ABSTRACT
Kuvi belongs to the South-Central subgroup of Dravidian languages. Concentrated in the Koraput District of Orissa, its speakers also inhabit border areas of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Kuvi morphology distinguishes fundamentally between words and clitics. While words are independent free forms, clitics are phonologically bound to the words they follow. The meaning conveyed by a clitic need not modify just its host word but often the clause, sentence or discourse in which it occurs. In semantic terms, nominals include such types as names, definite descriptions and referring expressions they may correspond to arguments in logical structure or participant roles in speech acts. Simple nouns contain one lexical base and minimally mark case they may also mark gender and number. Complex nouns, called appellatives, additionally mark person. Gender is variously expressed by derivational suffixes, subject–verb agreement markers and differences in declension.
