The Bhujel Language

Abstract

This studypresents a linguistic description of the Bhujel language within theframework of the functional-typological grammar developed mainly by Talmy Givón(2001) and further supplemented by Dixon (2004), Noonan (2003; 2005), Bhat (2004),Haspelmath (2004) andDryer (2006).Bhujel is a previously undescribed andendangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in some limited areas in the eastern part ofTanahun District of Nepal. This is a field-based study of the form of the Bhujel language spoken mainly in theAndimul village (Anbukhaireni-1 and Bandipur-8) in Tanahun District. The main goalof the study is to analyze the forms and functions of different grammatical categories ofthe Bhujel language and compare the structural features of Bhujel revealed by thisstudy to the characteristic structural features of the Tibeto-Burman languages from thetypological perspective. This study also examineshow the morphosyntactic structureinBhujelmanifests the subtle relationship between linguistic form and linguistic functionatbothsentence and discourse levels. The study is organized into thirteen chapters. Chapter 1 mainly reviews the previousdescriptive works on the language and sets out the theoretical position underlying thedescription. It also outlines the objectives, the significance and the limitations of thestudy. Chapter 2mainlyexamines the sociolinguisticaspects such as the domains of thelanguage use, the attitudes of the speakers towards the language, and the languageendangerment. It alsodiscusses the ethnology of the Bhujel.Chapter 3 analyzes thesegmental and supra-segmental features of the language. Chapter 4 presents theacoustic analysis of the sounds of the language. Chapter 5 examines themorphophonological processes in the language. Chapter 6 proposes the Devanagariscript for the preliterate Bhujel language. Chapter 7 looks at theinflectional andderivational morphology of the nouns inBhujel.It also examines the morphology of thepronouns in the language.Chapter 8 discussesthe formation, distribution and functionsof the adjectives in the language.Chapter 9 analyzes thecategories of the verb such astense, aspectandmodality in the language. It also presentsa complexverb agreement system which isbased on the hierarchical rankingof the participants(i.e.1→2, 1→3,2→3) rather than on their semantic or grammatical relations. We argue that Bhujel presents a unique type of the marking on the verb for the direct relations of theparticipants. Besides, it shows the neutralization of the 'direct' marker and tensemarkers in the negative construction.Chapter 10 discusses the adverbs in Bhujel.Chapter 11looks at theclause structure, noun phrase, order of the elements in the verbcomplex, majorsentences and clause combiningprocesses in the language.Chapter 12deals with themorphosyntactic devices which are used in the domains of topiccontinuity, action continuity and thematic continuity at the multi-propositionaldiscourse level in Bhujel. Besides, this chapter discussessuch strategieswhich areemployed for different types of discourse functions at the atomic propositional level.Chapter 13 presents the summary andtypological implications of the study. The annexesmainlycomprise10analyzedtexts, basic vocabulary,and socio-linguisticquestionnaire, therespondentsofthe socio-linguistic questionnaire, Swadesh 100wordlist of Bhujel dialects,verb inflection paradigmsand Bhujel morphemes, theirglossing and description in the language.