Page 359 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

unchallenged by the hearer, it is said to be presupposition. Realis refers to something
which has happened or is happening, so, it may be extended to refer something which

is certain to happen (Dixon 2012:22). In a realis assertion the speaker asserts a
proposition to be true and has evidence for its truth-value if questioned. Irrealis refers
to something which has not (yet) happened and it often also is used for something

which did not happen in the past, but might have (Dixon 2012:22). So, within irrealis,
there are generally a number of modality choices, covering necessity, possibility,

potential, etc The proposition in irrealis assertion is the one that the speaker asserts
weakly to be either possible, likely or uncertain, or necessary, desired or undesired.

Hence, the speaker is not ready to back up the assertion if challenged. In negative
assertion, the proposition is strongly asserted to be false, most commonly in

contradticiton to the hearer's explicit or assumed beliefs.
Further more, the four traditional modalities are grouped into two super
modalities in which the first two come to be factual and the rest two non-factual

epistemic modalities. In Bhojpuri, distribution of epistemic modality can be described
as follows:

a) Inherent modality of lexical verbs
Much like inherent aspects, lexical verbs (or adjectives) in Bhojpuri also carry

some inherent modality – either presupposition or realis or irrealis or negations. This
can easily be revealed by applying the reference test, since verbs spread their modal

scope over their oject NPs. Let us consider the indefinite object in the following:
(14) a. ऊ िबलाई पोसेला । (Fact)

u bilɑi poselɑ
u bilɑi pos-elɑ

3SG.NOM cat keep-3SG.PRES.NH
'He keeps a cat.' (13.042)

b. ऊ िबलाई खोजता । (Irrealis)
u bilɑi kʰojʌtɑ

u bilɑi kʰoj-ʌt bɑ
3SG.NOM cat search-IMPF be.3SG. PRES

'He is searching for a cat.' (13.043)
c. ऊ िबलाई ना राखे । (Negation)

u bilɑi nɑ rɑkʰe

331