A study on micro-verb phrases, quasi-verbs and compound verbs in middle Sinhalese language era with reference to the classical Sinhalese literary text "Buthsarana"

Abstract

Historical linguistic studies are based on ancient written records. Sinhalese language is rich in two fold varieties of written records, namely, rock inscriptions and classical literary texts. Based on the linguistic and structural changes, Sinhalese language is classified into four major periods as Sinhalese prakrit era, Old Sinhalese language era, middle Sinhalese language era and modern Sinhalese era. In the middle Sinhalese era (8c AD- 13 c. AD) "Buthsarana" written by Vidya Chakravarthi is considered a significant literary text due to its language style and creativity. This study explores variations of special categories of verb system identified as micro verb phrases, quasai verbs and compound verbs in middle Sinhalese language era. The study is multidisciplinary as it employs the theories of historical linguistics, structural linguistics and traditional grammatical theories as methodology. Data were collected manually and analysis was done by applying morphology as a principal structural linguistic theory. Micro verb phrases are a grammatical category that consists of two verb roots. A base and a subsidiary root which help to expand the meaning of the base and emerges as a single semantic unit. Three major patterns can be analyzed regarding these phrases. Quasai verbs are the defective verbs with a limited paradigm. Compound verbs are formed by joining a noun stem and verb root a together. Noun stem and verb root are interlocked and occur in the language as a single unit. Limited compound verbs are found in Buthsarana. Findings of this research benefit both linguists and the researchers interested in language studies.