Indian English Grammar

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Anglistisches Seminar
HS: Indian English
Dozentin: Prof. Dr. Marianne Hundt
Referentinnen: Eva Breither & Simone Schöll
Datum: 29.05.2008

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Topics

1. Introduction: grammar
2. Indian English syntax
3. Methodology in linguistic research
4. Mukherjee & Hoffmann: study on
verb-complementational profile

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1. Introduction:Grammar
Language

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Grammar
Language

Structure Pragmatics Use

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 Grammar
Language

Structure Pragmatics Use

Medium of
Transmission
(phonetics/phonology)

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 Grammar
Language

Structure Pragmatics Use

Medium of Grammar
Transmission
(phonetics/phonology) (morphology/syntax)

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 Grammar
Language

Structure Pragmatics Use

Medium of Grammar Meaning

Transmission (semantics,
(phonetics/phonology) (morphology/syntax) lexicon/sentence)

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 Grammar
Language

Structure Pragmatics Use

Medium of Grammar Meaning

Transmission (semantics,
(phonetics/phonology) (morphology/syntax) lexicon/sentence)

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 Grammar
Language

Structure Pragmatics Use

Medium of Grammar Meaning

Transmission (semantics,
(phonetics/phonology) (morphology/syntax) lexicon/sentence)

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Grammar
Morphology
How related words, including plurals and
past tenses are formed
Syntax
What category a word belongs to and how
to use it in a sentence

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2. Indian English Syntax
South Asian English (SAE)
Cover term for educated variety
Several varieties within SAE – parameters
Proficiency in English
Region & regional dominant language
Ethnic background
Functionally determined varieties
Babu English, Butler English, Boxwāllā English

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Babu (baboo) English

Used in most of north India, in Nepal,

parts of south India
Formerly administrative English
Excessive stylistic ornamentation,
politeness, indirectness

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Example: Application
for a Post
Sir, being in much need and suffering many
privations I have after long time come to the
determination to trouble your bounteous goodness.
[…] Here on earth who have I but thee, […]
needless to say that unless your milk of human
kindness is showered on my sad state no other hope
is left in this world
[…] If your honour kindly smile on my efforts […]
and bestow on me a small birth (berth) of rupees[…]
then I can subsist myself and my families without the
hunger of keen poverty, with assurance that I am
ever praying for your goodness and liberality.

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Butler English
(Kitchen/ Bearer E.)

Used in major metropolitan cities

Language simplification
Butler-master communication
Local language characteristics and SVO
word order
Structure like „minimal‟ pidgin

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Characteristics
Use of tense
Present participle indicates future: I telling
(„I will tell‟)
Preterite: I done tell („I have told‟)
Deletion of auxiliaries, verb inflections,
prepositions; often-ing forms; restricted
lexicon
Indirect speech reported directly

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Englishisation
Impact of English language and
literature on south Asian languages and
literatures
At the grammatical level
Impersonal construction
Passive construction
Word order

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Rakesh M. Bhatt
Direct and indirect questions
VIE: direct questions: wh-phrase is moved to the
left-edge of the clause:
When you are coming home?
also: wh-phrases can occur in any order:
What who has eaten?
Who has eaten what?
Indirect questions: wh-phrase is followed by
auxiliary:
I wonder where does he work.
 inversion: restricted to indirect questions and
does not apply to matrix questions (unlike StIE)

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Tag questions
VIE: cultural requirements of politeness –
principle of non-imposition:
You said you’ll do the job, isn’t it?
You have taken my book, isn’t it?
 In cultures where verbal behaviour is under
constraint by politeness regulations, the grammar
of the variety spoken permits the use of
undifferentiated tags:
These mistakes may please be corrected.
 These mistakes should please be corrected.

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Topicalization
Definition: Syntactic operation that places given
information at the beginning of a sentence which
is followed by new information
VIE: any constituent of sentence can be
topicalized
most common: object-noun phrase but also
adverbial of place and time:
Any minute he will come.
All of these languages we speak at home.
His friends know that her parents, he doesn’t like at all.

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The syntax of focus particle only

Whereas wh-phrases move to the left-edge of the

clause, other elements (e.g. adverbs) like only move
to the opposite side:
These women wear everyday expensive clothes only.
He will buy over there tickets only.
 verb does not have to be followed immediately
by its complement
 In VIE: correlation between right-edge and
focus

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Null subjects and objects:
Pro-drop
Pronoun can only be dropped if its reference can be
recovered from the agreement marking on the finite
verb  in VIE pro-drop is possible both in subject
and object position
Our Sanjay does that too: pro plays all day long, and then
pro just comes in and demands food.

Null expletive (it) subjects

VIE does not require semantically empty subjects like
it and there:
Pro rained yesterday only.

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Other features I
article variability
plural –s with non-count nouns: deadwoods, furnitures,
apparels
progressive with stative verbs:
You must be knowing him.
progressive form with future + with habitual and completed
action
present be for perfective have and been:
I am here since 2 o’clock.
auxiliary variation: could and would as tentative/ polite
instead of can and will, may instead of should

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Other features II

responses to yes-no questions couched in the negative:

Didn’t I see you yesterday?
Yes, you didn’t see me.
reduplication of adjectives and verbs:
different-different things
variation in „to‟ complements: We are involved to
collect poems.
use of post-verbal adverbial „there‟ in place of „dummy
there‟: Bread is there –‘There is bread’

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3. Methodology in
Linguistic Research
Rakesh M. Bhatt
syntactic description of English – based on
methodological premise
3 kinds of data collected in New Delhi
recordings of spontaneous speech
data from published sources
introspective judgements

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Methodology
Lange (Focus marking in Indian English):
Investigating the use of only and itself in Indian
English – data collected from the Indian subcorpus
of the ICE
Sharma (The pluperfect in native and non-
native English: a comparative study)
Examination of corpus of present-day Indian
English print texts for shift in usage
Quantitative and qualitative comparison with two
native varieties of English (BE, AmE) to establish
the nature of this change

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Methodology
Hoffmann und Mukherjee
pilot study with descriptive aim that
combines at methodological level use of
balanced and representative subcorpora
(ICE) with much larger database that has
been extracted from the internet archive of
the daily Indian newspaper The Statesman
syntactic description

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4. Mukherjee &
Hoffmann (2006)
“Describing verb-complementational profiles of
new Englishes”
Ditransitive verbs and their complementation
Verb-complementation: two aspects:
range of the patterns of an individual verb in a variety
range of verbs with which an individual pattern is
associated
Intransitive: no further element needed (SV)
Transitive: require an object (SVO, SVOO, SVOC,
SVOA)
Ditransitive: SVOO

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Complementation Patterns
of Ditransitive Verbs
Five basic types – give
I. (S) GIVE [O(i):NP] [O(d):NP]
II. (S) GIVE [O(d):NP] [O(i):PP(to)]
III. (S) GIVE [O(d):NP] O(i)
IV. (S) GIVE O(i) O(d)
V. (S) GIVE [O(i):NP] O(d)

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Group Work

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Thank you for your
attention !

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