Rana Tharu Verb Morphology

Abstract

The Rana Tharu belongs to a group of languages usually called the Indo-Aryan languages. The Indo-Aryan languages are the subgroup of the Indo-European family of languages. Neither the Census (2001) has shown the varieties of Tharu language nor had the Census (2012) differentiated any varieties of Tharu spoken in Nepal (CBS2001, CBS2012). The census, thus, fails to differentiate the varieties of Rana and Dangaura Tharu in kailali and Kanchandpur. The population of these two dialects of Tharu is lumped together without showing the precise distinction between them Rana Tharu has grammatical gender and two number system, i.e., singular and plural. It has morphological causativization in which affixation and phonological processes are used. RanaTharu contrasts between past, present, and future tense. The past and future tenses in Rana Tharu are both morphologically and periphrastically expressed whereas present tense is only morphologically. There are two types of aspects of a verb: lexical and grammatical aspect, There are some grammatical aspects that are found in Rana Tharu. They include present habitual and progressive. There are six types of moods in Rana Tharu, They are imperative, prohibitive, hortative, optative, conditional and injunctive. Similarly in this language I have find two types of modality: epistemic and evaluative.