Introduction

Typically in Tai languages the head precedes the modifier. As Morey says, “The noun phrase in the Tai languages is a strongly head initial structure”. He adds, “if there is more than one modifier in an NP, the most unmarked order appears to be – Noun > Adjective > Possessor > Classifier > Relative Clause > Demonstrative. Though there are no examples in the corpus of texts showing all of the possible modifiers.” (Morey 2005: 259) This order of modification is attested in the Tai Ahom language, spoken during the Ahom kingdom that ruled in Assam in the period 1228-1824. This unmarked order is found in Ahom manuscripts; however, some variant orders are also found.

We begin the paper with a brief history of Ahom which is discussed in section 2. In section 3, I provide the source of manuscripts used for the study and, in section 4, I discuss briefly about modification process in general. Following it, in section 5, I present an outline of the linguistic features of Ahom, and move on to discuss modification at a language-particular level in section 6. Section 6.1 deals with different kinds of modifiers. With this we turn in section 7 to a survey of the unmarked order of constituents and subsequently look at modification order of expressives in section 7.1. The next two sub-sections, i.e. 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 explore the functions of expressives as modifiers and as intensifiers.

Introduction

The aim of this study is to provide a morphological and syntactic description of personal pronouns in Madhav Kandali's Ramayana (MKR). Prior to the main discussion on grammatical intricacies to be followed hereon, a brief background of the MKR is in order to authenticate the relevance of this study.

MKR has been attributed to the 14th century, (Sharma 1996; Neog 1985), a period of great significance in the history of the Assamese language, where the first phase of renaissance in religious, cultural and linguistic field was taking place. Around five court poets, including Madhav Kandali, produced Assamese texts during this period. Madhav Kandali translated the entire Sanskrit Ramayana composed by Valmiki into Assamese at the behest of the king Maha-Manikya of Tripura (Medhi 1936: 70). Though Kandali was an accomplished scholar of the Sanskrit language, he did not use the style of Sanskrit in his translation. He wrote it in an easy and simple, yet sublime style to cater to the needs of spiritual leaders to religious enlightenment of the mostly illiterate masses.

It is believed that over the 6th and 7th century, AD, the spoken form of the Assamese language began to develop and spread among the people. It got its written form during the 12th and 13th century, AD (Saikia Borah 1993). The specimen of this period is Carya, written by the Buddhist Siddhacharyas on palm leaves (Tāl pāt), hailing from the different parts of ancient Kamrupa.

Overview of the Mon-Khmer (MK) languages of India (Meghalaya, Assam) and Bangladesh

The MK group of languages spoken in NE India, especially in Meghalaya since the formation of this State in 1972, is currently known as Khasi or Khasian. These two terms correspond to different facts and to an unsettled question. Standard Khasi has become the lingua franca and the written language of the MK eastern area of Meghalaya since British colonisation. This situation reflects the political and socio-economic leadership of the Khasi group over other MK groups in Meghalaya and also the isolated cultural situation of the MK group inside NE India. As a state of India, Meghalaya has two parliamentary constituencies: a Garo one and a Khasi one. Any War, Pnar or Lyngngam person would say he is Khasi as some kind of “national” identity, different from any other neighbouring Tibeto- Burman (TB) or Indo-Aryan (IA) identity. On the other hand, “Khasian” is not an empirically defined term from the viewpoint of MK linguistic classification. The chapter in Grierson (1904) on “Khassi” and its Synteng (that is Sutnga Pnar), Lyngngam and War “dialects” provides basic lexical lists of 200 items and two translated Bible texts in those so-called dialects. This material shows important lexical dissimilarities and deep morphosyntactical differences. Those languages are labeled “corrupted dialects” of Khasi by Roberts (1891), who provided the data. Those groups and what remains of the former dialects of Khasi: Mylliem and Khyrim (or Khynriam), have never been thoroughly surveyed.

Background

The membership of the Boro-Garo branch of Tibeto-Burman has been clear, at least since the 1903 publication of Vol. III, No. II of George Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India. This volume was devoted to the “Bodo, Nāgā, & Kachin” languages and it included a map, “Bodo Group,” that is still the best map of these languages that I know. This map is reproduced here as Figure 1, but with the modern names for the languages added. Even the subgrouping within the Boro-Garo branch has received a wide consensus, although this has more often been due to copying previous guesses, than any serious new inspection of the data (Burling 1983, Egerod 1980, Hale 1982, Shafer 1966–74). Enough new data on these languages has now become available to invite a fresh consideration of their relationship.

The languages that are presumed to belong to the Boro-Garo group are listed across the bottom of Figure 2, and the forks in this diagram summarize my best present judgment about how the various languages are related to one other. The forks are numbered roughly from the top to the bottom of the diagram, and they represent splits between smaller groups within Boro-Garo. After describing some features that are characteristics of most or all of the Boro-Garo languages, I will point to the evidence that supports each of these splits.

The geography of Malabar was partly responsible for the relative isolation of Malabar Muslims, the intellectual consequences of which were noticeable during the period of socio-religious movements in the nineteenth century North India. Apart from the linguistic and geographical barriers, it can be argued that the Mappillas of Malabar were unaffected by the reform movements in the north possibly because of the absence of a powerful ‘ulama class associated with a court culture like that of the Mughals; the lack of a highly educated Muslim elite like the ashraf of North India; their being sunnis of the Shafi'i school; and their links with the Arabian heartlands rather than with the rest of India. However, there were exceptions to this general trend in that there were a handful of Mappillas who went to Deoband and also, the usual barriers to penetration were surpassed by the missionary Ahmadiyya movement.

Among the early socio-religious movements in Malabar in the period between 1870s and 1920s was that of Sanaullah Makti Thangal. He was initially an excise inspector in the British government but resigned in 1882 to become a social reformer. He was a severe critic of the Christian missionary activities in Malabar and to counter them, he mobilised the Mappillas through public meetings and pamphlets defending Islam and challenging Christian religious ideas. He also advocated English education, the education of girls and reformed the Arabi-Malayalam script.