitatively the data on the various dialects of Gondi, Kuvi and Malto is the least reliable. Owing to this limitation on the data, correspondences of phonemes are never so clear and regular. A Dravidian scholar faces the problem of sorting out such variation into what is specific to individual languages and what represents variation at the reconstructed stage. For instance, the following etymological group meaning ‘hare’ given in DEL)(S) 407 1 does not lend itself to a single reconstruction : SDr I: Ta. muyal, mucal, Ma. muyal, Ko. molm, To. mi75 Ka. mob, mala, Kod. mona, Tu. rnuyeru, mug(g)ery, mola. SDr II: Go. mulG1, Konda (BB) morol, Kui m@ju, Kuvi (F) rnr?ifil, (S) mr2ilu, Pe. mrD1. CDr: Kol. mite, Nk. mite, Pa. miicb, 011. munde, Gad. miinde. NDr: Kur. muriyz, Malt. mu_nye, Br. murii. For SDR I *muc-ul accounts for Ta. Ma. To.; Ka. Ko. Kod. require
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*moZ-umas the underlying form. These two can be related by adding -am suffix to the syncopated *rrldl< *muya’ Tu muyeru < muyal, muger@ being a dialect variant of muyeru with -y- > -g-. mola looks like a borrowing from Ka. Go. moMI looks to *mWOi; but the rest of the SDr II languages require *mod or *mo&. In NDr, Br. requires *mu?-u or *mur-u, but Kur. and Mall. look to mun-c. CDr require *muy-nt/ntt, with loss of y in Pa. and Ga. This is one of the cases of extreme incongruity in correspondences, but still they are grouped together in DEWS) on account of their seeming phonetic-semantic similarity. The obvious explanation for so many’reconstructed forms is that they reflect dialect variation within Proto-Draj idian itself. But there is no other etymological group reflecting simi1z.r differences in reconstructed forms for the same sets of languages to support the above statement. Of course, the alternative is to say that the reconstructed forms are not interrelated, i.e., the items are not all cognate and should not be brought under one entry in the dictionary. A counter example to the above is the group of words meaning ‘worm, insect’ (DEWS) 3537), which yield a single reconstruction for PDr, as *PUT-dwu). SDr I: Ta. Ma. Ka. ~+u, To. puf, Ko. pn, Koql. pulu, Tu. puru, puri. SDr II: Te. pruwwu (<*PUT-W-), Go. purl; Kui piru, priu (pl. plika), Kui (F) priyiili (pl. prika), (S) pliguli, Konda p&vu (pl. pirku), Pe. plr(pl. prika). crh: Kol., Nk. pudde, Pa. puyut, Gad. pudut. NDr: Kur. poego, Malt. posgo, - Br. pa. The only problem here is the dissimilatory vowel change in the Koncja Kui-Kuvi-Pengo subgroup, i.e., *pi~iuh-; metathesis and vowel contraction results in initial CC- in all SDr II languages, except in Gondi. Betwecyi these two extremes, one gets correspondences with different degrees of unpatterned phonemic variation in different languages. 1.3. A second type of undertainty arises from the fact that not enough study has been made of all the patterns of variation in unequivocal groups of etyma. There are still many unexplored spots of systematic sound change in SDr II and CDr which we used to call ‘sporadic’ until now..
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1.3.1. For instance, Zvelebil, following Burrow and Bhattacharya (1953: 1) and Emeneau (1970b: 8, 11) says that PDr ‘*ais represented in Parji as e or a and PDr *a as P or i? (41,44). A thorough search of the Parji data has shown that this variation is the result of three ordered sound changes during the history of the Parji language (Krishnamurti 1975: 312) as follows: Rule I (Vowel-raising) ci + ww)-*Any alveolar consonant. Radical B becomes 5 before a pre-Parji (or PCDr) alveolar consonant, i.e., *r, “I, *n, *r, *I?!,,*tt. _-
f, #(C)V-._ I(VP 1+[Ii #I
! fj,
!
Intervocalic or final retroflex *I *r;lbecome I II, respectively. Rule 3. (Dialect split) d2. South and Northwestern --tt + (a) tt/t ntnd
[I [I
dialect
Northeastern dialect
Alveolar obstruents of the unchanged Parji stage merged with dentals or retroflexes in different regional dialects. ule 1 ceased to operate when Rule 2 became effective..Consequently older a and a preceding deretroflexed 2 n (<*.I *v) do not become e and Ed.The secondary retroflexion from the underlying alveolars caused by .Rule 3 in the north-eastern dialect must be subsequent to Rule 1, because ?I > z occurs before these consonants also. Rule 2 is in a counterfeeding order to Rule 1. Examine the examples: PCDr. *man ‘live’ Rule 1: men Rule2:Rule3:Parji
men
*kav ‘eye’ kan
*ka!_v‘threshing floor’ kali
-
_
_
kel
kan
kafi
*kal stone’ kej -
*panli ‘pig’ pend
*wag. ‘to dry’ weg-
pend I pent! pend/pend
wettwe!!- 1 wett-/wet!
*ka+ ‘see (past)’ kan-dkan+ kanql-
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The Parji developments would be quite systematic when we formulated the rules correctly and applied them in the correct order reflecting chro:nology. Rule 1 expalins e in Parji s?j- ‘six’ < *cul ,which Zvelebil attributes to the influence of initial *c- (61). Since no other language reflects ;ri/a alternation here, it cannot be attributed to a PDr dialect variation of +a/*~ after *c (Krishnamurti 1961: 8s 1.212, 1.232, 1.240). All personal and demonstrative pronouns are exceptions to the above sound changes in Parji - a typical case of grammatical constraint on sound change. 1.3.2. Another interesting sound change, so far not observed, is the lowering of mid-vowels in some of t.he SDr II languages. In Kui and partly in Kuvi Pre-Kui E B resulting from the contraction of root and suffix vowels of earlier *eL’a, *UC-~(either trhough metathesis or loo of the intervening consonantj are lowered to a.
0 I E
i3
-+ ir
#CC, NC,) -
-0.
(Kui, Kuvi)
This rule should be ordered after two earlier feeding rules of vowel contraction, viz. (1) Syncope, (2) metathesis and vowel contraction:
0)
(Cl)
E](i)-a--+(Cl) [:I/ #L.# _-
(PSDr)
(SDr II)
There are I2 cases of P -+ a and 6 of b + a. For instance: Kui buerzju (-v-enju masc. sg. suffix; E< *E< *e&) ‘grown-up boy’, 22 ‘young woman’, Kuvi (F) r&a, (S) &a ‘virgin’ [This item was put with Ta al ‘strength’, etc., in DEDIS) 248. But it goes better semantically with DED(S) 4361: Ta @ai ‘youth’, #a ‘young’; Ma. $a ‘young’; To., Ko. el, Ka. el, e.@‘tenderness’, ‘youth’, etc.;Te. le, Eta ‘young’, ‘tender’ (DEDS 436). Kui SWU,Kuvi h7iru ‘sait’: Go. sovar, hmar, ovar; Koqqa sziru, Pe. hbr; Manda icr; PSDr *wp : *cow-m; PDr *cup : *cuw-ar [(DED(S) 220 (b) I. Inf.:identally, this last item gives a clear isogloss marking off all South Dravidian I and II languages (as defined earlier) from Central
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Dravidian which do not inherit *cuw-ar. The other etymological groups reflecting vowel-lowering in Kui-Kuvi are DEL)(S) S290,42 1,439, 13 11, 1544, 1678,2667,3113,3255,3286,3612,4071,4079,4149,4230. PDr *P and *B are not affected by this sound change, e.g., PDr *&-:er-I/, Kui Frpa ‘to set fire’ @ED(S) 694), PDr *kCZ: Kui k&ju. Also those cases of P and i5 which resulted from contraction of radical e o with a high vowel in the next syllable after metathesis are not affected. Kui k@ga ‘fat’ (DED(S) 1784): Ta kozu ‘fat’ (< PDr *ko;-uw). From this, it appears that P < *CC-U,0 < *oC-a were qualitatively different from the underlying long mid-vowels *P *a, at the allophonic level in pre-Kui, perhaps, somewhat opener inducing the sound change
The above change also supports the assumption that Gondi-Kui-Kuvi, etc., also shared the umlaut phenomenon, i.e., PDr *i *u > *e *o before -Ca, which was earlier attributed only to SDr I (Krishnamurti 1958; Zvelebil 8 1.16, pp. 65-70, 74). 1.4. Recently Emeneau’s papers on Kodagu and Kota vowels (1970, 1969), Zvelebil’s on Irula (197 l), and Subrahmanyam’s on Toda (1975) bring out interesting details of conditioning factors of sound-change in vowels. Zvelebil has incorporated the results of these works on Kodagu and Irula in ‘Addenda’ (19 l-94). In summary, it appears that vocalic variations in the root syllables in Dravidian are accountable from the quality of certain natural classes of phonemes in the preceding and following positions. In the preceding position a palatal or a labial consonant tends to palatalize (in most of the languages) or labialize (in Kodagu, Tulu, Irula) the following root vowel. In the following position, retroflexes, alveolars and y - those with a raised tongue position (front or central) change the vocalic height as low --f mid (Parji), and horizontal position front + (central or) back (Toda, Kodagu, Irula, Badaga). Also the height of the vowel in the following syllable affects the quality of the root vowel high + m?l (PSDrj, mid + low (Kui, Kuvi) when followed by Q, mid --f high when followed by -i, -u (Kurux, Kannada); rarely we have back -+ front when followed by the front vowel (Kota, IruIa).
