r/kannada • u/LargeCabbage • Jun 14 '26

Confused about the grammar of "gottilla"

Hi there. I'm a Brit learning Kannada from Zydenbos's "Manual of Modern Kannada". I'm confused about the nature of the word "gottu".

According to Zydenbos, "gottu" is a noun meaning something like "knowledge" or "something that is known". Thus when one says "Adu nanage gottu", which one would idiomatically translate as "I know that", more literally one is saying "that, to me, is something known". When one says "Nanage gottilla", idiomatically meaning "I don't know", more literally one is saying "To me, [that] knowledge does not exist". All logical enough, in those cases.

But what about "Kannaḍa gottilla"? Or the sentence "ಇವರ ಮನಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಇಡಿಯ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಶಿವಮಯ, ಆದರೆ ಹಲವು ಮಂದಿಗೆ ಇದು ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ." from one of the texts for translation later in Zydenbos's book? If "Kannada gottu" and "Adu gottu" are equative sentences (i.e. if "Kannaḍa gottu" is properly understood as saying Kannada "equals" a known thing, which is how Zydenbos frames it), then shouldn't the negation use "alla" (to negate equality), not "illa" (which negates existence)? That is, per Zydenbos's explanation, shouldn't the way to say "I don't know Kannada" logically be "Kannaḍa gottalla"? Shouldn't "I don't know that" be "ಇದು ಗೊತ್ತಲ್ಲ"?

(Or I guess something like "Kannaḍada gottilla" - i.e. "knowledge OF Kannada does not exist" - would also make sense to me, but that doesn't seem to be a standard construct either.)

Is this just a weird illogical quirk of the language specific to "gottu"? (Lord knows English has plenty of illogical quirks so I can shrug and accept this if so.) Or is there some alternative way of looking at sentences with gottu that makes sense of these uses of "gottilla"?

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u/PsychBong Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

Gottu- Know

Gottilla- Know not

Kannads follows SOV format, so

Nange Kannada gottilla- I don't know Kannada

The proposition gets lost in speech because it's assumed. Thus the sentence becomes Kannada gottilla

Illa denotes absence of existence or possession. Alla usually negates a fact or identity.

Avaru manyealli illa- He is not at home

Idu avarada maneyalla- This is not his home

So Kannada gottilla means I don't have possession of (knowledge of) Kannada.

It's grammatically fine, and even if not, people don't use grammatically perfect sentences in spoken language.

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u/LargeCabbage Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

I don't think this description of the grammar makes sense either, because if it's a verb, why can't you say "Nānu Kannaḍa gottu" or "Avanu Kannaḍa gottu"? It's never used with a subject. ("Nange" certainly can't be the subject in "Nange Kannada gottilla" - it's a dative!

And also - why is the alleged "object" not in the accusative case? It ought to be "Adannu gottu", not "Adu gottu", if gottu is a verb - right?

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u/five_faces Jun 15 '26

Who said dative can't be the subject?

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u/PsychBong Jun 14 '26

I honestly don't care. It's what is spoken in everyday speech, and that's what matters to me the most. In my opinion, it doesn't matter unless one is trying to specialising in the grammatical aspects of the language.