KONDA or KUBI - A DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

This monograph is regarding the language of Konda of Araku valley, Visakhapatnam. They call themselves as Kubi. There had been a few references to the existence of this language, until a publication by S. Bhattacharya. Konda preserves several features of Proto-Central-Dravidian and is of immense philological interest in the study of konda Dora language. Their language is closely related to kuvi and kui, and even more closely related to Pengo and Manda which form a pair within the same sub-family. An extensive study was done by Bh. Krishnamurti and helps in constructing their dialect. Here the text is divided into different parts. The part one describes different stories about different situations and different issues. Part two describes the grammatical outlines like phonology, morphophonemics, word classes, nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, connectives, inter-junctions and vocatives, clitics, syntax. Intonation is only tentative and is ignored in the transcription. All consonants are more sharply articulated in initial position than in final. Vowels and Co-Vowels: All short vowels contrast with the corresponding long vowels and therefore carry a co-vowel phoneme of length. Transition features and stress: A Konda utterance may consist of one or more than one phonological phrase which is an autonomous unit and which can be an utterance by itself or form part of a larger unit. Consonants: The environments in which consonental contrasts are illustrated. Vowels: are of following types short: long, higher: lower, oral: nasal. Their distribution is also described in the next context. Morphonemics: a morpheme may occur in a single phonemic shape or in more than one phonemic shape in the total system of a language. External Sandhi, Internal Sandhi are explained. Word Classes: A morphological word in Konda may be defined as a grammatical unit consisting of one or more morphologically bound morphemes, which unit as a whole is not morphologically bound to any other unit within larger constitutions. Nouns: nouns are a class of words whose stems are distinguished or inflected for one or more of the categorises of gender, number and case. Adjectives: They are a class of words, primarily identifiable by their syntactic function as attributes to the following nouns. Verbs: Verbs are class of words inflected for the categories of tense or mode. The nucleus of a verb form is a verb stem. Adverbs: Adverbs, like adjectives are primarily set off by their syntactic function as attributes/complements to verb phrases or sentences. Connectives: This chapter deals with words grouped by their function as coordinating and subordinating conjunctions at the clause and phrase level. Interjections and Vocatives: They are autonomous linguistic units known as minor sentences. Clitics: These are a class of syntactic markers of one or two syllables which enter into construction with words, phrases or clauses. Syntax: This chapter presents only a broad outline of phrases and clause structure in Konda utilizing some of the techniques provided by the transformational model of description. Part three explains vocabulary of the Konda Dora.