LSA 136: Vedic Sanskrit grammar: Synchrony and diachrony

Gary B. Holland | session 1 | MW 8:30 – 10:15, 106 Moffitt Hall

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to Vedic Sanskrit. We will study basic Vedic phonology, morphology, and syntax, and a highly limited selection of the secondary literature devoted to these topics. Each week we will also read and analyse a small number of Vedic text selections, both verse and prose. The instructor will provide glossed and parsed text selestions for analysis.

The course is intended both for students who have studied some Sanskrit, and wish to have an introduction to Vedic Sanskrit, and for general linguists who have no Sanskrit, but who wish to learn something about a typologically interesting language.

• Week 1. The place of Sanskrit among the Indo-European languages. The nature of Vedic Sanskrit documents. Outline of historical phonology from Indo-European to Vedic Sanskrit. Synchronic phonology and phonological processes. Vedic accent. Vedic Sandhi.
• Week 2. Vedic nominal inflection. Derivational processes. Pronouns and deictics. Verbal categories. Vedic verbal inflection. Secondary derivational processes. The Injunctive.
• Week 3. Vedic syntax: Word order. Wackernagel's law. Adpositions and case. Complex sentences. Relative sentences. Infinitival complements.

Reading: Selected materials available online.

Areas of linguistics: Areal and historical linguistics; Languages of Eurasia