Pragmatics and Classical Sanskrit: A Pilot Study in Linguistic Politeness

466 Pages·1993·35.7 MB·English

by  Lieve Van de Walle

PRAGMATICS AND CLASSICAL SANSKRIT
Pragmatics & Beyond
New Series
Editors:
Jacob L. Mey
(Odense University)
Herman Parrei
(Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp)
Jef Verschueren
(Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp)
Editorial Address:
Linguistics (GER)
University of Antwerp (UIA)
Universiteitsplein 1
B-2610 Wilrijk
Belgium
Editorial Board:
Norbert Dittmar (Free University of Berlin)
Bruce Fraser (Boston University)
John Heritage (University of California at Los Angeles)
David Holdcroft (University of Leeds)
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (University of Lyon 2)
Beatriz Lavandera (University of Buenos Aires)
Marina Sbisà (University of Trieste)
Emanuel A. Schegloff (University of California at Los Angeles)
Paul O. Takahara (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)
Sandra Thompson (University of California at Santa Barbara)
Daniel Vanderveken (University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières)
Teun A. van Dijk (University of Amsterdam)
28
Lieve Van de Walle
Pragmatics and Classical Sanskrit
PRAGMATICS AND
CLASSICAL SANSKRIT
A PILOT STUDY IN LINGUISTIC POLITENESS
LIEVE VAN DE WALLE
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1993
To David, Gaëtane and Tess
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van de Walle, Lieven.
Pragmatics and classical Sanskrit : a pilot study in linguistic politeness / Lieve Van de
Walle.
p. cm. - (Pragmatics & beyond, ISSN 0922-842X ; new ser. 28)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sanskrit language-India-Usage. 2. Sanskrit language-Social aspects-India. 3. Prag
matics. 4. Politeness. 5. Interpersonal communication. I. Title. II. Series.
PK663.W36 1993
491'.2'0954-dc20 93-28325
ISBN 90 272 5040 5 (Eur.)/l-55619-296-7 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
® Copyright 1993 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O. Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • 821 Bethlehem Pike • Philadelphia, PA 19118 • USA
Contents
Preface vii
Transcript Notation ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. The aims, scope and epistemological basis 1
2. Structure and contents 6
Part I: PRAGMATICS AND CLASSICAL SANSKRIT 9
1. On Sanskrit and Classical Indian Society 11
1.1 A sociolinguistic sketch of the language 11
1.2 Indian society
A succinct sociological study 27
2 Linguistic Politeness: Theoretical aspects 41
2.1 What is politeness? 41
2.2 How is politeness conveyed? 44
2.3 Towards a synthesis 74
3 The Indian perspective 79
3.1 Politeness in general 79
3.2 Face 82
3.3 Indirectness 87
Part II: A PILOT STUDY IN LINGUISTIC POLITENESS 91
1 Methodology 93
1.1 The corpus 93
1.2 The scope of the research 97
1.3 The method 100
1.4 Aims of the study 102
1.5 Linguistic-markers of politeness in directive speech acts
directives 103
2 Abhijnānasakuntalam
2.1 A brief outline of the play 131
2.2 The raw material 132
2.3 Dyadic interactions 143
2.4 Conclusions 192
vi PRAGMATICS AND SANSKRIT
3 Nala 201
3.1 A brief outline of the narrative 201
3.2 The raw material 203
3.3 Dyadic interactions 214
3.4 Conclusions 249
4 Mrcchakatikā
4.1 A brief outline of the play 255
4.2 The raw material 257
4.3 Dyadic interactions 266
4.4 Conclusions 300
5 Dasakumäracaritam
5.1 A brief outline of the narrative 307
5.2 The raw material 312
5.3 Dyadic interactions 320
5.4 Conclusions 346
6 General Conclusions 351
6.1 Notes on the Sanskrit apparatus 351
6.2 Notes on B & L 369
6.3 Final evaluation 376
APPENDIX 1 : Voice, Mood and Finiteness Revisited 379
1 Formation 379
1.1 The finite passive 379
1.2 The verbal adjective 381
1.3 The gerundive 382
2 A brief history : Syntactic convergence 383
3 Beyond convergence 387
3.1 The verbal adjectives 388
3.2 The gerundive 388
3.3 The finite passives 392
4 A wider cultural perspective 395
APPENDIX 2: Quantitative Data 401
References 429
Index of names 445
Subject Index 447
Preface
During my initial years of research I was primarily interested in issues pertaining to
voice in Sanskrit. I soon discovered two things: First, that —far from being a loner in
this field— many (much more experienced) Sanskrit linguists shared this interest;
second, that a lot of these studies were confined within the narrow, but safer bound
aries of diachronic syntax. Being a pragmatician at heart, I was convinced that a
wider perspective on the phenomenon would be fruitful —albei ta bit risky and specu
lative perhaps. I saw it as a personal challenge to apply recent research techniques,
developed on the basis of contemporary languages, to a classical language.
The step from taking a pragmatic perspective on a primarily syntactic topic (i.e.
voice1) to a primarily pragmatic topic (i.e. linguistic politeness) was taken mainly