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Zvelebil observed an interesting correspondence, Manda 6: Pengo and other languages 6 (64, 65). No conditioning environments are discernible Manda is kno,wn only through the lexical items supplied in DED(S) (1968). We have no account of the phonological system ot ;h!‘s language. A scrutiny of the word-list in DED(S) (149-52) has revealed that srlrprisingly o and B hardly occur in any radical, syllable in this language, 2 apparently an unconditioned merger of Pre-Manda *o *G with *u *a. Then one would normally expect the front mid vowels to merge with front high vowels, but this does not happen! 1.5.
Zvelebil has thoroughly discussed the distinctive status of voicing in PDr in this volume (74-84) and also in a subsequent article (1972), using statistical data based on the etymologies given in DEB’S). He shows ihat word-initially PDr did not have voiced stops contrasting with the voiceless ones and in other positions voicing was only phonetic and non-contrastive. 1.6.
In Appendix I (184-7) Zvelebil discusses three morphophonemic rules of PDr, as formulated by Krishnamurti, Emeneau and himself res;)ectively: (1) (2) (3)
(C) Bc -+ (C)VC- / __ (C)VCC -+(C)VC- / _ (C)i@ - (C)VCC
+v +v
(Krishnamurti) (Emeneau) 3 (Zvelebil)
He explains in a separate paper that his rule reads: “In etymologically related items, bases with long root-vowel and following short (single) consonant alternate with bases with short radical vowel and following long (geminated) consonant” (1967: 90). Unlike Rules 1 and 2, which
: There is only one exception to this in DEDS 2915, i.e. ManQa tgge ‘Ficus glomerata’. Emeaeau in his characteristic scholarly humility disowned authorship of this rule when he said, Wattering as I fmd it to have this attributed to me as my rule, I must in all justice point out that it was already explicitly a&e.d by Bh. Krishnamurti, Telugu verbal bases, pa 81, 01.91 (and the foilowing paragraphs for examples)** (1973: 80).
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are derivational, this is not a derivational rule. It does not derive (C)VCC i’rsm (C)vC or vice versa. According to Rules 1 and 2, in PDr roots, (C)i@ and (C)VCC contrast with (C)VC, but when a vowel derivative follows, only (C)VC- occurs. In other words, (C)VC and (C)VCC merge with (C)VC-. There are exceptions to these rules, explained by Sambasiva Rae (1973: 217-32) as being caused by grammatical constraints. The rules operate when the basic and derived stems belong to the same form class (verb, noun, adjective, etc.), but not otherwise, i.e., when a verb is derived from a cognate noun, or a noun from a cognate verb, etc. Zvelebil’s alternation could be considered relevant as a morpheme structure rule applicable to PDr root morphemes. In derived forms PDr has contrast between (C)VC and (C)VCC, e.g., Ta. kti_ru ‘to come together’: kgt.tu ‘to unite’, knt?urn ‘union’ with cognates in many languages (DEWS) 1562). In all Dravidian languages including later Tamil and Malayalam, a stop geminate (PP) following a long vowel is simplified to (or phonemically interpretable as) a single voiceless stop (P). This typological change has produced complementation between (C)VPP and (C)VPP by converting the former into (C)VP. Insofar as Telugu is concerned I have dealt with this phenomenon explicitly (7YB’ $1.127, 1.147; pp. 54, 63). Zvelebil’s examples for his alternation, however, mixes underived and derived sets. For instance, Ka. dku ‘smallness!‘: Ka. cikka ‘small’, Ka. rz
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mologically related primary root morphemes, one could set up Zvelebil’s formula as a morpheme structure rule in PDr. What Zvelebil leas noticed is the conditiisn in various languages after the operation of tine rule PP --f P/(C)B _ #, which eliminated contrast between (C)q?? and (C)VPP as illustrated by I ne for Telugu. 1. 7. Without meaning any offence to the author, I wish to make one minor comment on style. There :u-e certain sentences in this volume which are meant to be quoted from other sources, but they occur without quotation marks. Apparently at the typing stage the author must have missed the quotation marks by o lersight, or copie:d out of his notes where he did not inadvertently note down the source, e.g.: “Thus the shift of *c > -s- is probably later than that of *-c- > -t-. The loss of occlusion of -c- (> [-s-J) was prob. coeval with or later than the borrowings of the first IA words with the sibilant which, as we saw, was lost in all positions’* (114; $1.25.2.2). ‘There are very few survivals of PDr. root-final *C/U as -cc- in the daughter languages due to its shift to y or I in such final position. Of all languages, Ka. shows best evidence for many of such base-final *-c/u forms, cf. ...” (115; $1.25.3.3).
Passages almost identical with the above occur earlier in Tdugu Verba Bases (1961): “So the shift of *-c- > -s- is probably later than that of of *-c- > -I-; also the loss of occlusion of-c- (>[+I) was coeval with or later than the borrowings of the first IA words with sibilants, lost in all positions*’ (40; 0 1.90). “There are actually very few survivals of PDr. root-final c as cc in the daughter languages due to its shift to y or I in this position (8 8 1.112 ff.). Of all languages, Ka. shows evidence for many of these base-final c forms; cf. . ..” (82; $1.193).
2. Specific comments (1) It is puzzling how Zvelebil considered Savara, a decidedly Munda language, Dravidian (15). He says, it “seems to be extremely close to Telugu (possibly a dialect?)” (17). Savara or Sora may have borrowed vocabulary extensively from its dominant neighbour, Telugu, but it is not a Dravidian language. is Zvelebil referring here to another Savara which might be Dravidian?
