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आभ्यंतर (Aabhyantar)
SCONLI-12
विशेषांक ISSN : 2348-7771
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20. Agreement in Rajbansi
Priya Rani : Center for Linguistics, Jawahalal Nehru
University
Abstract
The present paper is an attempt to study the agreement system in Rajbansi,
an Indo-Aryan language. Agreement is a very keen feature of Indo Aryan
languages. It referes to the relation between grammatical categories such as
gender, number , person agrees with varied words, where a form one word requires
a corresponding form of another. The paper tries to find out the parameters of
agreement in Rajbansi. Parameters are the unique features of the langusge that differentiate
one langauge from another even though all the natural languages posses
universal principles and also syntactic structure of the agreement system
within Principle and Parameter framework .
Keywords: Agreement, Rajbansi, Principle , Parameter, Natural language.
1 Introduction
The term Agreement commonly reffers to some systematic covariance between a
semantic or formal property of one element and a formal property of another.
For example, adjectives may take some formal indication of the number and
gender of the noun they modify.Corbett [2006]
Agreement is a vey common as well as significant phenomena of langauge. In
some languages it is pervasive and in some it is absent.Agreement occur between
two element of a sentence, i.e between verb and argument, between determiner
and noun, between adjective and noun and so on.
This paper is focused on the agreement system of Rajbansi language.Many linguist
has written the grammar of the language but none of then have specifically
studied the agreement system in detail.The paper tries to cover different
aspect of agreement in Rajbansi language. It is interesting to note
down the agreement behaviour of the language between two grammatical categories.
The paper consist of six major sections. The first section is of
Introduction. It gives description of agreement system in South Asian
languages.The second section takes the discussion on Cross Linguistic facts of
Agreement.The third section presents a brief discussion on Rajbansi as a
language and about Rajbansi speech community.The fourth section shows how
agreemnt feature works in Rajbansi. The fifth section deals with the structural
representation of Rajbansi.The sixth section is of conclusion.
2 Cross linguistic facts of Agreement
Agreement is a universal feature of languages of the world. Comrie
[1989].It becomes parametric with respect to Phi features involved in agreement
in different languages. Agreement plays a vital role in South Asian languages. The
verb agrees with the arguments in Phi features such as number, person and
gender. The morphological inflection of these Phi features differes with languages.
Some languages inflect all the three feaures while some languages inflect only
one or two features.For example in Hindi the verb agrees in all the three
features gender, number and person as in (1).Secondly,the agreement between the
subject and the verb is blocked if the subject has an overt case marker and the
agreement takes place between the object and the verb as in (2).And if both
subject and object are lexically case marked then the verb takes default
agreement as in (3).
Hindi
‘Sita tied book with rope.’
In example(1) the verb jaa rahii ‘go’ and the auxillary thi
‘was’ agree with the subject of the sentence ‘Sita’ with all the three
Phi features. In example( 2) the main verb dekhii agrees with the
object of the sentence ‘ladkii’ as the subject carries an overt case marking
i.e.ergative. In example (3) the verb bandh aa ‘tie’ takes
default agreemnt as all the arguments of the verb posses overt case marking.
Whereas, Maghi has a different agreement system that is different from most
of the South Asian languages. Magahi agreement system is case opaque. Case
marking has no effect on the agreement. Rakesh and Kumar [2013].It shows
agreemnt in person and honorificity and also reported displaying addresse agreement.
Magahi
In example (4) the main verb jaa and the auxilary hii agrees
with the subject of the sentence ‘ham’ in respect to only one phi feature
person and also with tense. In example (5) and (6) the verb jaait and
the auxillary he and hath agrees with the subject
‘tu’ and ‘apne’ for person and honorificity1. In example (7) the agreemnet is
neither with subject nor with object but depends on the listner to whom the
sentence is stated as the verb maraliyo contains honorific marker
for the non-honorific object ‘okraa’.
1 These examples were taken from the paper Agreement in Magahi Complex
Predicate by Neelu Rakesh
3 Facts about Rajbansi
‘Language is the road map of a culture.It tells you where its people come
from and where they are going’-Rita Mae brown
Rajbansi is an Indo Aryan language spoken not only in West Bengal, Bihar and
western Assam of India but also in certain parts Bangladesh and Nepal.The
language is known with different names in different parts of the state and
nation such as Kamtapuri in Kooch Behar, Surjapuri in Bihar, Koch Rajbansi in
Assam, Rangpuri in Bangladesh Grierson [1906]. The Rajbansi speech
community is popularily known as Koch Tribe.In 1912 , they organised a sacred
thread ceremony at Rangpur and declared themshelves asKhatriyas.After
this khatriaization, the community started to call themshelves
as Rajbansi, the royal race.(Dripta,2016).
It is a head final language with sov word order. Derivation and Compounding
are the two common ways of forming new words in this language.Like, Magahi it
is a non ergative language.
3.1 Methodology
The data for the present study has been collected from three different
places kokrajhar in Assam, jalpaiguri and Cooch behar district in West Bengal.
The data was elicited and recorded for cross checking.a questionaaire
containing 150 sentences was made to elicite data.
3.2 Hypothesis
Based on the given cross linguistic parameters I will do the analysis of
the Rajbansi data and check whether Rajbansi follow these South Asian languages
agreement parameters or not.The parameters are:
(a)Agreement with Phi features.
(b)Agreement in terms of honorificity.
