Fellowship focus: Exploring the growth of complex predicates in Dravidian languages of southern India.
Languages change over time, but how do grammatical structures such as ‘complex predicates’ (multi-word structures that behave like a single verb) evolve? Focusing on Dravidian languages, which have some of the most intricate verbal systems found in any language, this Fellowship examines how the expansion of grammatical systems is regulated and facilitated by existing language structure. Dr Puttaswamy will collaborate with Surrey Morphology Group, using fine-grained coding of variation across different complex predicates to test the hypothesis that speakers notice patterns in their language and extend them to new environments through analogy.