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(2) The name of Poya (17) for Kondekor Gadaba should be deleted. It was wrongly used by Bhattacharya (1957 : 2), but since corrected in DED (xxiv, $29). (3) Par& and Kolami do not share metathesis and vowel contraction with SDr II languages (37; 5 1.10.1.3.). In 5 1.39 where Zvelebil discusses this phenomenon he correctly drops Pa. and Mol. (4) Zvelebil, in the table displaying the developments of South Dravidian umlaut (74), has two stages PDr and late PDr both of which are identical! PDr *i *u merge with *e *o respectively in PSDr as mentioned earlier. Subsequently, Ta. Ma. changed them to *i *ZA:*espectively (except for a few survivals in Classical Tamil), and this must have continued until Malayalam split off as attested by early Malayalam inscriptions. Zvelebil reports that Jaffna Tamil still has i u before -Ca (69; 5 1.16.10.). Perhaps this evidence could suggest a possible data of the early migration of Tamils from the Peninsula to the island. Late Middle and Modern Tamil has again lowered these vowels to e o. Zvelebil’s diagram shows that colloquial Tamil and Malayalam e o before Gz are directly traceable to PSDr, and folr this there is no evidence. Colloquial Tamil and Malayalam developments are later than those of their respective literary stages. (5) In the table on page 75, showing syncopation of root and suffix vowels, i.e., V,C-V, + v, where C = *y, *w, *k (TVB 51.295; p. 124), Zvelebii includes *t and *Yin the list of consonants dropped causing vowel contraction. This development is found only in Toda and not in general SDr. His example of Ka. Te. t@x ‘to enter’: Ta. twynu ‘to be close, crowded’ does not illustrate syncopation and must be deleted. (6) It would be better to stick to the term ‘lenis’ and not ‘voiced’ while discussing the phonetic representation of PDr intervocalic single stops. Lenisness or lenition produced [s] from *-c- and not *-j- in most of the languages. Zvelebil used ‘voiced’ and ‘lenis’ synonymously when he said “we have no reason whatsoever to posit voiceless intervocalic stops for any stage of Dravidian” (80). Zvelebil’s observation that PDr /I/ never showed any tendency to ‘lenition’ is not correct. In all the literary languages it is phonetically [r] although phonemically /d/. TO’.and Ko. in SDr I and many languages of SDr II, CDr and NDr develop PDr *-J- to [r] where, due to other historical reasons, it contrasts with I41 = 101. (7) Zvelebil posits -p- for PDr on the basis of-p-: -pp- in Tamil tapu ‘perish’; tappu ‘kill’ (88-89). He has not shown any comparative evi-
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dence to support this assumption. There is no harm in representing PDr *-y- as long as we understand that it is phonetically -w-. But there is no justification for contrast between s-w-:-p- intervocalically in PDr; -pi- occurring as a causitive morph in Tr.mil Brahmi inscriptions (89) should be interpreted as morphophonemic :;nelling for phonemic -vi- and -ppi-. (8) there are at least three items in SDr II languages which show *t- > c- before a palatal sequence in the following syllable, iij (<*SC, *nl) (DED(S) 2693, 29 18, 2942). Zvelebil quotes one case (9 1, 5 1.22.1.1.). This also provides an isogloss binding Kuvi, Pengo and Manda, into a subgroup of SDr II. (9) Malto th is 0 and not an aspirated stop as reported by Zvelebil (93; $1.22.1.1.). (10) The palatalization of inflectional tt following i or y in verbs is shown to be a very comlnon ‘tendency’ in Ta. Literary Ta. vaittu > (Chola inscr.) vaircu “having put’ (94). It seems to me that this is even more widespread in SDr. The comparison of Tamil forms !ike ccy-VW- (past tense of caus. stem of cey ‘to do’) with Ka. gey-isu and Te. cZyincpoints to a reconstruction * key-vi-ntt, where *-vinnt developed to Te. -incu, -pincu (pili-pinc- ‘to cause to call’) Ka. -isu, -icu, Koqda -isu, Go. (Koya) -is (with loss of nasal), etc. The following etymological group shows a very early palatalization of a dental stop @ED(S) 3792) at the derivational level. SDr I: Ta. ma&x ‘cloud, white cloud, fog, dew’, Ma. nraGiizl, Ko. manj, To. moz, Ka. maiiju, Kod. maEji, Tu. maindu ‘dew, mist, fog’; SDr II: Te. mancu, Kuvi (F) moncn, (S) mancu, Go. mat, Konda m~su, Kuvi ~na~cu cyu ‘dew’; CDr: Kol. matic ‘mist’; Pa. r~zafi,mu@ ‘mist, dew’; mpndir, me’dir ‘dew’; 011. npndir. The CDr languages (including Tulu here) retain the PDr *may-nt which, apparently, had a variant *may-ntt; with palalization and loss of y we get *ma-ncand *ma-ncc-; note in Telugu Y post-nasal voiceless stop derives from a geminate (Raj? 1969). Pa. mafi and Kol. mane and perhaps those of SDr II are borrowing from Te. This etymological group, incidentally, supports the grouping of SDr I and II and separating of Pa. Kol. Nk. as CDr which do not innovate this palatalization. (11) Zvelebil posits a sound change y -+ s/ _ t in Telugu, whereby ~~p~rr‘to do’ has a variant c&s(t~) ‘doing’ in modern Telugu (93: 5 1.22.2.3). This change is due to the restructuring of the Telugu stem by incorporating an original past-participial morph -si and not due to a sound change, i.e., *ceyai > *c&si > cFs-i (TVB 8 52.39-57). In noun derivation we still see cry + ta -+ cgta where y does not become s.
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(12) In giving the reflexes of *& Zvelebil mixed up in SDr II languages three complementary developments. (a) f between vowels or finally, (b) post-nasal position. These two give voiced reflexes, whereas (c) *t before a voiceless stop and *f_tgive voiceless reflexes (94-6; 1.2 3.1). Kor;lda alone preserves these as 5 and R (voiceless alveolar trill) respectively. Kui, Kuvi, Pengo and ManQa change them into palatals or sibilants, providing a clear isogloss pointing to a common parent stage of these languages within SDr II. (13) Koqcja has no l! (5 1.23.2.2). The item in question is gzc~~rn ‘horse’.
