Kangri In Context: An Areal Perspective

Abstract

This study is a grammatical description and analysis of the dialect of Pahari known as Kangri, spoken in and around Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. It presents data for Phonology, Tone, Stress, Morphology, and Syntax and includes feature comparisons with several of the related regional and high domain languages (Hindi, Punjabi, and Dogri), particularly at points where they differ. Special focus is given to issues involving stress assignment and tone. These are shown to be sensitive to different morphological categories, for which the framework of Lexical Phonology is useful in accounting. Various tense/aspect grammatical categories are also discussed, among which there are some unique features in Kangri. There is also a discussion of the copulas used in Predicate Nominal constructions which bear a striking resemblance to English copulas and provides a different analysis of the 'be' verb in both languages.