Page 106 - Bhojpuri Verb Morphology

CHAPTER 7

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Bhojpuri is an Indo-Aryan language. Bhojpuri falls under the western sub-branch of

the Bihari branch of the Eastern sub-group of the Indo-Aryan language. A total of
1,712,536 people speak Bhojpuri as their mother tongue in Nepal. This is the third

major language of Nepal followed by Nepali and Maithili. Bhojpuri has acquired its
name from the place Bhojpur, which exists in the Indian state of Bihar. Bhojpuri is

mainly spoken in Sarlahi, Rautahat, Bara, Parsa, Chitwan, Nawalparasi and
Rupendehi and in the adjacent Indian territories of western Bihar and Eastern Uttar
Pradesh. In the past Kaithi script was used for Bhojpuri language but now this

language is written in Devanagari script.

Different regional dialects of Bhojpuri exist in Nepal: central, western, eastern and
middle eastern dialects. Bhojpuri is also categorized into Tharu and Sheikh's dialects

named after the communities which speak the language. Central Bhojpuri is spoken in
Bara and Parsa, which is not influenced by Awadhi or Maithili.

Bhojpuri verb stems are of three kinds, namely, primitive, derivative and compound.

The morphological structure of primitive verb stem is simple. Derivative stems are
derived from different word classes and compound verb stems include two or more

primitive or derivative stems. Bhojpuri verb stems are divided into two types on the
basis of verb final segment, namely, vowel final stem and consonant final stem. The

former is further divided into - final stem, - final stem, - final stem, -final stem, -

 final stem and - final stem.

The structure of Bhojpuri verb is:

V  (Neg) Stem ((Aspect + be ) + Tense + Concord.)

Three categories of tenses- past, present and future exist in Bhojpuri. All three tenses
are marked differently according to the person, gender, number and honorificity.
None of the tenses make distinction for gender in 1 person. In Bhojpuri, verb agrees
st
with tense system. The verbs are also inflected for different aspects, moods and
modality by means of different morphemes

Mainly two types of aspects are distinguished in Bhojpuri language - perfective and

imperfective. These aspects are further divided. We find three types of perfective

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