SinhalaSinhala is one of the official languages of Sri Lanka and the mother tongue of over 70% of the population. Outside Sri Lanka it is used among immigrant populations in the U.K., North America, Australia and some European and Middle Eastern countries. As for the genetic relation, it belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. Although the earliest surviving literature in Sinhala dates from the 8th century A.D., its written tradition has traced a longer path of more than 2,000 years. Among the major topics covered in this volume are the writing system, phonology, morphology, grammatical constructions and discourse and pragmatic aspects of Sinhala. Written in a clear and lucid style, the book presents a rich sampling of the data and serves a useful typological reference. Therefore this is required reading for not only linguists and Sinhala specialists but also to anyone interested in language, thought, and culture. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Writing system | 21 |
Sounds | 28 |
Words | 40 |
Morphology | 66 |
Morphologysyntax interface | 95 |
Argument structures | 100 |
Noun phrase and verb phrase constructions | 129 |
Sentence and information structure | 207 |
Discourse and grammar | 227 |
Pragmatics and grammar | 254 |
Sample texts | 273 |
Appendixes | 283 |
286 | |
292 | |
The series London Oriental and African Language Library | 297 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
according action active added adjectival adjectives adverbial agent animate appear argument aspect atin auxiliary base called causative child Chitra clause combined common compound considered consists consonant constituent construction context contrast dative deictic demonstrative denote derived direct discourse distinction element embedded event examples expressions fact fall father final focus focused function given grammatical hand identified imperative inanimate indicate Indo-Aryan languages inflect initial intransitive language letters lexical linguistic locative look marked marker meaning modified morphological mother nææ nominal noun numeral object Observe occur participant particle particular passive past pattern person phrase plural position predicate present pronouns question Ranjit referent regarding relation remains represent respect semantic sense sentence Sinhala situation speaker stem structure subordinate suffix syllable symbols tense topic transitive verb verbal vowel