Aspectual System In Bhojpuri and Bajjika: A Comparative Analysis
Aspect, along with tense and mood, is one of the three grammatical categories that inform us about the internal temporal organisation of the situation. It gives different ways of looking at the internal temporal constituency of the same situation (Comrie 1976:3ff, after Holt 1943:6; Bybee 2003:157). Comrie (1976:25) has given the following distinction within the sets of aspectual values.
This study presents a descriptive analysis of the aspectual system of the East Champaran variety of Bhojpuri (from now on ECB), majorly spoken in the area of Sikarahana sub-division of East Champaran district of Bihar, and compares it with Bajjika, majorly spoken in Tirhut region of Bihar and some parts of Nepal. The primary focus of this study will be to analyse verbal forms in ECB and Bajjika and categorise them according to established classifications of aspect, including perfective, imperfective, progressive and habitual aspects. Bhojpuri employs different aspectual markers to mark aspect. Meanwhile, Bajjika shows an interesting tendency to have the same form in terms of habitual and progressive aspects. The paper will further discuss and analyse these conditions in detail. Some of the examples are given below:
(1) Habitual
ECB
(1a) u pʰutbɔl kʰel-e lɑ/ləi
he football play.Hab pres.aux
“He plays football.”
(1b) u pʰutbɔl khel-əi tʃəi
he football play.Hab pres.aux
“He plays football.”
(2) Progressive
ECB
(2a) u pʰutbɔl kʰel-əit həi/bɑ/tɑ
he football play.imp pres.aux
“He is playing football.”
Bajjika
(2b) u pʰutbɔl khel-əi tʃʰəi
he football play.imp pres.aux
“He is playing football.”
(3) Perfectivity (through compound verb)
(3a) u pʰutbɔl kʰel lele həi/bɑ
he football play take.perf pres.aux
“He has played football.”
(3b) u pʰutbɔl kʰel lel-kəi /le-ləi
he football play take.perf.pres.aux
“He has played football.”
The above examples (1), (2) and (3) show how different aspects are realised in ECB and Bajjika. Even Though Bajjika is closely related to ECB, it shows variation in terms of aspect systems. Bhojpuri marks habitual and progressive distinctively whereas Bajjika uses the same marker -əi to mark both of the aspects, as shown in ex. 1a and 1b. Bhojpuri uses compound verbs to mark perfectivity (Ghosh, 2013), whereas Bajjika shows the same differently with perfect marker prefixed with auxiliary verbs. The study will take into account full fledged analysis of the aspectual values of both the languages with a more deliberate approach while taking into account a special focus on the compound verb being used for the perfective marker.
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