About the Book This volume consists of 30 selected papers presented to the IInd International Conference on South Asian Languages and Linguistics held during January 9-11, 1980, hosted by the Department of Linguistics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. The papers cover a wide range of topics in South Asian Linguistics: phonetics, phonology, language variation, Panini, semantics, typology, etc. A special feature of the volume is a collection of essays which focus on two important aspects of South Asian Linguistics, viz. "Convergence and "Diglossia" which should be of interest to all students of Linguistics all over the world.

Most of the contributors of these papers are established scholars in South Asian Linguistics with international renown.

About the Author Bh. Krishnamurti is Professor of Linguistics at Osmania University, Hyderabad. He received a BA (Hons) degree (1948) in Telugu language and literature from Andhra University, Waltair, and A.M. (1955) and Ph.D. (1957) in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. His publications include: Telugu verbal bases: comparative and descriptive study, UCPL 24 (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1961); A Telugu dialect dictionary of occupational vocabularies, Vol. 1 (Agriculture 1962), Vol. II (Handloom 1972), Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Akademi (Hyderabad): Konda or Kubi: A Dravidian language (Hyderabad, 1969), A grammar of modern Telugu (coauthored with J. P. L. Gwynn), Oxford India (New Delhi, 1985).

Colin P. Musica has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is Professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. His major work is Defining a linguistic area: South Asia, the University of Chicago Press (Chicago, 1976)

Anjani K. Sinha is a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is Reader in the Department of Linguistics, Delhi University.

Preface The Second International Conference on South Asian Languages and Linguistics (IInd ICSALL) was held in Hyderabad, January 9-11, 1980, hosted by the Department of Linguistics, Osmania University. It was attended by 250 scholars from U.S.A., U. S. S. R., Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Nearly 200 of them were from various Indian universities and Institutes of higher learning.