Page 439 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

b. Raised subject of active
आशा से नफरत करे म" राजु गलत रहे ।

ɑsɑ se nʌpʰrʌt kʌre mẽ rɑju ɡʌlʌt rʌɦe
ɑsɑ se nʌpʰrʌt kʌr-e mẽ rɑju ɡʌlʌt rʌɦ-e

hope with hatred do-PUR LOC Raju wrong live-3.PST
'Raju was wrong to hate Asha.' (12.151)

c. *Raised object of active
*आशा राजु खाितर ओके नफरत करे म" गलत रहली ।

ɑsɑ rɑju kʰɑtir oke nʌpʰrʌt kʌre mẽ ɡʌlʌt

ɑsɑ rɑju kʰɑtir u-ke nʌpʰrʌt kʌr-e mẽ ɡʌlʌt
hope Raju for 3SG-DAT hatred do-PUR LOC wrong

rʌɦli
rʌɦ-ʌl-i

live-PP-3.PST.F.MH
'*Radha was wrong for John to hate (her).' (12.152)
12.2 Contrastive focus constructions

Dixon (2010a:174) clarifies that "... topic is a discourse strategy, serving to
link together successive clauses, focus involves one argument (or the predicate) being

accorded prominence within a single clause. "The contrastive focus constructions
cover a range of communicative contexts, including contexts of contrary belief or
counter expectation at one end and various emphatic devices on the other" (Givón

2011:293). Within this range, different devices, i.e., intonation (focused elements tend
to be stressed), constituent order (focused elements tend to be dislocated) and

morphological affixes or discourse particles, are utilized to encode the contrastive focus
in pragmatically marked constructions. These devices exhibit a considerable overlap
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among them. The contrastive focus constructions in Bhojpuri are discussed as follows:
12.2.1 Contrastive affixes and quantifiers

Some noun modifiers such as 'even', 'all', 'every', 'other', 'first', 'only', 'self',
'really' and 'just' seem to attract contrastive focus almost obligatorily (Govón,
2001b:233). In Bhojpuri, affixes come first and seem natural whereas quantifiers are

4. Givón (2001b: 221) maintains that "in the discussion of contrastive focus, a certain overlap with
other domains of grammar is unavoidable. This is so partly because complex functional domains are
bound to intersect. Thus for example, many contrastive devices overlap with the domain of ‘topic’.
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