(14) “In Telugu ‘11 has falien together in the earliest records with ff, !ater with _f”(I00: 8 1.23.2 11. It should read “.tl after a short vowel and .r after a long vowel”. This distribution is true of all voiceless stops in Telugu, deriving from proto-geminate stops. (15) On p. 99 in table 4, spoken Ta. Ma. Te. Ka. Yis shown to derive directljj from PDr *L, p arAle1 *with Literary Ta. Ka. Te. -Y-.This is not correct. In each of these languages r:r remained distinct and c merged with r progressively in different environments. This is borne out by the inscriptional evidence of these languages which represented spoken rather than the written form. (16) PDr. *CUW > Kuvi hart4 ‘salt’ (p. 106). The direction of the developments in SDr II is *COW-W> sir > ham. All these stages are preserved in SDr II languages (see supra, l-3.2). (17) I do not think Zvelebil is correct in positing k- > C- before front vowels in Go., Kuvi, Fe. and Mancja on the basis of three items (118-9; 3 1.26.1.20) all of which look like prehistoric borrowings from the neighbouring Telugu (LED(S) 1679, 1337, 1272). “This replacement seems, however, irregular and dependent upon some additional factors”. Zvelebil has not identified any of these factors. (18) Discussing contraction of vowels eka > E, oka > 6, etc. across continuants including the lenis k (y, w, k), Zvelebil posits six steps for change - many of which are only imaginary and not warranted by attestable evidence, e.g. *tural> * tual > * tuvai> * toval> *Ton1> 61 ( 123; $j1.26.2.6), the loss of intervocalic -k-, insertion of a glide -w- and again its loss leading to a long vowel. Toda has tnj ‘be rolled UP’ corresponding to Ta. c~ruj which is also a case of vowel contraction UYU+ @.There is no diachronic or synchronic motivation to set up loss-insertion-loss of an intervocalic consonant. It is purely a question of two syllables becoming one in fast speech. Such a change is promoted by the quality of
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the intervocalic consonant which can be easily slurred like y, W, or k, and in rare cases a liquid as i,r Toda. (19) Zvelebil suspects if some dialects of PDr had a phonemic glottal stop (162; 5 1.37.2). In SDr II languages (Go, Kui, Kuvi, Konda, Pengo, etc.) a glottal stop is secor,dary. It arises typically between vowels with the loss of a consonant. There are some archaic Koqda dialects that preserve the consonants which became glottal stops in the others, e.g., rivq:ri?er ‘two men’ (<*riwer <*h-war) (see Krishnamurti 1968a: 22-3). (20) The palatalization of *nt *to r?c after JJ or i in Tamil is attributed to the Middle Tamil period, e.g., ai2cu (1069 A.D.), aficu (1073 A.D.) corresponding to Literary Tamil aintu (5 1.40.9.1; p. 17 1). But this looks to be a much earli,er change in SDr (see above). &zcu has cognates in Ta. MLI.Ko. To. and Kod from which it appears that it was there in Pre- or Proto-Tamil in the spoken varieties (Cf. DEDfsj 23 18). (2 1) Talking about the development of a nasal + hornorganic stop, Zvelebil says that “in Go., Konda, Te., Kol.-Nk., the nasal was preserved while the occulsive was lost (especially *mp)“. This does not seem correct. In the case of *mp, tnere was progressive assimilation in Telugu, for instance, e.g., *tumpu > tsammu ‘to sneeze’, pampu > p8mu ‘snake’ (only C after a long vowel). (22) Zvelebil speculated on the origin of double consonants from clusters of liquid and stop in PDr (177-80; 5 5 1.41-2). Such assimilation is noted during the recorded history of modern Ta., Ma., Te., and perhaps To., and Ko. SDr Ii and CDr languages normally maintain consonhnt groups in an unassimilated condition; there is no phonological motivation to derive *cat < CUT+ t. Because, according to morphophonemic rules of Dravidian, a dental becomes assimilated to an alveolar or a retroflex, e.g., *I + *tt -+ *_tU, *1 + *tt -+ *_t+t but nowhere does a retroflex continuant and a dental stop’ produce an alveolar stop (179; I .41.2.5). (23) There are not many misprints. But among those that came to my notice I mention below only the significant ones: (p. 30) “ii = Ir. high back rounded vowel” (?unrounded); (p. 36, line 7) (C)l V1 X2- should read (C)l VI-C2 ; (p. 37, line 6) Gondi Li-venjtr should read Kui hi-venju. !p. 43, line 6 in $1.11.1.41) vafasu should read valaczr;(p. 50, line 1 in 5 1.12.2.! ) Y (
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pakai ‘smoke’, should read prrkai.
Notwithstanding the forthright comments and criticisms made in this review, Zvelebil must be congratulated on attemtpting this scholarly synthesis of research in comparative Dravidian phonology. As an “initiatory text” (24), this work overshoots its mark by supplying too much data that fails to fit into definite patterns of correspondences. Zvelebil’s book, unlike Emeneau’s Skctdz (1970), focusses more on what is least known than what is best known in the field. By the same token, it should be welcome by Dravidian scholars, who could then look for more tangib:e areas of research in Dravidian phonology.
Stmforcl, I/.S. A.
Bh. KRISHNAMURTI
References Bhattacharya, S., 1957.
Ollari: A Dravidian speech. Delhi, Manager of publications, Government of India. Burrow, T. and S. Bhattacharya, 1953. The Parji language. Hertford: Stephen Austin & sons. Burrow, T. and M.B. Emeneau, 1961. A Dravidian etymological dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Burrow, T. and M.B. Emeneau, 1968. A Dravidian etymological dictionary: supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Caldwell, Rt. Rev. R., 1956. A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-lndian family of languages. Repr. 3rd ed. Madras: Univ. of Madras. Emeneau, M.B., 1969. A Kota vowel-shift. Journal of Tamil Studies l(l), 21-34. Emeneau, M.B., 1970a. Kodagu vowels. JAOS 90, 145-58. Emeneau, M.B., 1970b. Dravidian comparative phonology: A sketch. Annamalainagar (Tamilnadu): Annamalai Univ. Emeneau. M.B., 1973. Review of K. Zvelebil, Comparative Dravidian phonology. Linguistics 107, 77-82. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1958. Alternations i/e and u/o in South Dravidian. Lg. 34,458-68. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1961. Telugu verbal bases: A comparative and descriptive study. UCPL 24. Berkeley/Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press. Krishnamurti. Bh., 1968a. Konda or Kibi, a Dravidian language. Hyderabad: Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1968b. Dravidian personal prunouns. In: Bh. Krishnamurti ted.), Studies in Indian linguistics, 189-205. (Professor M.B. Emeneau Sastipiirti Volume). Annamalainagar/ Poona: Center of Advanced Study in Linguistics. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1975. Review of M.B. Emeneau, Dravidian comparative phonology: A sketch. JAOS 95,312-3. Raja, N.K., 1969. Post-nasal voiceless plosives in Dravidian. Tamilnadu: Annamalai Univ. Sambasiva Rao, C.S., 1973. On proto-Dravidian morphophonemics. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 3,217-42. Subrahmanyam, P.S., 1975. Proto-Dravidan *a, *a: Todd a/o,aF. 18 pp. Mimeo. Zvelebil, K., 1967. On morphophonemic rules of Dravidian bases. Linguistics 32,87 -95. Zvelebil, K., 1972. Initial plosives in Dravidian. Lingua 30,216-26. Zvelebil, K., 1971. Irub vowels. IIJ 13,113-22.
REVIEW ARTICLE Kamil Zvelebil, Comparative Dravidian phonology. Mouton, The Hague/Paris (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 80), 1970. 202 pp. Dfl. 54.-. This book presents a readable summary of the results of research published on comparative Dravidian phonology since the days of Robert CUdwell’s Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family oj‘ larlgrtagcs ( 18 5 6). 1 Such research is scattered over scores of journals and books, some of which are no longer available to interested scholars. Zvelebil has added to what is already known his own data on Tamil dialects and inscriptions, which is useful in explaining the historical developments in TamiI since its separation from PSDr. With the publication of A Dravidian etymological dictionary (DED, 196 1) and its Supplement (DEDS, 1968) by Burrow and Emeneau, it is now possible to work out Dravidian correspondences with a greater degree of ease and accuracy than it had been possible earlier. This volume has three main chapters: I. Vowels (35-75), II. Consonants (76- 167), and III. Consonant clusters (168-83). There is an Introduction (1 l-3 1) which provides basic information on the Dravidian languages like the number of speakers, geographical location, etc., and a brief discussion on subgrouping, followed by a select bibliography and abbreviations. There are two Appendixes (184-9) and riddenda (190-6) all of which may be taken as a postscript to the volume dealing with problems and issues which came to the author’s attention after the copy had gone to the press. The Index (197-202) has names of‘the languages, authors, books, and some topics.
r Abbreviations of languages: Dr = Dravidian; P = Proto-, S = South, C = Central, N = North; Ta. = Tamil, Ma. = Malayqam, Ko. = Kota, TO. = Toda, Jr. = Iru!a, Kod. = Kodagu, Ka. = Kannada; Go. = Gondi, Pe. = Pengo; Kol. = Kolami, Nk. = Naiki, Pa. = Parji. 011. = Ollari, Gad. = Gadaba (Salur dialect); Kur. = Kurux, Malt. = Malto, Br. = Brahui. Konda, Kui, Kuvi, Manda are not abbreviated. Abbreviations of works: DEL)(S) = DED and DEDS
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In view of its scope and coverage, this volume is a welcome contribution to the field of comparative Dravidian. It does not, however, claim to be exhausltive or to solve problems, hitherto unsolved (24). My observations and comments on this volume are made under two heads, ‘general’ and ‘specific’. The former deals with the broader and major issues discussed in this volume, and identifies some of the areas in which further clarification and improvements are either possible or needed. These may be of interest to a general reader of this review. The ‘specific’ comments concern statements made in this volume which, according to the reviewer, need to be elaborated or modified or corrected; they will be of interest to scholars in Dravidian.
