Page 606 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

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, perfect and habitual. 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).

The non-declarative speech acts in Bhojpuri include interrogative, imperative,
optative and hortative moods. Polar questions in Bhojpuri are constructed simply

through the slightly raised intonation added to the questioned part of its declarative
counterpart. Alternative polar questions are made either simply juxtaposing the

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