SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
Stampa
Enrollment year
2015/2016
Academic year
2016/2017
Regulations
DM270
Academic discipline
L-LIN/01 (GLOTTOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS)
Department
DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES
Course
THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS; LINGUISTICS AND MODERN LANGUAGES
Curriculum
PERCORSO COMUNE
Year of study
Period
2nd semester (27/02/2017 - 01/06/2017)
ECTS
6
Lesson hours
36 lesson hours
Language
English
Activity type
ORAL TEST
Teacher
KULIKOV LEONID (titolare) - 6 ECTS
Prerequisites
NO
Learning outcomes
The aim of this course is to introduce the students to the main linguistic features of Vedic Sanskrit – one of the most ancient Indo-European languages. The course will offer a general survey of the corpus of Vedic texts and a brief outline of the Vedic grammar, focusing, foremost, on the features of the language of the oldest Vedic text, the Rgveda. A synchronic description of the early Vedic linguistic system will be accompanied with elements of the Indo-Aryan historical grammar. We will read small portions of the most ancient Vedic text, Rgveda, in transliteration as well as an extract from a middle Vedic prose text, Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā. We will mainly concentrate on the linguistic analysis of texts, but some extra-linguistic aspects of understanding Vedic texts will be touched upon as well.
Course contents
The course familiarizes the students with the basic facts about the origins of Indo-Iranians and Indo-Aryans as well as with the place of their languages among other branches of Indo-European. It offers a general survey of the Old Indo-Aryan texts (corpus of Vedic texts), their content and classification, as well as of the sociolinguistic situation in Ancient India. The course further provides a brief overview of the main linguistic features of Vedic Sanskrit: phonology and morphophonology, ablaut alternation and sandhi, as well as basics of the Vedic grammar: nominal morphology (cases and declension types; main paradigms; pronouns) and verbal system (the main grammatical categories: tense, mood, voice; verbal agreement; tense systems; classification of present stem types; voices and valency-changing categories, such as causative); elements of syntax (passive constructions, relative clauses). Grammatical information will be illustrated with examples from Vedic texts (Rgveda and Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā), which the students will read, translate and discuss in class. A synchronic description of the phonological and morphological system will be accompanied by brief historical Indo-European excurses, providing parallels from other Indo-European languages.
Teaching methods
Lectures and seminars
Reccomended or required readings
Grammars and textbooks:
Macdonell, A.A. A Vedic grammar for students. Oxford, 1916
Macdonell, A.A. Vedic grammar. Strassburg, 1910.
Whitney, W. D. Sanskrit grammar. Cambridge, 1889.
– Dictionaries:
Böhtlingk, O. & Roth, R. Sanskrit-Wörterbuch. St. Petersburg, 1855-75.
Monier-Williams, M. A Sanskrit-English dictionary. Oxford, 1899.
– Readers:
Macdonell, A.A. A Vedic reader for students. Oxford, 1917.
Lanman, Ch.R. Sanskrit Reader. Harvard UP, 1884 and other eds.
Assessment methods
Oral and written exam
Further information
Sustainable development goals - Agenda 2030