Adjectival Morphology in English and Limbu

Abstract

The present study entitled,'Adjectival Morphology in Limbu and English: ALinguistic ComparativeStudy,endeavors to compare and contrastmorphological system of adjectives oftheLimbu and English.TheEnglish datawere taken from secondary sources; Martinent and Thomason (1986) and Quirketal. (1985).The native speakers of Limbu language were the primary sourcesof data for Limbuadjectives. Theinformants were divided into three groups ofequal number of educated, literate, and illiterate persons. The researcher usedstratified random sampling procedure to sample thepopulation. The interviewand questionaire were used as research tools for data collection. It was foundthat Limbu adjectival morphological system was more complex than that ofEnglish adjectiva lmorphological system. No gender distinction marker is found in English adjectives. But in Limbu gender distinction marker is found.The suffix <-pa/-ba> indicates both masculine and neuter gender marker and the suffix <-ma>indicates feminine gender marker. In Limbu most of the adjectives are derived by adding prefix <ka-> and suffixes<-pa/-ba> and <-ma>. But in English so many different types of prefixes and suffixes are used to derive adjectives from different word classes. The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter deals with the introduction part of the study which consists of general background with several subtopics, namely a short introduction of the English and Limbu languages, overview of adjectival morphology, need and importance of contrastive analysis, review of related literature, objectives of the study and significance of the study. The second chapter deals with the methodology which includes sources of data collection, sampling procedure and limitations of the study. Similarly, the third chapter contains the analysis, interpretation,presentation and comparison of the data. The fourth chapter contains findings,recommendations and pedagogical implications of the study.