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A Life in Linguistics

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Perspectives on the Architecture and Acquisition of Syntax

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Abstract

The first part of this chapter provides a brief sketch and summary of the academic contributions of R. Amritavalli to the field of linguistics. We note how her fascination with the complexity and structure of language has led her to explore innovative and novel ideas, often pathbreaking, in the areas of grammatical categories and their origins, finiteness and tense or the lack thereof in certain language families, the patterns of ergativity and case marking splits in South Asian languages, and the acquisition of functional categories in Dravidian languages, especially negation, and tense. In the second part of this chapter, we summarize the contributions of the 12 essays in this volume in the context of the larger linguistic landscape. We situate the issues and claims made in each paper in the broader set of themes, bringing out their importance. We also sketch each paper’s main contributions while focusing on the insight it builds on, sometimes highlighting the questions that are raised by it.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Gautam Sengupta

  2. Department of Linguistics and Contemporary English, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, 500007, Telangana, India

    Shruti Sircar

  3. Department of Materials Development, Testing and Evaluation, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, 500007, Telangana, India

    Madhavi Gayathri Raman

  4. Department of Computational Linguistics, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, 500007, Telangana, India

    Rahul Balusu

Authors
  1. Gautam Sengupta
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  2. Shruti Sircar
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  3. Madhavi Gayathri Raman
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  4. Rahul Balusu
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Correspondence to Rahul Balusu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Gautam Sengupta

  2. Department of Linguistics and Contemporary English, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Shruti Sircar

  3. Department of Materials Development, Testing and Evaluation, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Madhavi Gayathri Raman

  4. Department of Computational Linguistics, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Rahul Balusu

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Sengupta, G., Sircar, S., Raman, M.G., Balusu, R. (2017). A Life in Linguistics. In: Sengupta, G., Sircar, S., Raman, M., Balusu, R. (eds) Perspectives on the Architecture and Acquisition of Syntax. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4295-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4295-9_1

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