Tense System in Maithili and English Language

Abstract

The present study entitled“Tense System in Maithili and English Language"has been carried out with one of the objectives to identify tense systemsin Maithiliand compare and contrast these with those of English. This research is based on 50 native speakers of Maithili language.I collected data from 50 Maithili native speakers of Aurhi VDC of Saptari district.I used non-random purposive sampling procedure to select the sample population. The structured questionnaire was there search tool for the data of Maithili tense.I interviewed the Maithili native speakers according to the prepared interview schedule and the answers were recorded using the Roman Translation of Devanagri Script for analysis andverification of the collected data.After analysis, it was found that Maithili has three tenses. They are present, past and future. All these three tenses have separate morphological forms but in English, only present and past have separate morphological forms. The comparison shows that both languages have bipartite tense system. This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter deals with the background of the topic, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions,significance of the study, delimitations of the study and operational definition ofthe key terms. The second chapter includes review of related theoretical literature,review of related empirical literature, implication of the review for the study andconceptual framework. Similarly, the third chapter includes all the areas of methodology. Likewise, the fourth chapter presents the analysis and interpretationof results and the fifth chapter includes conclusions and recommendations at three different areas (policy related, practice related and further research related)followed by references and appendices.