ABSTRACT
Gondi belongs to the South-Central branch of Dravidian. It is spoken by perhaps 2 million people in the central Indian states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and Orissa. The phonology of Muria Gondi generally resembles that of the other South-Central languages. What is unique is its treatment of vowel length. In Gondi, as in the other South-Central languages, the phonemic distinction between long and short vowels has been neutralized in non-initial syllables of the word. Muria Gondi morphology distinguishes free forms, or words, from clitics which necessarily combine with free forms. Gondi morphology is agglutinating and strictly suffixal. All nouns that denote non-human objects, excepttali ‘cow’ and rediyo ‘radio’, are neuter. Neuters include de-adjectival nouns denoting human females. Neuter nouns do not mark honorification, and seem to lack vocative forms.