(c)Agreement between the verb and the argument is blocked when an overt
case marker is present.
(d) Agreement displaying addresse.
4 Agreement in Rajbansi
Rajbansi agreement sytem is quite similiar to both Bangla and Magahi
agreement sytem but have its own unique features. The language do not show Dp agreement
such as agreemnt with adjective or with determiner. Let us now see the agreemnt
sytem in Rajbansi.
4.1 Agreement with TAM and Phi features
The table given below shows the agreeement marker in different person,
number
and tenses for the main verb ja ’go’.
As seen in the above given table the verb agrees with the subject in all
the three person but number agreement occur only in first person and second person
in all the three tenses.Similarly, the verb agrees with the subject in all
three person and number agreement in first and second person in progressive aspect
of all form of tenses as seen in example (8),(12)and (13). The case is different
with perfect aspect. The verb agrees with the subject with person and number in
first person and second person only in present tense as seen in example
(9),(10),(11)
4.2 Honorificity and Agreement
In Rajbansi, the agreement between the argument and verb also depends on
honorificity.
The above given example no. (14) and (15) shows the agreemnt between subject
and the verb with respect to honorificity.In example (14) the nonhonorific inflection
u on the main verb ja shows agreement with the subject tui which
is also a non-honorific pronoun.In example (15) the honorific inflection en on
the main verb ja shows agreement with the subject tomra, is also honorific
in nature. 2 There are only two degrees of honorificity in Rajbansi.
4.3 Agreement with addresse
In Rajbansi the verb also shows agreement with the subject that is dropped based on the addresse component. The
agreement marker present on the 2Honorific inflection markeris syncretenise
with the second person plural inflection marker on the verb.
verb depends on the honorificity of the addresse.
In example (16) the the agreement between subject and the verb with respect
to honorificity.In example (14) the non-honorific inflection u on the
main verb ja shows agreement with the subject ‘tui’ is also
non-honorific pronoun.In example (15) the honorific inflection en on the
main verb ja shows agreement with the subject ‘tomra’ is also honorific
in nature.
4.4 Agreement with non-nominative subjects
The subject with non-nominative case shows different kind of agreement
sytem in the language. The case marker except nominative that a subject
can have in a languge are dative, instrumental, genetive, locative.
In example no (18) to (23) the subject holds case marker other than
nominative. In example (18) and (19) the subject is genetive subject.So, when
the subject is marked genetively the agreement occurs between the object and the
verb. as in example (18) the inflection of the verb ase agrees
with the object of the sentence ‘taka’.Similarly, in example (19) the
inflection of the verb asong agrees with the object ‘mui’.
Examples (20) and (21) have subject with instrumental case marker.In context
where the subject is marked with instrumental case the verb carries the default
agreement inflection that is of third person hoise as in (20) and
(21). In examples (22) and (23) the sentence have dative subject. Therefore ,
when the subject of the sentence is marked with dative the agreement takes
place between the verb and the object as in (22) the verb dhorise inflect
with the object ‘jor’ and in (23) the verb nagis agrees with the
object ‘tui’. If the subject takes instrumental case then the verb takes the
default agreement.
4.5 Syntactic structure of Agreement
The syntactic structure given below are based on Principles and Parameters framework.
Principle and Parameter work with two mechanism (a) Every natural language have
a finite set of principles through which one can generate infinite no. of
sentences.(b) Every natural language have finite set of parameters which
diffentiate one langauge from other. The agreement in Principles and Parametr
frameworks occurs at spec-head configuartion. Verma [1991].
The syntactic structure of example no.24 shows that the inflection marker ng
is on the head of IP that is I . The subject ‘mui’ which agrees with
the verb jang moves from the spec of voice vP to the spec of IP
as agreement occurs in head-specificer configuration.
5 Conclusion
Agreement is always seen as an language specific .Every language have their
own parameters for agreement. Thus, from the above discussion I conclude that
agreement in Rajbansi has some specific parameters which makes it different
from other South Asian langauges. Agreement with respect to Phi
feature is partial as it has agreement only with person and number . It totaly
lacks gender agreement. Agreeement is also inflected with honorificity and with
addresse component. Addresse component only includes subjects in imperative
sentences. The agreement is also inculcated with objects when the subject is
marked with overt dative and genetive case. This shows that case marking plays
an important role in agreement system of Rajbansi. Therefore the paper reaches
to the conclusion that the following parameters are present in agreement system
of Rajbansi.
(a) Agreement with Person and Number (absent in third person) in all simple
present tense, simple past tense, simple future tense, present progressive,
past progressive, future progressive and present perfect.
(b) Agreement is inflected with honorificity.
(c) Agreement display only subject addresse in imperatives.
(d) Subject agreement is blocked when the subject is marked with dative and
genetive case.
References
·
Bernard Comrie. Language universals and linguistic
typology: Syntax and morphology. University of Chicago press, 1989.
·
Greville G Corbett. Agreement, volume 109.
Cambridge University Press, 2006.
·
George Abraham Grierson. Linguistic survey of India,
volume 4. Office of the superintendent of government printing, India, 1906.
·
Nilu Rakesh and Rajesh Kumar. Agreement in magahi complex
predicate. International Journal of Linguistics, 5(1):176, 2013.
·
Manindra K Verma. Exploring the parameters of agreement:
the case of magahi. Language Sciences, 13(2):125–143, 1991.
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