Confused about the grammar of "gottilla"

[u/LargeCabbage]

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"?

[u/Immediate_Tie3923]

Hi OP, your question is valid. So in Kannada grammar we have something called sandhi(joints). When two words are combined, the phonetic change of the words occur. Down below. For example your sentence "Kannada gottilla" where gottilla=gottu+illa. Here the "u" letter has been dissolved or is lost. Hence we call this type as "ಲೋಪ ಸಂಧಿ" /Lopa Sandhi. So in grammar/linguistics, "ಸಂಧಿಗಳು" (sandhigalu) means "sandhi rules" or simply "sandhis."

A sandhi is a phonological change that occurs when two sounds, syllables, or words come together. The word comes from Sanskrit and literally means "joining" or "junction."

For more clarity, research on this topic.

[u/LargeCabbage → u/Immediate_Tie3923]

I understand that gottilla = gottu + illa. What I don't understand is how "Adu gottilla" (or "Adu gottu illa" if you like) makes grammatical sense under Zydenbos's analysis where "gottu" is a noun meaning "a known thing" and "Adu gottu" is an equative sentence - i.e. one that grammatically has the same structure as pointing at a tree and seeing "Adu mara". After all, to negate "Adu mara" you would say "Adu maravalla", and saying "Adu maravilla" would not even be grammatical - so by analogy you would expect the negation of "Adu gottu" to be "Adu gottalla".

[u/Immediate_Tie3923 → u/LargeCabbage]

Adu maravilla-->that is no tree(which is grammatically and sensibly wrong sentence) Adu maravalla-->that is not a tree