1a,General comments
Zvelebil’s diagram of the subgrouping of the Dravidian languages (13) suggests independent descent of Telugu and Tulu from Proto-Dravidian. It is now established, beyond doubt, that Telugu subclassifies with the Gondi-Konda-Kui-Kuvi-Pengo-Manda group and not with the TamilKannada (Krishnamurti 1961: 236-74). The position of Tulu is, however, still doubtful. Even then, there is no evidence to make it an independent branch of Proto-Dravidian. The position of Telugu-Manda languages (see above) in relation to Parji-Kolami on the one hand, and Tamil-Kannada, on the other, is still a problem. All scholars including this reviewer had earlier believed that Telugu-Gondi-Kui, etc., go with Parji-Kolami, etc., as two branches of Central Dravidian. I now believe that Proto-South-Dravidian consists of two branches as follows: SDr I: Kannada, Toda, Kota, Kodagu, Malayalam, Tamil. SDr II: Telugu, Gondi, Konda, Kui, Kuvi, Pengo, Manda. At least three clear phonological inr,ovatitins cover both SDr I and II. (1) The merger of PDr *i*u with *e*o in the environment -Ca. (2) The weakening of *c- wherever it had a phonetic variant s- (in regional or social dialects) into @ through an intermediate stage of h-, which is prehistoric in SDr I but h$&ic and attested1 in SDr II. (3) The analogical formation of *En-/*iian- ‘I’ from the PDr inclusive plural *%im-/*km‘we’, in addition to the retention of PDr *yan-/*yan- ‘I’ (IWhnamurti
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1968b). (4) The metathesis rule which puts PDr alveolar and retroflex
consonants in the word initial position seems to be a PSDr tendency which had limited operation in SDr I but progressively extended its scope in SDr II. I shall go no further here on the question of sub-grouping, since it requires a full-length treatment elsewhere. However, I shall refer in this review to any or all of the Telugu-Man& languages as SDr II and not as CDr. The CDr languages consist of Parji, Ollari, Gadaba, Kolami and Naiki only. 1.2.
The Dravidian etymological data is not of uniform quality and quantity for all the languages. The entries in DED(S) give us cognates which are &awn.I LBfrnm It is 11V1.. thP ..*w avnilahlp .e..+s R..“11 dirtinnnri+s -*.s..-Y..U*-“Y nf v 3,3 0~ so !anguages. phonologically more reliable for the southern languages than for others. For many items we have more than one variant cited without any clues for such variation, because such information is missing in the source dictionaries. These variants apparently represent different ;.egional and social dialects and also different periods of history in the case of the iiterarl languages. Even in the case of the non-literary languages there is a great deal of unidentified lexical variation, sometimes dialectal and sometimes orthographic depending on different authors’ ability to hear and record. Qualitatively the data on the various dialects of Gondi, Kuvi and Malto is the least reliable. Owing to this limitation on the data, correspondences of phonemes are never so clear and regular. A Dravidian scholar faces the problem of sorting out such variation into what is specific to individual languages and what represents variation at the reconstructed stage. For instance, the following etymological group meaning ‘hare’ given in DEL)(S) 407 1 does not lend itself to a single reconstruction : SDr I: Ta. muyal, mucal, Ma. muyal, Ko. molm, To. mi75 Ka. mob, mala, Kod. mona, Tu. rnuyeru, mug(g)ery, mola. SDr II: Go. mulG1, Konda (BB) morol, Kui m@ju, Kuvi (F) rnr?ifil, (S) mr2ilu, Pe. mrD1. CDr: Kol. mite, Nk. mite, Pa. miicb, 011. munde, Gad. miinde. NDr: Kur. muriyz, Malt. mu_nye, Br. murii. For SDR I *muc-ul accounts for Ta. Ma. To.; Ka. Ko. Kod. require
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*moZ-umas the underlying form. These two can be related by adding -am suffix to the syncopated *rrldl< *muya’ Tu muyeru < muyal, muger@ being a dialect variant of muyeru with -y- > -g-. mola looks like a borrowing from Ka. Go. moMI looks to *mWOi; but the rest of the SDr II languages require *mod or *mo&. In NDr, Br. requires *mu?-u or *mur-u, but Kur. and Mall. look to mun-c. CDr require *muy-nt/ntt, with loss of y in Pa. and Ga. This is one of the cases of extreme incongruity in correspondences, but still they are grouped together in DEWS) on account of their seeming phonetic-semantic similarity. The obvious explanation for so many’reconstructed forms is that they reflect dialect variation within Proto-Draj idian itself. But there is no other etymological group reflecting simi1z.r differences in reconstructed forms for the same sets of languages to support the above statement. Of course, the alternative is to say that the reconstructed forms are not interrelated, i.e., the items are not all cognate and should not be brought under one entry in the dictionary. A counter example to the above is the group of words meaning ‘worm, insect’ (DEWS) 3537), which yield a single reconstruction for PDr, as *PUT-dwu). SDr I: Ta. Ma. Ka. ~+u, To. puf, Ko. pn, Koql. pulu, Tu. puru, puri. SDr II: Te. pruwwu (<*PUT-W-), Go. purl; Kui piru, priu (pl. plika), Kui (F) priyiili (pl. prika), (S) pliguli, Konda p&vu (pl. pirku), Pe. plr(pl. prika). crh: Kol., Nk. pudde, Pa. puyut, Gad. pudut. NDr: Kur. poego, Malt. posgo, - Br. pa. The only problem here is the dissimilatory vowel change in the Koncja Kui-Kuvi-Pengo subgroup, i.e., *pi~iuh-; metathesis and vowel contraction results in initial CC- in all SDr II languages, except in Gondi. Betwecyi these two extremes, one gets correspondences with different degrees of unpatterned phonemic variation in different languages. 1.3. A second type of undertainty arises from the fact that not enough study has been made of all the patterns of variation in unequivocal groups of etyma. There are still many unexplored spots of systematic sound change in SDr II and CDr which we used to call ‘sporadic’ until now..
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1.3.1. For instance, Zvelebil, following Burrow and Bhattacharya (1953: 1) and Emeneau (1970b: 8, 11) says that PDr ‘*ais represented in Parji as e or a and PDr *a as P or i? (41,44). A thorough search of the Parji data has shown that this variation is the result of three ordered sound changes during the history of the Parji language (Krishnamurti 1975: 312) as follows: Rule I (Vowel-raising) ci + ww)-*Any alveolar consonant. Radical B becomes 5 before a pre-Parji (or PCDr) alveolar consonant, i.e., *r, “I, *n, *r, *I?!,,*tt. _-
f, #(C)V-._ I(VP 1+[Ii #I
! fj,
!
Intervocalic or final retroflex *I *r;lbecome I II, respectively. Rule 3. (Dialect split) d2. South and Northwestern --tt + (a) tt/t ntnd
[I [I
dialect
Northeastern dialect
Alveolar obstruents of the unchanged Parji stage merged with dentals or retroflexes in different regional dialects. ule 1 ceased to operate when Rule 2 became effective..Consequently older a and a preceding deretroflexed 2 n (<*.I *v) do not become e and Ed.The secondary retroflexion from the underlying alveolars caused by .Rule 3 in the north-eastern dialect must be subsequent to Rule 1, because ?I > z occurs before these consonants also. Rule 2 is in a counterfeeding order to Rule 1. Examine the examples: PCDr. *man ‘live’ Rule 1: men Rule2:Rule3:Parji
men
*kav ‘eye’ kan
*ka!_v‘threshing floor’ kali
-
_
_
kel
kan
kafi
*kal stone’ kej -
*panli ‘pig’ pend
*wag. ‘to dry’ weg-
pend I pent! pend/pend
wettwe!!- 1 wett-/wet!
