text_combined: comparative syntax two languages one grammar previously posted text another mailing list participant list also reads linguist urged post well contribution comparative syntax discussion text set left margin drawn man many voices language cultural context robbins burling new york holt rhinehart winston 1970 isbn 003 08100109 john gumperz examined colloquial dialects marathi kannada village along maharastra mysore boundary central india two languages come direct contact marathi indo aryan language kannada dravidian historically two languages go back utterly different antecedents indo aryan dravidian languages contact india several thousand years long influenced one another along borders mutual influence profound village studied gumperz speakers feel bilingual two village dialects share large part grammar one almost doubt whether count separate languages consider example following sentence kannada hog w nd kudri turg mar aw nd tags verb suff adj noun noun verb suff pron verb marathi ja un ek ghora cori kar un tew anla english go one horse theft take brought idiomatic english gone stolen horse brought back morphemes kannada sentence different marathi sentence used according identical grammatical principles sentences identical constituent structures morphemes occur order kind suffixes attached kind bases sentences seem means atypical village usage fact one plausibly suggest two languages indeed two languages grammar differ items filling surface forms one translate one language another simply substituting one set lexical items another surface structure marathi kannada used village differ literary educated styles languages shown related standard forms according usual criteria linguists recognize genetic affiliation yet village dialects undergone profound mutual grammatical influence almost obscure boundaries two languages curiously case lexicon maintains separation considering effect marathi kannada upon one hardly maintain lexicon always easiest component language borrow true genetic affiliation necessarily shown underlying grammar burling bibliography refers following article read gumperz john j communication multilingual communities tyler ed cognitive anthropology new york holt rhinehart winston 1969 john cowan sharing account lojbab access digex net e osai ko sarji la lojban