The Darai Language
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Date
2011
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Faculty of Linguistics
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
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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.
Description
Keywords
Darai Language, Darai people