*ka+ ‘see (past)’ kan-dkan+ kanql-
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The Parji developments would be quite systematic when we formulated the rules correctly and applied them in the correct order reflecting chro:nology. Rule 1 expalins e in Parji s?j- ‘six’ < *cul ,which Zvelebil attributes to the influence of initial *c- (61). Since no other language reflects ;ri/a alternation here, it cannot be attributed to a PDr dialect variation of +a/*~ after *c (Krishnamurti 1961: 8s 1.212, 1.232, 1.240). All personal and demonstrative pronouns are exceptions to the above sound changes in Parji - a typical case of grammatical constraint on sound change. 1.3.2. Another interesting sound change, so far not observed, is the lowering of mid-vowels in some of t.he SDr II languages. In Kui and partly in Kuvi Pre-Kui E B resulting from the contraction of root and suffix vowels of earlier *eL’a, *UC-~(either trhough metathesis or loo of the intervening consonantj are lowered to a.
0 I E
i3
-+ ir
#CC, NC,) -
-0.
(Kui, Kuvi)
This rule should be ordered after two earlier feeding rules of vowel contraction, viz. (1) Syncope, (2) metathesis and vowel contraction:
0)
(Cl)
E](i)-a--+(Cl) [:I/ #L.# _-
(PSDr)
(SDr II)
There are I2 cases of P -+ a and 6 of b + a. For instance: Kui buerzju (-v-enju masc. sg. suffix; E< *E< *e&) ‘grown-up boy’, 22 ‘young woman’, Kuvi (F) r&a, (S) &a ‘virgin’ [This item was put with Ta al ‘strength’, etc., in DEDIS) 248. But it goes better semantically with DED(S) 4361: Ta @ai ‘youth’, #a ‘young’; Ma. $a ‘young’; To., Ko. el, Ka. el, e.@‘tenderness’, ‘youth’, etc.;Te. le, Eta ‘young’, ‘tender’ (DEDS 436). Kui SWU,Kuvi h7iru ‘sait’: Go. sovar, hmar, ovar; Koqqa sziru, Pe. hbr; Manda icr; PSDr *wp : *cow-m; PDr *cup : *cuw-ar [(DED(S) 220 (b) I. Inf.:identally, this last item gives a clear isogloss marking off all South Dravidian I and II languages (as defined earlier) from Central
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Dravidian which do not inherit *cuw-ar. The other etymological groups reflecting vowel-lowering in Kui-Kuvi are DEL)(S) S290,42 1,439, 13 11, 1544, 1678,2667,3113,3255,3286,3612,4071,4079,4149,4230. PDr *P and *B are not affected by this sound change, e.g., PDr *&-:er-I/, Kui Frpa ‘to set fire’ @ED(S) 694), PDr *kCZ: Kui k&ju. Also those cases of P and i5 which resulted from contraction of radical e o with a high vowel in the next syllable after metathesis are not affected. Kui k@ga ‘fat’ (DED(S) 1784): Ta kozu ‘fat’ (< PDr *ko;-uw). From this, it appears that P < *CC-U,0 < *oC-a were qualitatively different from the underlying long mid-vowels *P *a, at the allophonic level in pre-Kui, perhaps, somewhat opener inducing the sound change
The above change also supports the assumption that Gondi-Kui-Kuvi, etc., also shared the umlaut phenomenon, i.e., PDr *i *u > *e *o before -Ca, which was earlier attributed only to SDr I (Krishnamurti 1958; Zvelebil 8 1.16, pp. 65-70, 74). 1.4. Recently Emeneau’s papers on Kodagu and Kota vowels (1970, 1969), Zvelebil’s on Irula (197 l), and Subrahmanyam’s on Toda (1975) bring out interesting details of conditioning factors of sound-change in vowels. Zvelebil has incorporated the results of these works on Kodagu and Irula in ‘Addenda’ (19 l-94). In summary, it appears that vocalic variations in the root syllables in Dravidian are accountable from the quality of certain natural classes of phonemes in the preceding and following positions. In the preceding position a palatal or a labial consonant tends to palatalize (in most of the languages) or labialize (in Kodagu, Tulu, Irula) the following root vowel. In the following position, retroflexes, alveolars and y - those with a raised tongue position (front or central) change the vocalic height as low --f mid (Parji), and horizontal position front + (central or) back (Toda, Kodagu, Irula, Badaga). Also the height of the vowel in the following syllable affects the quality of the root vowel high + m?l (PSDrj, mid + low (Kui, Kuvi) when followed by Q, mid --f high when followed by -i, -u (Kurux, Kannada); rarely we have back -+ front when followed by the front vowel (Kota, IruIa).
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Zvelebil observed an interesting correspondence, Manda 6: Pengo and other languages 6 (64, 65). No conditioning environments are discernible Manda is kno,wn only through the lexical items supplied in DED(S) (1968). We have no account of the phonological system ot ;h!‘s language. A scrutiny of the word-list in DED(S) (149-52) has revealed that srlrprisingly o and B hardly occur in any radical, syllable in this language, 2 apparently an unconditioned merger of Pre-Manda *o *G with *u *a. Then one would normally expect the front mid vowels to merge with front high vowels, but this does not happen! 1.5.
Zvelebil has thoroughly discussed the distinctive status of voicing in PDr in this volume (74-84) and also in a subsequent article (1972), using statistical data based on the etymologies given in DEB’S). He shows ihat word-initially PDr did not have voiced stops contrasting with the voiceless ones and in other positions voicing was only phonetic and non-contrastive. 1.6.
In Appendix I (184-7) Zvelebil discusses three morphophonemic rules of PDr, as formulated by Krishnamurti, Emeneau and himself res;)ectively: (1) (2) (3)
(C) Bc -+ (C)VC- / __ (C)VCC -+(C)VC- / _ (C)i@ - (C)VCC
+v +v
(Krishnamurti) (Emeneau) 3 (Zvelebil)
He explains in a separate paper that his rule reads: “In etymologically related items, bases with long root-vowel and following short (single) consonant alternate with bases with short radical vowel and following long (geminated) consonant” (1967: 90). Unlike Rules 1 and 2, which
: There is only one exception to this in DEDS 2915, i.e. ManQa tgge ‘Ficus glomerata’. Emeaeau in his characteristic scholarly humility disowned authorship of this rule when he said, Wattering as I fmd it to have this attributed to me as my rule, I must in all justice point out that it was already explicitly a&e.d by Bh. Krishnamurti, Telugu verbal bases, pa 81, 01.91 (and the foilowing paragraphs for examples)** (1973: 80).
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are derivational, this is not a derivational rule. It does not derive (C)VCC i’rsm (C)vC or vice versa. According to Rules 1 and 2, in PDr roots, (C)i@ and (C)VCC contrast with (C)VC, but when a vowel derivative follows, only (C)VC- occurs. In other words, (C)VC and (C)VCC merge with (C)VC-. There are exceptions to these rules, explained by Sambasiva Rae (1973: 217-32) as being caused by grammatical constraints. The rules operate when the basic and derived stems belong to the same form class (verb, noun, adjective, etc.), but not otherwise, i.e., when a verb is derived from a cognate noun, or a noun from a cognate verb, etc. Zvelebil’s alternation could be considered relevant as a morpheme structure rule applicable to PDr root morphemes. In derived forms PDr has contrast between (C)VC and (C)VCC, e.g., Ta. kti_ru ‘to come together’: kgt.tu ‘to unite’, knt?urn ‘union’ with cognates in many languages (DEWS) 1562). In all Dravidian languages including later Tamil and Malayalam, a stop geminate (PP) following a long vowel is simplified to (or phonemically interpretable as) a single voiceless stop (P). This typological change has produced complementation between (C)VPP and (C)VPP by converting the former into (C)VP. Insofar as Telugu is concerned I have dealt with this phenomenon explicitly (7YB’ $1.127, 1.147; pp. 54, 63). Zvelebil’s examples for his alternation, however, mixes underived and derived sets. For instance, Ka. dku ‘smallness!‘: Ka. cikka ‘small’, Ka. rz
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mologically related primary root morphemes, one could set up Zvelebil’s formula as a morpheme structure rule in PDr. What Zvelebil leas noticed is the conditiisn in various languages after the operation of tine rule PP --f P/(C)B _ #, which eliminated contrast between (C)q?? and (C)VPP as illustrated by I ne for Telugu. 1. 7. Without meaning any offence to the author, I wish to make one minor comment on style. There :u-e certain sentences in this volume which are meant to be quoted from other sources, but they occur without quotation marks. Apparently at the typing stage the author must have missed the quotation marks by o lersight, or copie:d out of his notes where he did not inadvertently note down the source, e.g.: “Thus the shift of *c > -s- is probably later than that of *-c- > -t-. The loss of occlusion of -c- (> [-s-J) was prob. coeval with or later than the borrowings of the first IA words with the sibilant which, as we saw, was lost in all positions’* (114; $1.25.2.2). ‘There are very few survivals of PDr. root-final *C/U as -cc- in the daughter languages due to its shift to y or I in such final position. Of all languages, Ka. shows best evidence for many of such base-final *-c/u forms, cf. ...” (115; $1.25.3.3).
