Dangaura Tharu Verb Morphology

Abstract

"Dangaura Tharu Verb Morphology" is basically a descriptive presentation of the structure of Dangaura Tharu verbs, though insights from functional typological perspective have also been taken into consideration. It presents the internal structure of the Dangaura Tharu verb and analyzes the morphological alternations during the inflectional processes. The data for the study were collected in Tulasipur municipality of Dang district during my one month's stay there in 2070 V.S. Dangaura Tharu is a variety of Tharu language spoken in the Terai and inner Terai districts of Mid- and Far-Western regions of Nepal. It is an Indo- Aryan language comprising the SOV constituent order. The structure of Dangaura Tharu verb is quite complex. The infinitival form of the verb ends with -na as in Hindi. The inflectional suffixes that mark the agreement with the subject argument are unique in this language. The agreement markers in Dangaura Tharu are -ũ, -i, -ya, -o, -a, -ʌ - which are separable from tense markers. Dangaura Tharu verbs agree with the number, person, gender, and honorificity of the subject argument. The language, like most of the NIA languages, exhibits three tense system- present, past, and future - with distinct tense markers for each tense. It employs different tense markers for verbal predicates and nonverbal predicates in the present tense. The verbal predicates employ -t̩ʰ, whereas the nonverbal predicates use -t̩ as present markers. The past tense is characterized by -n in the first person singular and -l elsewhere. Similarly, it employs -m in the first person singular, -h in the third person, and -b elsewhere to indicate future tense. The progressive aspect is marked by -t̩i. Dangaura Tharu employs periphrastic structure for perfective aspects- participial form plus copula verb. It has peculiar particle hũ to mark Hearsay and a peculiar suffix -s added to the root form to mark desiderative function of the verb. Moreover, Dangaura Tharu exhibits two different copula verbs: ba, and hui in present, rʌh in past, and hui in future. In the present tense, the locative and adjectival predicates share the copula form ba, whereas the nominal predicates use hui. However, such a distinction is not attested in the past and future tenses.