Page 372 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

10.5 Summary
In this chapter, we discussed the tense, aspect and modality in Bhojpuri. The

Bhojpuri verbs are inflected with suffixes -इल /-il/ and -अल /-ʌl/ or -वल /-wʌl/ for
infinitive or participle that plays significant roles in TAM. This language exhibits

morphologically marked past, present and future tenses with verbs. The past tense in
Bhojpuri is marked by the suffixes -इस /-is/, -ए /-e/, -एँ /-ẽ/, -अ /-ʌ/, -ऊ /-u/, -अस /-ʌs/, -

अक /-ʌk/, -अख /-ʌkʰ/, -अन /-ʌn/, -इनी /-ini/, -अनी /-ʌni/ or -नी /-ni/ for second and third

persons in accordance with gender, number and honorificity. Moreover, -इनी /-ini/ or -

अनी /-ʌni/ or -नी /-ni/ is full honorific marker in all environments replacing the

infinitive/participle markers -इल /-il/ and -अल /-ʌl/ or -वल /-wʌl/. The suffix -एब /-eb/

or -एम /-em/ generally marks future tense with verb roots in Bhojpuri. Besides, -इबे /-
ibe/, -इहे /-iɦe/, -इबऽ /-ibʌ/, -इह /-iɦʌ/, -इबू /-ibu/, -ई /-i/, -इह& /-iɦẽ/, -इहन /-iɦʌn/ and -

इहेन /-iɦen/ mark variably with regards to person, number, gender and honorificity.
Similarly, present tense in Bhojpuri appears in the form of verb-stem suffixed by
imperfective marker -अत /-ʌt/ followed by copula बानी /bɑni/, बाड़ऽ /bɑɽʌ/, बाड़ू /bɑɽu/,

बाड़& /bɑɽẽ/, बाड़ेन /bɑɽen/, बाड़न /bɑɽʌn/, बाटे /bɑʈe/, बाट& /bɑʈẽ/, बा /bɑ/ according to
person, gender, honorificity and number. But deletion and contraction have occurred to

delete ब /b/ from the copula and the rest morphemes to be contracted with -अत /-ʌt/.

Aspectual contrasts in Bhojpuri may be broadly categorized into perfective,
imperfective and perfect. Perfective aspects in Bhojpuri are inherent and grammatical.
In terms of their inherent perfectivity Bhojpuri verbs may be classified into compact

short-duration verbs, accomplishment-completion verbs, activity-process verbs and
stative verbs. In terms of grammatical perfectivity they focus on termination and

boundedness. Similarly, the imperfective aspect includes past progressive, future
progressive, present progressive, past habitual and present habitual. Besides, perfect
aspects are categorized as past perfect, future perfect and present perfect. Modality in

Bhojpuri may be divided into epistemic and evaluative (deontic) types. The truth,
probability, certainty, belief and evidence expressed in terms of presupposition, realis

assertion, irrealis assertion and negative assertion are epistemic modalities. Similarly,
ability and obligation fall under deontic modality. Bhojpuri also expresses some

distinctive moods in terms of declarative (indicative), interrogative, imperative, optative
and conditional (subjunctive) along with the allocutive agreement eastwards.

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