Page 602 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

aspirate sonorants. All the consonant phonemes occur in the inter-vocalic position. All
the aspirate sonorants occur either in intervocalic or in word-final or both of

intervocalic and word-final positions but not in the word-initial position. Moreover, म

/m/ and ङ /ŋ/; र /r/ and ड़ /ɽ/; व /w/ and य /y/; ड /ɖ/ and ड़ /ɽ/ do not show word-initial
̈
̈
contrast. The phonemes फ /pʰ/ and भ /b ̤ /; ड /ɖ/ and ढ /ɖ/; ठ /ʈʰ/ and ढ /ɖ/; do not show
word-final contrast. In consonant clusters, we do not find gemination of either of the

aspirated or breathy phonemes in Bhojpuri. Likewise, glottal voiced ह /ɦ/ also doesn't

occur in gemination. Similarly the glides do not occur in pre-consonantal, and the
aspirate sonorants do not occur in post-consonantal position and gemination in
Bhojpuri. One of the typologically striking features of the Bhojpuri language in terms

of phonology is that it has aspirate sonorants in contrasts of nasals, lateral and flaps.
There are four categories of vowels in Bhojpuri: oral vowels, nasalized

vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs. Total number of oral vowels is eight with their
nasalized counterparts. Length is not contrastive in Bhojpuri. All the oral
monophthongal vowels occur in all the positions: word-initial, inter-consonantal and

final. The syllable canon in Bhojpuri is (C)(V)(C)(C). Bhojpuri has only one
suprasegmental feature: intonation.

Bhojpuri was previously being written in Kaithi script but now Devanagari is
the canonical script of Bhojpuri. It seems to be regular and systematic to a greater

extent, largely true for 'tadbhava' forms and recent borrowings from English and other
languages, but almost inconsistent for the 'tatsama' forms. Schwa deletion, nasal

assimilation, consonant gemination and vowel insertion are the specific characteristics
of Bhojpuri that the canonical writing system does not exhibit. Similarly, voiceless

postalveolar fricative श [ʃ], retroflex fricative ष [ʂ] have now become allophones of

the alveolar fricative स /s/, syllabic approximant ऋ [ɹ] has been changed into !र /ri/,
palatal nasal ञ [ɲ] and retroflex nasal ण [ɳ] have become allophones of alveolar nasal

न /n/ though they still remain in writing, especially for tatsama words. Metathesis is

also found a specific characteristic of Bhojpuri.
16.1.3 Morphophonological features

Bhojpuri shows up a few morphophonological processes such as deletion,
raising, assimilation, epenthesis and coalescence. Under process of deletion, a vowel

or a consonant or a syllable from either of a segment of the preceding and succeeding

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