LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 23:12 December 2023
ISSN 1930-2940

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         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
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         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
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A Comparative Study of Participles in Mech and Rajbanshi

Nilanjana Roy Chowdhury, Ph.D. Scholar

Abstract

Mech and Rajbanshi are the two lesser-known languages available mostly in the Eastern zone of the Indian subcontinent and Nepal. Their originations are anticipated to have evolved from two different ancestral genealogies, such as Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan language families respectively. This paper provides a putative comparative study of participles in the two alluded languages. The highlighted distinctions in desententialization, conjunctive participles, and reduplication in the two mentioned languages have been discussed.

Keywords: Mech. Rajbanshi, participles, desentialisation, deranked, reduplication, comparative study.

1. Introduction

Participles are morphologically deranked verbs used for adnominal modifications (Shagal 2007). A linguistic dictionary Crystal (2003) defines it as a ‘traditional grammatical term of a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective; in linguistics, the term is restricted to non-finite forms of verbs other than infinitives. Haspelmath (1994) defines participles as ‘traditionally verb forms that behave like adjectives with respect to morphology and external syntax’. It has always been observed that defining participles, in general, is quite challenging as the formation varies with respective varying languages. The formation of participles among languages differs on various levels. The non-finite form of the verb such as participle differs from the finite form in its ‘deranked' (Stassen 1985) nature. The non-finite verb loses certain characteristics which were otherwise present in the finite verb. There is a state of reduction in the clausal level. This process of reduction in the subordinate clause is known as desententialisation (Lehmann, 1982). The main characteristics of participles lie in being desententialised or deranked and the degree to which it takes place varies differently in different languages.

Participles are indeed non-finite inflectional verb forms which are mostly cross-linguistically affixal. There is an ongoing controversy regarding participles being derivational or inflectional forms of the verb. Haspelmath (1996) has claimed that participles are word class-changing inflectional morphemes. The word participle is used as an umbrella term to express both adjectival participles and converbs in this study. Converbs are non-finite forms of verbs that serve to express adverbial sub-ordinates.

This paper is a comparative study of participles between Mech and Rajbanshi found in the eastern zone of the Indian subcontinent and Nepal belonging to two different genealogical language families of Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages families respectively.

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

Nilanjana Roy Chowdhury
Ph.D. Scholar
The English and Foreign Languages University
Shillong Campus
nilanjanar5@gmail.com
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