Bhojpuri nouns

Bhojpuri Nouns are a Category of words in the Bhojpuri language. As in other Indo-Aryan languages, Bhojpuri nouns possess a gender, either masculine or feminine. Every Bhojpuri nouns have three forms viz. Short, Long and Redundant.

See also: Bhojpuri grammar

All Bhojpuri nouns exhibit some properties. They are durable durable, complex,concrete, compact and individuative in association with their multiple features like size, shape, weight, colour and cultural usage.[1]

Semantics

Nouns of Bhojpuri tend to change their features in a slower fashion than the other word classes.[1]

Syntax

Noun is the head in a Bhojpuri noun phrases and occupies major position in the clauses. It can take the position of Subject, Object (direct and indirect), nominal predicate, possessor, object complement and locative.[2]

Declension

The inflexion of eight cases, that was present in the Old Indo-Aryan has not survived in Bhojpuri. The declension of masculine and feminine is absent in Bhojpuri as other Magadhan languages.[3]

Stem and its forms

The stem noun either ends with a vowel or a consonant, e.g. dōrā (thread), nōkar (servant). These nouns generally have three forms, the short, long and the redundant form.[4] For example: for nōkar, the three forms are nōkar, nōkarwā and nokarawā respectively. Nouns have weak form too sometimes. A weak form is the shortest form of noun that ends in a short vowel or a consonant. The weak forms are used rarely in Regular use.[4]

The long and redundant form are used only for the inferiors and youngers, never for elders and superiors. The different forms of nouns are given in following table:

Definition Weak Short Long Redundant
Horse ghōṛ ghōṛā ghoṛwā ghōrawā
Iron lōh lohā lōhwā lohawā

Rules for making long forms
  1. If stem ends with -ā, wā is added to it.
  2. If stem ends with ū,the vowel is shortened before the termination.
  3. If stem ends with ī, yā is added to it.
  4. If stem ends with a constant, -ā is added.

These examples are given in the following table:

Definition Short Long
King rājā rajwā
Barber nāü naüwā
Garderner mālī maliyā
Cobbler camār camarā

Gender

The gender in Bhojpuri is natural and not grammatical, there is not any strict affixes for the different genders.[4] The agreement of adjectives with gender is also not consistent in Modern Bhojpuri, which was there in Old Bhojpuri. e.g.:

तब ब्रह्मा पूछल महतारी, के तोर भतार केकरी तू नारी

— Kabir, Bijak, page. 27

Nouns which represent animate being take the gender according to the sex they denote. However, some nouns are masculine only or feminine only irrespective of the gender they denote. For example, kaüā (Crow) is always masculine and ciraï (Bird) is always feminine.[5]

Number

In Bhojpuri, the plurals are created by joining -an, -ani, -anh, -anhi, -nh, -nhi, -n and -ni. Plurals are also made by adding words that represents plurality. Generally, the words "sabh" (all) and "lōg" (people) are added to make plurals.[6]

Definition Singular Form Plural Form
House ghar gharan
Horse ghoṛā ghoṛan
Boy laïkā laïkan/laïka sabh
King rājā rājā lōg

Case Inflexions

In Bhojpuri, a postposition is used to represent the case relationships. ke is used for Accusative, Dative and Genitive cases, sē is used for instrumental and ablative and mē is used for locative. The postposition lē is also used for ablative in the Bhojpuri of Shahabad district. For, locative mahe or mahi is also used.[7]

Postpositional words

Some postpositional words in Bhojpuri are:

  • āgā : before, in front of. Example: hini ka āge (in front of him)
  • upar: on, upon
  • ōr: towards, in the direction of
  • karat: doing
  • khātir: for
  • chāṛi: give up
  • niyar or niyan: like or similar

Notes
  1. Lohar 2020, p. 123.
  2. Lohar 2020, p. 124-125.
  3. Tiwari 1960, p. 103.
  4. Tiwari 1960, p. 104.
  5. Tiwari 1960, p. 105.
  6. Tiwari 1960, p. 107.
  7. Tiwari 1960, p. 108-111.

References
  • Lohar, Gopal Thakur (2020). A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI. Kathmandu, Nepal: Tribhuvan University.
  • Tiwari, Uday Narayan (1960). The origin and development of Bhojpuri. Park Street, Kolkata: The Asiatic society.
  • Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135797119.
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