Bhojpuri waalaa

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Bhojpuri waalaa

• SCONLI-3 JNU (19-21 Feb)

Shailendra Kumar Neha Vashistha M.A. (Final)
PhD Scholar Department of Linguistics
Banaras Hindu University
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1. Goal of the paper

• To examine the distribution of waalaa in
  Bhojpuri.
• To identify the different functional roles of
  waalaa in Bhojpuri.
• To categorize waalaa according to its various
  functions.

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2. Distribution of waalaa in Bhojpuri

• waalaa occurs with most of the words (noun,
  verb, adjectives, adverbs etc) in Bhojpuri.
• waalaa inflects for gender and number of the noun
  following it.
• waalaa (m.sg)
• waalii (f.sg)
• waalin (f,pl)
• waalan/waale (m.pl)

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2.1 Noun (N1-waalaa-N2)

• Persons name - raam waalii kitabawaa
  Rams book
• Place names - dilli waalan laikan Boys
  from Delhi
• Institutions name - jnu waalan laikan Boys
  from JNU
• Common names - laikii waalii batiyaa matters
  pertaining to girls
• Locative - shahar waalii batiyaa
  matters pertaining to cities
• - rasoii waalii balTiyaa bucket
  for kitchen

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2.2 Pronouns

• Personal Pronoun - aape waalii batiyaa (aape ka
  batiyaa..) the matter that you said
• Possessive pronoun - okar waalaa sujhaav
  the suggestion that he gave
• Demonstrative - u waalii batiyaa that matter

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2.3 Adverbials

• Temporal - kalhi waalii ghaTanaa the incident
  that took yesterday
• - ratiyaa waalii batiyaa the matter
  pertaining to night/the matter that took place
  in the (last) night
• Locative - upar waalaa kamarawaa the room
  located upstairs
• - bagale waalaa gharwaa the house
  located nearby
• - ehar-ohar waalaa (mat li aaya)
  (do not bring (things)) from
  here and there

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2.4 Verbs

• Gerundive form - jaay waalan laikan the boys
  who are (about) to
• go
• - cale waalii mashiniyaa the machine
  that works
• Aspectual form - u taraf jaat waalaa laikaa the
  boys who are going that
  side
• - uhaaN baiThii waalii laikii the
  girls who are sitting
  there

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2.5. Adjectives

• Color - niillii waalii busharT the blue
  (bu)shirt
• - kalii waalii gaiyaa the black
  cow
• Shape/size - baRakaa waalaa gharawaa the big
  house
• - gol waalii Tophiiyaa the
  round-shaped toffee
• Quality - baDiyaa waalaa bhojan the good food

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• Postpositions do not take waalaa (since waalaa
  itself occurs as a postposition in N1-waalaa-N2
  constructions).
• Details need to be worked out with more varieties
  of examples.

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3. Functions of waalaa

• Waalaa is used to perform various kinds of
  functions in Bhojpuri.
• 3.1 Possessive/genitive function
  In N1-waalaa-N2 distribution, one of the most
  common functions of waalaa is to denote
  possession relation. However, many more relations
  can potentially be assigned in these cases.
• Eg. - raam waalii kitabiyaa Ram of
  book
• Rams book

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• 3.2 Temporal function
• Waalaa also denote temporal
  function, particularly in the case where it is
  used with a verb in gerundive form. In this case,
  waalaa denotes future or probability marker of
  time.
• E.g. - raam uhaaN jaay waalaa baa.
• Ram there going about-to is
• Ram is about to go there.

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• 3.3 Locative function
• Waalaa can also function as locative marker,
  particularly when it occurs with location
  denoting words.
• E.g. - amerikaa waalii laikii
• America from girl the girl from
  America

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• 3.4 Modifier function
• Waalaa functions as a modifier to noun.
  Generally it occurs in typical relative
  clause-like modifier function.
• E.g. - u taraf jaat waalaa laikaa
• That side going who(RP) boys
• the boys who are going that side
• - uhaaN baiThii waalii laikii
• there sitting who (RP) girls
• the girls who are sitting there

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• 3.5 Agentive function
• Waalaa marks agentive function particularly when
  it occurs with a verb in gerundive form preceded
  by a noun (common).
• E.g. - sabjii becane waale (log)
• vegetables selling ER(agentive) (people)
• vegetable sellers

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4. Concluding Remarks

• In this work, we have attempted to examine the
  different functional distribution of waalaa in
  Bhojpuri. Our initial observations have been
  listed here. More detailed work is needs to list
  all the distributions and to do a functional
  categorization of waalaa in Bhojpuri. There is
  scarcity of written corpus for Bhojpuri and the
  data used for this work have been collected from
  different speakers of the language. We also
  observe that for a detailed analysis of waalaa in
  Bhojpuri, we need data from different varieties
  of Bhojpuri.

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