The research papers of late Prof. VI. Subramoniam. (VIS) is not fully compiled and published. They are still remaining scattered in several journals and magazines. The present book contains twenty papers mainly published in International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics. Even though a strong publication unit under the authority existed in International School of Dravidian Linguistics and Dravidian Linguistic Association of India, he never shown interest to compile his papers in a book form. Rather he encouraged and helped others to publish their papers but stayed reluctant in his own case.
The papers collected here cover various fields of linguistic investigations like Dravidian words in Sanskrit, rules of Nasal Assimilation in Malayalam, methods of teaching languages, Alapetai forms in early Tamil, Neutral and Alveolar Nasals in Malayalam, Gender in Hindi, speech variations, present tense markers in Malayalam, semantic structure of Folk compositions and the development of Pre-Malayalam and certain literary essays for instance, Proper nouns in Cankam literature and Influence of Tamil in Mahabharata.
The article "The contribution of L.V. Ramaswami Aiyar to Comparative and Historical Methods in Dravidian" is a critical evaluation of LVR's contribution to Dravidian done by V.I.S. LVR's contribution to Dravidian was purely a labour of love. VIS's observation goes like this:
"Here is a great collector of relevant forms who classifies and tries to arrange them for a future generation to discover the underlying rules in history and pre-history. For another quarter of a century, students of Comparative Dravidian and the history of Malayalam and Tamil will remember him as a great collector of language facts and an able critique of what has been published in the field before him in the specified areas."
As a mark of great admiration to the author of Evolution of Malayalam Morphology, VIS named the building in which the Tribal Museum is housed in the ISDL campus as L.V.R. Block and published a book on L.V.R. which highlights the linguistic personality of Ramaswami Aiyar by different scholars.
According to VIS, the absence of the reconstructed bases in the Burrow and Emeneau Dictionary is a serious omission. The table of phonemic correspondences has several deficiencies.
In a note on Gundert VIS underlined the merits of the DED. He opined that Gundert's contribution to Malayalam in particular and to Dravidian in general is path-breaking. The paper on Present tense markers in Malayalam states that the present tense markers offer clues to settle approximately the date of the text if that is undated and to assign the place of its origin. In one paper, VIS draws attention to the possibility of the influence of Tamil themes and literary outlooks on the recension of the Mahabharata.
Through these papers, VIS supplied new information and made the learner explore more to develop the ideas he abridged. Our plan to release this book on 29-6-2020, the 11th death anniversary of VIS failed due to Covid-19 pandemic disaster.
Special thanks to Dr. Abdul Samed, Harikumar Basi and Greeshma for the help rendered in the publication of this book.
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist