The Darai Language

Abstract

This dissertation is a description of Darai, an Indo-Aryan language, which was not adequately described before. The genetic classification of this language has not been determined yet. It is a language spoken by 10210 people in the Chitwan, Nawalparasi and Tanahun districts of central and western Nepal. The aim of this dissertation is to present a grammatical description of the Darai language. The data for this dissertation came largely from the natural texts. The text corpus was mainly obtained from the language consultants who were the inhabitants of Kathar, Chainpur, Mangalpur Village Development Committees and Bharatpur municipality of the Chitwan district. The grammatical analysis consists of phonology, morphology, syntax, sociolinguistic information and notes on discourse. The appendices include sociolinguistic questionnaire, background information of the language consultants, paradigms of verbs, indexes of grammatical morphemes and text samples. The dissertation comprises thirteen chapters in addition to five appendices. The dissertation begins with the introduction, objectives and introduction in chapter 1. The information related to the language, its name and classification as well as a sociolinguistic survey is presented in chapter 2. The Drarai people residing in Nayabeltari and Gaindakot VDCs in Nawalparasi and Gajarkot in Tanahu no longer speak their ancestral language. This chapter is an attempt to answer the current status of the Darai language. Darai is characterized as a 'definitely endangered language'. In chapter 3, synchronic description of phonology is given. Darai has 29 consonants and 6 vowels. This chapter examines the vowels and consonants, their distribution, consonant clusters, syllable structure and morphophonology. Nouns and noun morphology are analyzed in chapter 4. Nouns inflect for number, pronominal possessive marking, indefinite marking and cases. The pronominal possessive suffixes are used to mark the kinship relations as well as ownership. The indefinite marker attached to noun is also worth mentioning. Darai is characterized as a split ergative viii language which is based on nominal hierarchy. Chapter 5 analyzes the adjectives. The semantic categories and functions of adjectives are analyzed in this chapter. It is interesting to note that some adjectives which end in o in Hodgson's list (1857) are - ending at present. Chapter 6 presents an analysis of verbs and verb morphology. A classification of verb based on the stem is presented. In addition to tense, aspect and mood, Darai verbs are characterized by modality marking such as obligation, possibility, inference, mirativity, hearsay, frustative and dubitative. A Darai bitransitive verb may crossreference the actor and patient. Verb agreement is also triggered by number, gender, case, honorificity as well as pragmatic features. Verb agreement due to focus hierarchy is a striking feature in Darai. Adverbs are analyzed in chapter 7. Chapter 8 analyzes the closed word classes such as clitics, particles, onomatopoeia and echo words. Some native Darai particles are widely used in natural discourse despite the influences from neighboring languages in lexicon. Noun phrase is examined in chapter 9. Noun phrase in Darai is left-branching. Chapter 10 describes the simple sentence in Darai in addition to the modifications of simple sentences. Chapter 11 discusses combinations of clause such as complement clauses, relative clauses and adverbial clauses. Clause combining is productive because of morphosyntactic evidences seen in Darai grammar. A note on discourse is presented in Chapter 11. Chapter 12 presents the summary, typological implications of the study, proposed sub-classification of Darai and suggestions for further research. The grammatical features exhibit that Darai may be classified as an 'eastern' Indo-Aryan language closely related to Maithili, Bhojpuri and Majhi.