Page 202 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

The possessives presented in (76) are used as both of the possessive
determiners as well as the possessive pronouns, as shown in (77a-b).

(77) a. िनि~त =प से भोजपुरी हमर माई के भाषा ह ।
niscit rup se b ̤ ojpuri ɦʌmʌr mɑi ke b ̤ ɑsɑ

certain form with Bhojpuri 1SG.GEN mother GEN language
ɦʌ

be.3SG.PRES
'Certainly, Bhojpuri is my mother tongue.' (03.035)

b. भइआ महाजन हो तोरा खेतवा म) आधा हमार बा ।

b ̤ ʌiɑ mʌɦɑjʌn ɦo torɑ kʰetwɑ mẽ
b ̤ ʌiɑ mʌɦɑjʌn ɦo tu-ʌr-ɑ kʰet-wɑ mẽ

elder brother creditor VOC 2SG-GEN-DEF farm-DEF LOC

ɑd ̤ ɑ ɦʌmɑr bɑ
ɑd ̤ ɑ ɦʌm-ʌr bɑ
half 1SG-GEN be.3SG.PRES
'O creditor brother, half of your farm is mine.' (02.038)

In (77a-b), हमार /ɦʌmɑr/ is an unstressed possessive determiner 'my' in (77a)

and a stressed independent possessive pronoun 'mine' in (77b).
Likewise, the interrogative pronouns as के /ke/ or कौन /kɔn/ 'who', का /kɑ/ or

कथी /kʌtʰi/ 'what', केकर /kekʌr/ 'whose'; relative and correlative pronouns as जे /je/ or

जौन /jɔn/ 'who', से /se/ or तौन /tɔn/ 'that' जथी /jʌtʰi/ 'whatever', तथी /tʌtʰi/ 'that';

indefinite pronouns as कौनो /kɔno/, कुछ /kucʰ/ 'some/few', कुिछओ /kucʰio/
5
'anything/everything' among others are used as determiners in Bhojpuri.
6.2.3 Compounding and Reduplication
Compounding and reduplication significantly form different word classes in

Bhojpuri are as follows:
a. Compounding

Compounding combines lexical categories (nouns, adjectives, verbs or
prepositions) resulting in a compound word as a noun, a verb, or an adjective

(O'Grady et. al. 1997:133). It is a prominent process of word formation in Bhojpuri
similar to its close neighbours Chitoniya Tharu (Paudyal 2013:90), Maithili (Yadav

5. Please see in Chapter 10, 11 and 12 in detail.
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