LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:8 August 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2020
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Numeral Classifiers in Nepali

Krishna Maya Manger

Abstract

This paper presents a formal and functional description of numeral classifiers in Nepali. Nepali, like other classifier languages, has the feature of classifying nouns especially in two ways: General and Specific. General numeral classifiers in Nepali distinguish human nouns from that of non-human nouns while specific classifiers are there for the classification of inanimate nouns in terms of their sortal and mensural attributes. General numeral classifiers also differ from the specific one in that they are morphologically bound units which have no meaning in isolation whereas specific numeral classifiers are free morphemes with their own meaning and can sometimes occur as head of the noun phrases, though their distribution is strictly restricted to their referent nouns.

Keywords: Nepali, Numeral, Classifier, Noun, General, Specific

1. Introduction

Nepali is one of the major languages of South Asia which belongs to the western group of Modern Indo-Aryan languages. It shows a proximity in grammar as well as in lexicon to other cognate languages like Kumauni and Garwali. The other names for this language are Khas Kura, Parbate Bhasa, Gorkhali and Dzongkha Lhotshammikha. It is spoken widely in Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar.

Typologically, Nepali is an agglutinating language and structurally, SOV phrase order dominant language. It is a language with nominal and verbal agreement system which inflects for number, person, gender, TAM and honorificity.

The Nepali language exhibit an immense attribute of classifying nouns on the basis of its semantic features. It is assumed that Nepali has developed this feature due to the influence of Tibeto-Burman languages like Newari which are in close contact with it since time unknown. Because no other languages under western group of Indo-Aryan family has numeral classifier system (Barz and Diller, 1985; Pokharel, 2054 B.S.).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Krishna Maya Manger
Assistant Professor
Department of Nepali
University of North Bengal
Siliguri, West Bengal, India, 734013
krishnamanger@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.