Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia

Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia explores the intricacies of the grammars of several of the languages of the South Asian subcontinent. Specifically, the contributors to this volume examine grammatical resources for shaping elaborative, rhyming, and alliterative expressions, conveying the emotions, states, conditions and perceptions of speakers. These forms, often referred to expressives, remain relatively undocumented, until now.

It is clear from the evidence on contextualized language use that the grammatically artistic usage of these forms enriches and enlivens both every day and ritualized genres of discourse. The contributors to this volume provide grammatical and sociolinguistic documentation through a typological introduction to the diversity of expressive forms in the languages of South Asia.

This book is suitable for students and researchers in South Asian Languages, and language families of the following; Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic.

Jeffrey P. Williams is Professor of Ethnology and Linguistics in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Texas Tech University. He is coeditor on three books (excluding the present contribution) and editor of another. His field-based research has been in the West Indies, Australia, Papua New Guinea and with Native American tribes in Oklahoma (USA) and Montagnard refugees in North Carolina and Texas (USA). He is presently writing a monograph entitled Expressives for Cambridge University Press.