Subordination in Maithili and English

Abstract

The present study entitled "Subordination in Maithili and English " aims at identifying subordinators in the Maithili language finding the similarities and differences between English and Maithili subordination system and recognizing errors of the Maithili speaking students while learning English subordination. The researcher has utilized both primary and secondary sources. In order to collect the data from the primary source of data, a set of test items consisting of some pairs of sentences to be joined by subordinators in Maithili, filling in the gaps and making sentences with the help of Maithili subordinators has been prepared and the informants were asked to respond. Similarly, a set of test items consisting of some pairs of sentences to be joined by subordinators in English, filling in the gaps and making sentences with the help of English subordinators has been prepared and the informants were asked to respond to them. The population includes 60 Maithili speaking students from three academic institutions of Dhanusha district. The answer sheet also include some preliminary details about the informants. After collecting the data researcher has analyzed and interpreted it. The main findings of the study are: The position of the adverbial subordinators in the sentence indicating time, purpose, reason condition, result and manner is similar in both the English and Maithili languages. Usually time adverbial subordinators are correlative in Maithili. Adverbial clauses of condition in Maithili can be introduced without subordinators of condition but it is not so in English. The present thesis consists of four chapters: Introduction, Methodology, Analysis and Interpretation and Findings and Recommendations. The first chapter is introductory in nature. It includes general background, linguistic scenario of Nepal, introduction to Maithili language, significance of English in Nepal. It also deals with objectives of the study, review of related literature, significance of the study and definitions of specific terms used in the research. The second chapter deals with the methodology adopted during the study. It also includes sources of data, population of the study, sampling procedure, tools for data collection and limitations of the study. Similarly, the third chapter deals with analysis and interpretation of the data which includes subordination in English; subordination in Maithili and comparison of English and Maithili systems of subordination. The fourth chapter comprises of findings, recommendations and pedagogical implications of the study. In the final part of the thesis, references and appendices have been included systematically.