The Grammar of Carnatic Music

Phonology and Phonetics have had a tumultuous, if not always unequivocal, relationship in the past. This relationship between natural partners is now being invigorated from both sides and novel research techniques and methodologies are fostering new interdisciplinary questions. Consequently, a major issue today is whether it is necessary to draw a line between phonology and phonetics at all. This series aims to stabilize and strengthen the rapport and, by facing the big challenges, to ensure that phonetically grounded phonology and phonologically informed phonetics will have a sound future. The series is intended as a forum for the interaction of phonology and phonetics within linguistics. It welcomes joint phonological-phonetic ventures as well as initiatives from either discipline, as long as they are made with a view of the other.,This book argues that Carnatic music as it is practiced today can be traced to the musical practices of early/mid eighteenth century. Earlier varieties or ‘incarnations‘ of Indian music elaborately described in many musical treatises are only of historical relevance today as the music described is quite different from current practices. It is argued that earlier varieties may not have survived because they failed to meet the three crucial requirements for a language-like organism to survive i.e., a robust community of practitioners/listeners which the author calls the Carnatic Music Fraternity, a sizeable body of musical texts and a felt communicative need. In fact, the central thesis of the book is that Carnatic music, like language, survived and evolved from early/mid eighteenth century when these three requirements were met for the first time in the history of Indian music. The volume includes a foreword by Paul Kiparsky.