Passages almost identical with the above occur earlier in Tdugu Verba Bases (1961): “So the shift of *-c- > -s- is probably later than that of of *-c- > -I-; also the loss of occlusion of-c- (>[+I) was coeval with or later than the borrowings of the first IA words with sibilants, lost in all positions*’ (40; 0 1.90). “There are actually very few survivals of PDr. root-final c as cc in the daughter languages due to its shift to y or I in this position (8 8 1.112 ff.). Of all languages, Ka. shows evidence for many of these base-final c forms; cf. . ..” (82; $1.193).
2. Specific comments (1) It is puzzling how Zvelebil considered Savara, a decidedly Munda language, Dravidian (15). He says, it “seems to be extremely close to Telugu (possibly a dialect?)” (17). Savara or Sora may have borrowed vocabulary extensively from its dominant neighbour, Telugu, but it is not a Dravidian language. is Zvelebil referring here to another Savara which might be Dravidian?
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(2) The name of Poya (17) for Kondekor Gadaba should be deleted. It was wrongly used by Bhattacharya (1957 : 2), but since corrected in DED (xxiv, $29). (3) Par& and Kolami do not share metathesis and vowel contraction with SDr II languages (37; 5 1.10.1.3.). In 5 1.39 where Zvelebil discusses this phenomenon he correctly drops Pa. and Mol. (4) Zvelebil, in the table displaying the developments of South Dravidian umlaut (74), has two stages PDr and late PDr both of which are identical! PDr *i *u merge with *e *o respectively in PSDr as mentioned earlier. Subsequently, Ta. Ma. changed them to *i *ZA:*espectively (except for a few survivals in Classical Tamil), and this must have continued until Malayalam split off as attested by early Malayalam inscriptions. Zvelebil reports that Jaffna Tamil still has i u before -Ca (69; 5 1.16.10.). Perhaps this evidence could suggest a possible data of the early migration of Tamils from the Peninsula to the island. Late Middle and Modern Tamil has again lowered these vowels to e o. Zvelebil’s diagram shows that colloquial Tamil and Malayalam e o before Gz are directly traceable to PSDr, and folr this there is no evidence. Colloquial Tamil and Malayalam developments are later than those of their respective literary stages. (5) In the table on page 75, showing syncopation of root and suffix vowels, i.e., V,C-V, + v, where C = *y, *w, *k (TVB 51.295; p. 124), Zvelebii includes *t and *Yin the list of consonants dropped causing vowel contraction. This development is found only in Toda and not in general SDr. His example of Ka. Te. t@x ‘to enter’: Ta. twynu ‘to be close, crowded’ does not illustrate syncopation and must be deleted. (6) It would be better to stick to the term ‘lenis’ and not ‘voiced’ while discussing the phonetic representation of PDr intervocalic single stops. Lenisness or lenition produced [s] from *-c- and not *-j- in most of the languages. Zvelebil used ‘voiced’ and ‘lenis’ synonymously when he said “we have no reason whatsoever to posit voiceless intervocalic stops for any stage of Dravidian” (80). Zvelebil’s observation that PDr /I/ never showed any tendency to ‘lenition’ is not correct. In all the literary languages it is phonetically [r] although phonemically /d/. TO’.and Ko. in SDr I and many languages of SDr II, CDr and NDr develop PDr *-J- to [r] where, due to other historical reasons, it contrasts with I41 = 101. (7) Zvelebil posits -p- for PDr on the basis of-p-: -pp- in Tamil tapu ‘perish’; tappu ‘kill’ (88-89). He has not shown any comparative evi-
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dence to support this assumption. There is no harm in representing PDr *-y- as long as we understand that it is phonetically -w-. But there is no justification for contrast between s-w-:-p- intervocalically in PDr; -pi- occurring as a causitive morph in Tr.mil Brahmi inscriptions (89) should be interpreted as morphophonemic :;nelling for phonemic -vi- and -ppi-. (8) there are at least three items in SDr II languages which show *t- > c- before a palatal sequence in the following syllable, iij (<*SC, *nl) (DED(S) 2693, 29 18, 2942). Zvelebil quotes one case (9 1, 5 1.22.1.1.). This also provides an isogloss binding Kuvi, Pengo and Manda, into a subgroup of SDr II. (9) Malto th is 0 and not an aspirated stop as reported by Zvelebil (93; $1.22.1.1.). (10) The palatalization of inflectional tt following i or y in verbs is shown to be a very comlnon ‘tendency’ in Ta. Literary Ta. vaittu > (Chola inscr.) vaircu “having put’ (94). It seems to me that this is even more widespread in SDr. The comparison of Tamil forms !ike ccy-VW- (past tense of caus. stem of cey ‘to do’) with Ka. gey-isu and Te. cZyincpoints to a reconstruction * key-vi-ntt, where *-vinnt developed to Te. -incu, -pincu (pili-pinc- ‘to cause to call’) Ka. -isu, -icu, Koqda -isu, Go. (Koya) -is (with loss of nasal), etc. The following etymological group shows a very early palatalization of a dental stop @ED(S) 3792) at the derivational level. SDr I: Ta. ma&x ‘cloud, white cloud, fog, dew’, Ma. nraGiizl, Ko. manj, To. moz, Ka. maiiju, Kod. maEji, Tu. maindu ‘dew, mist, fog’; SDr II: Te. mancu, Kuvi (F) moncn, (S) mancu, Go. mat, Konda m~su, Kuvi ~na~cu cyu ‘dew’; CDr: Kol. matic ‘mist’; Pa. r~zafi,mu@ ‘mist, dew’; mpndir, me’dir ‘dew’; 011. npndir. The CDr languages (including Tulu here) retain the PDr *may-nt which, apparently, had a variant *may-ntt; with palalization and loss of y we get *ma-ncand *ma-ncc-; note in Telugu Y post-nasal voiceless stop derives from a geminate (Raj? 1969). Pa. mafi and Kol. mane and perhaps those of SDr II are borrowing from Te. This etymological group, incidentally, supports the grouping of SDr I and II and separating of Pa. Kol. Nk. as CDr which do not innovate this palatalization. (11) Zvelebil posits a sound change y -+ s/ _ t in Telugu, whereby ~~p~rr‘to do’ has a variant c&s(t~) ‘doing’ in modern Telugu (93: 5 1.22.2.3). This change is due to the restructuring of the Telugu stem by incorporating an original past-participial morph -si and not due to a sound change, i.e., *ceyai > *c&si > cFs-i (TVB 8 52.39-57). In noun derivation we still see cry + ta -+ cgta where y does not become s.
