A MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY OF SINHALESE BY ADIKARY ARACHCHIGE ABHAYASINGHE THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE 1975 IMAGING SERVICES NORTH Boston Spa, Wetherby West Yorkshire, LS23 7BQ www.bl.uk mry an mry BRITISH BEST COPY AVAILABLE. VARIABLE PRINT QUALITY AND DAMAGED PAGES ACKN OWLEDGEMENTS I would like to put on record my gratitude to the following : Professor R.B.Le Page : for general guidance Dr. M.W.S.De Silva : for supervising my work Mr. M.K.Verma : for his comments and suggestions Staff members of the Department of Language The secretaries of the Department of Language Staff members of the J.B.Morrell Library of the University of York My Ceylonese colleagues at the University of York Mr. Clive Warlow : for suggesting many improvements in my English My wife, Wimala : for her constant encouragement and help The Vidyalankara University of Ceylon s for granting leave and financing me throughout. March 1973 A .A.Abhayas inghe iii CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations and symbols ix Introduction 1 1. The Sinhalese language 1 2. The Diglossic situation 1 J. Prose-poetry distinction in literary Sinhalese 2 4. Differences in the spoken variety 2 5. The language of this study 3 6. Informants and data 4 7. Morphology 6 8. The word as a linguistic uhit 9 9. The modem trend 16 10. Transformational Grammar 18 11. Sinhalese Morphology: The proposed description 21 12. Citation of examples 25 PART ONE : THE NOUN PHRASE 26 I. Introduction 27 Chapter 1 jq 1.0. Noun in Sinhalese JO 1.1. Common nouns JO 1.2. Proper nouns 38 1.3» Kinship nouns 41 1.4* Status nouns 43 Chapter 2 ^ 2.0. Pronoun in Sinhalese 45 2.1. The First Person pronoun 48 2.2. The Second Person pronoun 47 iv 2.3. The Third Person pronoun 50 Chapter 3 55 3.0. Number and Definiteness 55 3.1. Number in Sinhalese 55 3.2. Definiteness in Sinhalese 62 Chapter 4 67 4.0. Case in Sinhalese 67 4.1. Case relations in Sinhalese 79 4.2. Subjectivisation in Sinhalese 79 4.3. Agentive Case 1 83 4.4. Agentive Case 2 84 4*5» Objective Case 85 4.6. Experiencer Case 87 4.7« Dative Case 88 4.8. Source Case 89 4.9» Goal Case 90 4.10. Locative Case 91 4.11. Directional Case 93 4.11A. Directional Locative Case 94 4.11B. Directional Source Case 96 4o11C. Directional Goal Case 97 4.12. Instrumental Case 98 4»13» Comitative Case 100 4o14» Time 0ase 101 4.15. Purpose Case ‘ 103 4.16. Cause Case 104 4.17« Possessivisation and the Possessive marker 107 4.18. Vocative marker 109 V PART TWO : PREDICATE 114 II. Introduction 115 Chapter 5 116 5.0. The verb in Sinhalese 116 5.1. Action verbs 117 5.2. Process verbs 122 5.5« Stative verbs 124 5»5A. Possessive verb 125 5.4. Verbs of perception 127 5.5. Copula verb 150 5.6. Stative modal predicates 131 5.7* Passive (verb) in Sinhalese 132 Chapter 6 135 6.0. Adjectives in Sinhalese 135 601. Stative transitive adjectives 136 6.2. Intransitive adjectives 137 6.3. Deictics in Sinhalese 139 Chapter 7 145 7.0. Causative verbs 143 7.1. Causative verbs from Action verbs 149 7.1A. Double causatives 151 7.2. Causative verbs from Process verbs 152 7»3« Causative verbs from perception verbs 154 7.4. Causative verbs from Stative verbs 155 Chapter 8 156 8.0. The Auxiliary of a sentence 156 8.1 * Tense 157 vi 8.2. Aspect 157 8.5. Mood 159 8.4» The Imperative mood 161 8.5. Realisations of the auxiliary 164 8.6. Realisation of the Imperative mood 168 8.7» The Benedictive mood 175 8.8. The Inferential mood 176 8.9. Possibility mood 177 8.10. Modality of Certainty 177 8.11. Modality of Obligation 178 8.12. Copula verb auxiliary 178 8.13* The auxiliary of conjoined sentences 181 8.14» The auxiliary of constituent sentences 185 8.15. Some sentence connectives and conjunctions 190 PART THREE : MORPHOPHONOLOGY 193 III. Introduction 194 Chapter 9 207 9.0. (The Phonological) Noun Phrase 207 9.1. A set of phonological noun classes for the common noun 207 9.2. Allomorphic variation of 1P pronoun and 2P derogatory pronoun 214 9»3» Allomorphic variation of some number realisations 216 Chapter 10 221 10.0. (The Phonological) Verb 221 10.1. Causative verb 221 vii 10.2. Syllabic structure of the verb in Sinhalese 229 10.2A. Monosyllabic structure verbs 229 10.2B. Disyllabic structure verbs 230 10.2C. Trisyllabic structure verbs 232 10.2D. Quadrisyllable structure verbs 233 10.3» Vowel nuclei of different syllables of the verb 234 10.4» Back to Front Vowel change 239 10.5. Reduplication of verbs 241 10.5A. Reduplication of monosyllabic structure verbs 241 10.5B. Reduplication of disyllabic structure verbs 243 IO.5C. Reduplication of trisyllabic structure verbs 243 