because the latter is an underresearched area in Sankrit linguistics, and because it
offers rich opportunities to investigate the possibilities and limitations of pragmatic
research in a classical language.
This monograph is a slightly revised version of the dissertation that I defended at
the University of Antwerp in December 1991.
After five years of study and research it is a pleasure to express my sincere grati
tude to all the people who have assisted me in one wa yor another.
In writing this study I owe a special debt to GeorgeD e Schutter, my supervisor
and friend, without whose persuasiveness I would have never become a linguist. I am
most grateful for his ideas, his practical assistance, his uncompromising methodolog
ical approach, his critical attitude, and —not in the least— for his warm support and
encouragement even when I gravitated towards research that is not so close to his
heart.
My thanks are also due to HansH enrich Hock for having made possible my stay
at the University of Illinois, and for having boosted my confidence in Sanskrit
Viii PRAGMATICS AND SANSKRIT
Linguistics at a time when it was at a record low. I have benefited more from his
thoughts and suggestions, his expertise, and his workethic than is possible to ac
knowledge.
Rajeshwari Pandharipande stimulated me by repeatedly expressing her confidence
in, and enthusiasm about my research project, and helped me shape my ideas on
politeness by challenging most. Her gentle, but yet critical attitude in our discussions,
is very much appreciated.
I further wish to thank Jozef Deleu, Louis Goossens and Jef Verschueren for their
constructive criticism at the oral defense which has improved the quality of this work
considerably.
In addition, a number of friends and colleagues have read portions of the
manuscript, and have taken the time and effort to write down their comments. I am
especially grateful to Jan Blommaert, and Ken Rose.
This study would not have been possible without the generous financial and logis
tic support of the Belgian National Science Foundation, the University of Antwerp
and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
I cannot begin to express my gratitude to my parents, sisters and brother for their
support, confidence, and affection all along. Finally, the tenderness and
understanding of my husband, David, and the joyous (and not so joyous) presence of
my daughters, Gaëtane and Tess, have contributed more to the completion of this
monograph than they will ever know. I thank David for his technical support, and for
bravely correcting the proofs, even though nodding off every now and then.
Notes
1 Cf. Appendix 1 for the outcome of this study.
Transcript Notation
Apart from those words which have been integrated in the English vocabulary, all Sanskrit
proper names and passages are represented with their original spelling. The Sanskrit words
are rendered in Roman script whereby I use international conventions for transliteration (cf.
Deleu 1977:11; Stoler Miller 1984: xii). Below follows a brief overview of the most
important symbols.
— The vowels a, i and u can be lenghtened: ā is a long a: īis a long i; ū is a long u.
— The sonorant r can be vocalized. In that case it occurs as r, or r if it is long It is
pronounced as ir in bird.
— The palatals c and; sound like ch and; in the English 'church' and 'jockey', respectively.
— The guttural g is pronounced like the g in the English 'girl'.
— The cerebrals (retroflex) are indicated with a dot under the stop, t, th, d , dh, and are
pronounced with a curled tip of the tongue against the palate.
— All stops can be aspirated: kh; gh; ch; jh; th; dh; th; dh; ph; bh. The aspirated consonants
are considered single consonants.
— There are five types of nasals:
guttural ñ , pronounced like n in the English 'sing'
palatal n, pronounced like the ni in the English 'onion' and the n in the Spanish 'Espana';
dental n, like n in the English 'man';
cerebral n, to be pronounced with a curled tip of the tongue against the palate;
labial m, like m in the English 'man'.
The m nasalizes the preceding vowel, and sounds like un in the French 'Verdun'.
— There are three types of sibilants: We usually pronounce both palatal s and cerebral s like
sh in the English 'shock'; dental s, like s in the English 'sister'.
X PRAGMATICS AND SANSKRIT
— The h only occurs at the end of a syllable or word (in pausa), and replaces the original r or
s. Stoler Miller describes it as a 'rough breathing vowel'.
The symbol '=' means that in the original Sanskrit text the words connected by this symbol
are joined together. For instance, sthira-praûbandho < sthirapratibandho. In case vowels are
adjacent (one word ends in a vowel and the following word starts with a vowel) I undo the
Sandhi. For instance, nānyo → na-anyo ; noktam → na=uktam\ neva → na-iva; naiva ->
na=eva; madhviva →madhu=iva; yadyaham → yadi-aham.