Page 605 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

Different postpositions are used in Bhojpuri for case marking with nouns but
pronouns are generally suffixed as well as followed by postpositions for the same

purpose. The cases nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, genitive, locative,
ablative and comitative are marked to code syntactic relations of the NP to the finite
verb in a clause. The inanimate patient is zero marked whereas the animate and

pronominal patients are marked morphologically. Bhojpuri has the dative subject
construction as one of the characteristics of the New Indo-Aryan languages.

Noun phrases in Bhojpuri are categorized as simplex and complex. A noun phrase can
consist of a single noun or pronoun with other elements such as demonstrative,

genitive, number, adjective and relative clause, noun, compound noun and pronoun in
Bhojpuri. Likewise, the number and case marker morphemes are also the elements of

a noun phrase. NP→(Dem)-(Gen)-(Num)-(appositional phrase (AP))-Head is the
common linear order of a noun phrase. Besides, there is also availability of scattered
NPs in Bhojpuri. The complex noun phrases are found in Bhojpuri to have been

juxtaposed or conjoined by conjunction, joint participants in a single event, in relative
order of near>far, adult>young, male>female, singular>plural, animate>inanimate,

large>small, agent>patient and positive>negative but most of them are also found in
reverse order in Bhojpuri.

Bhojpuri is an SOV order language. Most of the implications of the SOV word
order hold true in Bhojpuri. Adjectives, demonstratives, genitives and numerals in

Bhojpuri precede the head noun they modify. However, Bhojpuri allows enough
flexibility of the constituents in the pragmatically marked constructions. The degree
word modifying an adjective precedes it. Manner adverbs in Bhojpuri precede the

main verb in unmarked clauses. The ability word follows the main verb. In complex
sentences, the relative clause precedes the head noun it modifies. Most of the

adverbial clauses in Bhojpuri precede the main clause; however, the cause and reason
adverbial clauses follow the main clause. Complement clauses in Bhojpuri occupy the
slot between the subject and the main verb. All the affixal elements, except the

negative morpheme, follow their heads. In a finite verbal complex, aspect markers
precede the tense marker. The negative prefix in Bhojpuri may be repeated to create

absolutive negative sense.
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

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