A grammar of Palula

[Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm]

Dear friends and colleagues,
I'd like to draw your attention to a PhD dissertation by  Henrik  
Liljegren, "Towards a grammatical description of Palula: An Indo- 
Aryan language of the Hindu Kush" that was successfully defended at  
the Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm University a few days ago  
(supervisor – prof. Östen Dahl). All the members of the evaluation  
committee and the opponent agree that this is an excellent and  
comprehensive grammar, inspite of its modest title.

The abstract is given below.

"This dissertation is intended to provide a grammatical description  
of the Indo-Aryan language Palula, spoken by approximately 10,000  
people in Chitral District in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier  
Province. No study with the scope and detail of the current work has  
been presented in the past for this little-known language, and it is  
one of only a few in-depth studies available for languages in the  
immediate surrounding of the Hindu Kush region.
The analysis is based on original data primarily collected during the  
period 1998-2006, mainly in the form of recorded texts but  
supplemented by questionnaires, notes of observed language use and  
the elicitation of word lists and paradigms. The field work has been  
conducted in close cooperation with native speakers and their  
communities.
The description covers phonology, morphology, syntax and a range of  
the most important topics within each of these sub-disciplines, but  
it is not meant to be an exhaustive reference grammar. Some topics  
have been given greater prominence in the work, as they have  
particular importance to the language, whereas others have been  
covered more summarily. Suggestions for further research that should  
be undertaken are given throughout the study.
The approach chosen is theory-informed rather than theory-driven, but  
an underlying framework of linguistic typology and non-formalism is  
assumed. Diachronic development is taken into account, particularly  
in the area of morphology, and comparisons with other languages and  
references to areal phenomena are included insofar as they were  
motivated and available."

The whole text of the dissertation can be found at

http://www.diva-portal.org/su/abstract.xsql?dbid=7511

Best regards,
Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm

Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm University
106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
tel.: +46-8-16 26 20
tamm at ling.su.se
http://www.ling.su.se/staff/tamm



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