Lexical Anaphors and Pronouns in Selected South Asian Languages: a Principled Typology.

• Author: Shapiro, Michael C.
• Position: Book Review

Edited by BARBARA C. LUST, KASHI WALI, JAMES W. GAIR, and K. V. SUBBARAO. Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, vol. 22. Berlin: MOUTON DE GRUYTER, 2000. Pp. xiv + 904. DM. 396.

This work grows out of a decade-long project, carried out at the University of Delhi, Cornell University, and other venues, to investigate, analyze, and compare data on anaphora in a range of representative South Asian languages. As part of this project, it was decided to prepare a volume of surveys, all adhering to a predetermined common format, each concerning anaphora in a selected Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, or Austro-Asiatic language. The surveys were to be written in such a way as to facilitate comparison of anaphoric phenomena both within and across the language families of South Asia.

Ten languages in all are represented in the volume, including the four literary Dravidian languages (Kannada [R. Amritavalli], Malayalam [K. A. Jayaseelan], Tamil [E. Annamalai], and Telugu [K. V. Subbarao and B. Lalitha Murthy]), eight Indo-Aryan languages (Bangla [Gautam Sengupta], Gujarati [P. J. Mistry], Hindi/Urdu [Alice Davison], Kashmiri [Kashi Wali, O. N. Koul, P. E. Hook, and A. K. Koul], Marathi [Kashi Wali], Oriya [Tapas S. Ray], Panjabi [Tej K. Bhatia], and Sinhala [James W. Gair and W. S. Karunatillake]), the Tibeto-Burman language Mizo (B. Lalitha Murthy and K. V. Subbarao), and the Austro-Asiatic language Juang (Manideepa Patnaik and K. V. Subbarao). The four editors have jointly written a theoretical introduction that provides a systematic overview not only of the structure of the volume, but of anaphor as an important linguistic phenomenon within South Asian languages. The work also contains extensive supplementary material, including the full outline template to be used in writing the surveys, a glossary, list of abbreviations, list of transcription conventions and symbols, and an index. The index is not of the conventional kind, however. It has been prepared in such a way as to indicate the languages in which each of specific kinds of anaphoric phenomena are present.

The utility of this book is greatly...