10.5D.Reduplication of quadrisyllable structure verbs 244 10.6. Allomorphic variation of the verb 244 10.6A.Allomorphic variation of monosyllabic structure verbs 245 10.6B. Allomorphic variation of disyllabic structure verbs 251 10.6c. Allomorphic variation of trisyllabic structure ■ verbs 254 10.6D. Allomorphic variation of quadrisyllable structure verbs 255 Chapter 11 257 11.0. Sandhi 1 : Internal Sandhi 257 11.1. The word in Sinhalese 257 11.2. Sandhi 1 : Internal Sandhi 263 11.3. Some additional phonological rules 275 viii Chapter 12 282 12.0. Sandhi 2 : External Sandhi 282 12.1. ExternalSandhi Rules 282 APPENDIXES 292 Appendix A 293 A.O. Quantifiers and Modifiers 293 A.1. Quantifiers in Sinhalese 293 A.2. Modifiers in Sinhalese 296 A.2A. Time modifiers 298 A.2B. Place modifiers 298 A.2C. Manner modifiers 302 A. 2D. Quantifying modifiers 303 Appendix B 305 B. O. Question, Emphasis,Negation etc. in Sinhalese 305 B.1. Question formation 305 B.2. Emphasis 310 B.3. Negation 316 B.4. Tag Question formation in Sinhalese 324 B. 5» Reported speech 325 Appendix C 327 C. O. Nominalisation in Sinhalese 327 C.1. Nominalised Phrases 327 C.2. Nominalised Clauses 329 C. 3. Compound nouns 330 Appendix D 335 D. O. Concord in Sinhalese 335 D.1. Concord of Imperative sentences 336 D.2. Concord in Equational sentences 339 Bibliography 342 ix ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS adj adjective Ag Agent ive ani animate App Appendix asp aspect Aux /aux Auxiliary Bib Bibliography Ca Case caus causative Cf / cf compare Ch chapter cl class com common(noun) cone concessive cond conditional) conj conjunction cop copula verb Dat Dative Def / def definite(ness) dero derogatory Dir Directional dir direct e.g. exempli gratia 'for example' ed(s) editor(s) emp emphasis E.S.R. External Sandhi Rule fem feminine ff following fn foot note X Go Goal hum human ib ibidem 'in the same book IDIO idiosyncratic •H 0) • • id est 'that is' Imp /imp Imperative in infra 'below' inani inanimate Ind Indicative indef indefinite inf infinitive I.S.R. Internal Sandhi Rule 1 lit literal^ Loc Locative mas masculine N noun neg negative / negation No number nom nominaliser NP noun phrase Obj ' Objective obi oblique ord ordinary part participle phono phonological pl plural poss possessive p(p) page(s) pred predicate pro pronoun proper proper noun xi 0 Prop 0 proposition Pt • past q.v. • quod vide 'which see* Q / ques • question Redup • Reduplication Refl • Reflexive resp • respect S • sentence sg • singular Sinh • Sinhalese Sk «• Sanskrit So • Source subj • subject subord • subordinate sup • supra 'above' Tr • Transitive V • vide 'see' vb • verb 0 vd ' 0 voiced ' 0 vl 0 voiceless 0 Voc 0 Vocative vol • volitive Vol • Volume 1P • First Person 2P • Second Person 5P • Third Person * • a precedimg asterisk indicates an unaccept- -able structure. xii *? : doubtful + : plus, 'present'»positive value of binary variable; concatenation...' , : minus, ' negative value of binary variable. : 'is equal (equivalent)to ' : ' is not equal(equivalent) to ' / : in the environment # : word boundary && s sentence boundary D : if.... then 5 hypothetical proposition, s ' includes' =$ / > :'becomes' : resulted from; derived from, s 'realise as; rewrite as,..' [ ] : features ; phonetic representation ( ) : optional X 1 : choice of x or y x if x and y are both present. .y - v vowel c consonant ABSTRACT 'A Morphological Study of Sinhalese' is an attempt to study the relation between meanin^g and form of morphemes and to account for any variations of morphemes when they are combined to form 'words} and of words when they occur in sentences. The thesis is divided into three parts. In Part One, which comprises four chapters, an attempt is made to study different aspects of the noun phrase. A noun phrase consists of noun, number, definite- -ness and caae.Different classes of nouns are discussed in chapter 1; pronouns in chapter 2; number and definiteness in chapter 3> and case in Sinhalese in chapter 4* In Part Two, which has four chapters,various types of verbs and adjectives, both of which comprise the predicate of the majc of sentences, are discussed. Accordingly, the verb, the adjective,* the causative verb in Sinhalese are described in chapters 3, 6 and^7 respectively. Chapter 8 deals with the auxiliary of a sentence. '/I-'*' 'j Part Three, which comprises four chapters, is entitled,^ V -'^ V' 'Morphophonology', for its purpose is primarily to account for tif e v l differences of form of morphemes and words. In chapter 9» a numbea phonological noun classes are distinguished to account for the cl^ of some associated morpheme variants.