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(12) In giving the reflexes of *& Zvelebil mixed up in SDr II languages three complementary developments. (a) f between vowels or finally, (b) post-nasal position. These two give voiced reflexes, whereas (c) *t before a voiceless stop and *f_tgive voiceless reflexes (94-6; 1.2 3.1). Kor;lda alone preserves these as 5 and R (voiceless alveolar trill) respectively. Kui, Kuvi, Pengo and ManQa change them into palatals or sibilants, providing a clear isogloss pointing to a common parent stage of these languages within SDr II. (13) Koqcja has no l! (5 1.23.2.2). The item in question is gzc~~rn ‘horse’.
(14) “In Telugu ‘11 has falien together in the earliest records with ff, !ater with _f”(I00: 8 1.23.2 11. It should read “.tl after a short vowel and .r after a long vowel”. This distribution is true of all voiceless stops in Telugu, deriving from proto-geminate stops. (15) On p. 99 in table 4, spoken Ta. Ma. Te. Ka. Yis shown to derive directljj from PDr *L, p arAle1 *with Literary Ta. Ka. Te. -Y-.This is not correct. In each of these languages r:r remained distinct and c merged with r progressively in different environments. This is borne out by the inscriptional evidence of these languages which represented spoken rather than the written form. (16) PDr. *CUW > Kuvi hart4 ‘salt’ (p. 106). The direction of the developments in SDr II is *COW-W> sir > ham. All these stages are preserved in SDr II languages (see supra, l-3.2). (17) I do not think Zvelebil is correct in positing k- > C- before front vowels in Go., Kuvi, Fe. and Mancja on the basis of three items (118-9; 3 1.26.1.20) all of which look like prehistoric borrowings from the neighbouring Telugu (LED(S) 1679, 1337, 1272). “This replacement seems, however, irregular and dependent upon some additional factors”. Zvelebil has not identified any of these factors. (18) Discussing contraction of vowels eka > E, oka > 6, etc. across continuants including the lenis k (y, w, k), Zvelebil posits six steps for change - many of which are only imaginary and not warranted by attestable evidence, e.g. *tural> * tual > * tuvai> * toval> *Ton1> 61 ( 123; $j1.26.2.6), the loss of intervocalic -k-, insertion of a glide -w- and again its loss leading to a long vowel. Toda has tnj ‘be rolled UP’ corresponding to Ta. c~ruj which is also a case of vowel contraction UYU+ @.There is no diachronic or synchronic motivation to set up loss-insertion-loss of an intervocalic consonant. It is purely a question of two syllables becoming one in fast speech. Such a change is promoted by the quality of
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the intervocalic consonant which can be easily slurred like y, W, or k, and in rare cases a liquid as i,r Toda. (19) Zvelebil suspects if some dialects of PDr had a phonemic glottal stop (162; 5 1.37.2). In SDr II languages (Go, Kui, Kuvi, Konda, Pengo, etc.) a glottal stop is secor,dary. It arises typically between vowels with the loss of a consonant. There are some archaic Koqda dialects that preserve the consonants which became glottal stops in the others, e.g., rivq:ri?er ‘two men’ (<*riwer <*h-war) (see Krishnamurti 1968a: 22-3). (20) The palatalization of *nt *to r?c after JJ or i in Tamil is attributed to the Middle Tamil period, e.g., ai2cu (1069 A.D.), aficu (1073 A.D.) corresponding to Literary Tamil aintu (5 1.40.9.1; p. 17 1). But this looks to be a much earli,er change in SDr (see above). &zcu has cognates in Ta. MLI.Ko. To. and Kod from which it appears that it was there in Pre- or Proto-Tamil in the spoken varieties (Cf. DEDfsj 23 18). (2 1) Talking about the development of a nasal + hornorganic stop, Zvelebil says that “in Go., Konda, Te., Kol.-Nk., the nasal was preserved while the occulsive was lost (especially *mp)“. This does not seem correct. In the case of *mp, tnere was progressive assimilation in Telugu, for instance, e.g., *tumpu > tsammu ‘to sneeze’, pampu > p8mu ‘snake’ (only C after a long vowel). (22) Zvelebil speculated on the origin of double consonants from clusters of liquid and stop in PDr (177-80; 5 5 1.41-2). Such assimilation is noted during the recorded history of modern Ta., Ma., Te., and perhaps To., and Ko. SDr Ii and CDr languages normally maintain consonhnt groups in an unassimilated condition; there is no phonological motivation to derive *cat < CUT+ t. Because, according to morphophonemic rules of Dravidian, a dental becomes assimilated to an alveolar or a retroflex, e.g., *I + *tt -+ *_tU, *1 + *tt -+ *_t+t but nowhere does a retroflex continuant and a dental stop’ produce an alveolar stop (179; I .41.2.5). (23) There are not many misprints. But among those that came to my notice I mention below only the significant ones: (p. 30) “ii = Ir. high back rounded vowel” (?unrounded); (p. 36, line 7) (C)l V1 X2- should read (C)l VI-C2 ; (p. 37, line 6) Gondi Li-venjtr should read Kui hi-venju. !p. 43, line 6 in $1.11.1.41) vafasu should read valaczr;(p. 50, line 1 in 5 1.12.2.! ) Y (
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pakai ‘smoke’, should read prrkai.
Notwithstanding the forthright comments and criticisms made in this review, Zvelebil must be congratulated on attemtpting this scholarly synthesis of research in comparative Dravidian phonology. As an “initiatory text” (24), this work overshoots its mark by supplying too much data that fails to fit into definite patterns of correspondences. Zvelebil’s book, unlike Emeneau’s Skctdz (1970), focusses more on what is least known than what is best known in the field. By the same token, it should be welcome by Dravidian scholars, who could then look for more tangib:e areas of research in Dravidian phonology.
Stmforcl, I/.S. A.
Bh. KRISHNAMURTI
References Bhattacharya, S., 1957.
Ollari: A Dravidian speech. Delhi, Manager of publications, Government of India. Burrow, T. and S. Bhattacharya, 1953. The Parji language. Hertford: Stephen Austin & sons. Burrow, T. and M.B. Emeneau, 1961. A Dravidian etymological dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Burrow, T. and M.B. Emeneau, 1968. A Dravidian etymological dictionary: supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Caldwell, Rt. Rev. R., 1956. A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-lndian family of languages. Repr. 3rd ed. Madras: Univ. of Madras. Emeneau, M.B., 1969. A Kota vowel-shift. Journal of Tamil Studies l(l), 21-34. Emeneau, M.B., 1970a. Kodagu vowels. JAOS 90, 145-58. Emeneau, M.B., 1970b. Dravidian comparative phonology: A sketch. Annamalainagar (Tamilnadu): Annamalai Univ. Emeneau. M.B., 1973. Review of K. Zvelebil, Comparative Dravidian phonology. Linguistics 107, 77-82. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1958. Alternations i/e and u/o in South Dravidian. Lg. 34,458-68. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1961. Telugu verbal bases: A comparative and descriptive study. UCPL 24. Berkeley/Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press. Krishnamurti. Bh., 1968a. Konda or Kibi, a Dravidian language. Hyderabad: Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1968b. Dravidian personal prunouns. In: Bh. Krishnamurti ted.), Studies in Indian linguistics, 189-205. (Professor M.B. Emeneau Sastipiirti Volume). Annamalainagar/ Poona: Center of Advanced Study in Linguistics. Krishnamurti, Bh., 1975. Review of M.B. Emeneau, Dravidian comparative phonology: A sketch. JAOS 95,312-3. Raja, N.K., 1969. Post-nasal voiceless plosives in Dravidian. Tamilnadu: Annamalai Univ. Sambasiva Rao, C.S., 1973. On proto-Dravidian morphophonemics. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 3,217-42. Subrahmanyam, P.S., 1975. Proto-Dravidan *a, *a: Todd a/o,aF. 18 pp. Mimeo. Zvelebil, K., 1967. On morphophonemic rules of Dravidian bases. Linguistics 32,87 -95. Zvelebil, K., 1972. Initial plosives in Dravidian. Lingua 30,216-26. Zvelebil, K., 1971. Irub vowels. IIJ 13,113-22.