Article published in:
Gender, Language and the Periphery: Grammatical and social gender from the margins
Edited by Julie Abbou and Fabienne H. Baider
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 264] 2016
► pp. 165–194

The representation of gender in Bajjika grammar and discourse

In this article I present a description of grammatical gender in Bajjika, a minority language of the Eastern Indo-Aryan family spoken in a small region in the northern part of the north Indian state of Bihar. Grammatical gender in Bajjika is expressed in the nominal forms, definitive particles, and verbal agreement. Although the morphology of Bajjika verb-agreement is one of the most elaborate in Indo-Aryan languages, the formalization of gender in the verbal morphology is very simple; the gender of only the second person honorific and the third person honorific referents in the subject function is encoded. The definitive particle receives gender marking when it is added to an adjective. In this article, I identify and describe different areas of Bajjika grammar where gender is encoded. Based on the analyses of excerpts from natural discourse, I also observe an interesting tendency in terms of (written and spoken) modebased neutralization of gender in Bajjika discourse. While the masculine and feminine genders of the second and third person “honorific” referents are consistently encoded in the verb-agreement in the spoken mode, in the written mode it is neutralized. We may then witness a potential neutralization of gender in terms of a diachronic change in the Bajjika grammar.
Keywords: Bajjika, Bihari language, Eastern Indo-Aryan, gender, grammatical gender, language change, lexical gender
Published online: 16 December 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.264.07kum
References

References

Arun, Awadheshwar
1972 Bajjikā, Hindi aur Bhojpuri kā Tulnātmak Adhyayan [A comparative study of Bajjika, Hindi and Bhojpuri]. Muzaffarpur: Kumud Prakashan.Google Scholar
2003 Bajjika Ramāen. Chennai: Akhil Bhāratiy Bajjika Sahitya Sammelan.Google Scholar
Arun, Awadheshwar, and Ram Niwas Sharma
(eds) 2008 Bhārti Bajjikā Hindi Koś [Bharati Bajjika Hindi dictionary]. New Delhi: Konark Prakashan.Google Scholar
Bergvall, Victorial
1999 “Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Language and Gender.” Language in Society 28(2): 273–293. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bhatia, Tej K.
1993 Punjabi: A Cognitive-Descriptive Grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1933 Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Burghart, Richard
1993 “A Quarrel in the Language Family: Agency and Representations of Speech in Mithila.” Modern Asian Studies 27(4): 761–804. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cardona, George
2003 “Sanskrit.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 104–160. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cardona, George, and Dhanesh Jain
(eds) 2003 Indo-Aryan Languages. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard
2005 “Grammatical Gender and Personification.” In Perspectives on Language and Language Development: Essay in Honor of Ruth A. Berman, ed. by Dorit Diskin Ravid, and Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, 105–114. Dordrecht; London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard, Gerald Stone, and Maria Polinsky
1996 The Russian Language in the 20th Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G.
1991 Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2006 “Gender.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. by Keith Brown, 749–756. Amsterdam: Elsevier. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, Probal
2003 “Bangla.” In Indo-Aryan languages, ed. by George Cardona and Dhanesh Jain, 351–390. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
2000 Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Social Identity in Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope, and Sally McConnell-Ginet
1992 “Think Practically and Look Locally: Language and Gender as Community-Based Practice.” Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 461–490. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, John
1958 “Social Influences on the Choice of a Linguistic Variant.” Word 14: 47–56. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, G.C., and Jyotiprakash Tamuli
2003 “Asamiya.” In The Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by Georges Cardonaand, and Danesh Jain, 391–443. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Government of Nepal
2012 National Population and Housing Census 2011. Kathmandu: National Planning Commission Secretariat, Central Bureau of Statistics. Online http://​cbs​.gov​.np​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2012​/11​/National%20Report​.pdf (Accessed: June 23, 2014).Google Scholar
Grierson, George A.
1883–87 Seven Grammars of the Dialects and Sub-dialects of the Bihari Language, Parts I–VIII. Delhi: Bharatiya Publishing House.Google Scholar
1968 [1903] Linguistic Survey of India: Indo-Aryan Family: Eastern Group. Part II: Specimen of the Biharī and Oriyā Languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K.
1978 Language as Social Semiotic: the Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Kachru, Yamuna
2006 Hindi. Amsterdam; Philadephia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kachru, Yamuna, Braj B. Kachru, and Tej K. Bhatia
1976 “The Notion ‘Subject’: a Note on Hindi–Urdu, Kashmiri and Punjabi.” In The Notion of Subject in South Asian Languages, ed. by Manindra K. Verma, 79–108. Madison: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Kashyap, Abhishek Kumar
Forthcoming. A functional grammar of Bajjika: An SFL perspective. Leiden: Brill.
In press. “On the Linguistic Resources of Bajjika”. In People’s Linguistic Survey of India: The Languages of Bihari ed. by Vibha Chauhan New Delhi Orient Blackswan
2012 “The Pragmatic Principles of Agreement in Bajjika Verbs.” Journal of Pragmatics 44(13): 1868–1887. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “The Bajjika Language and Speech Community.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 227: 209–224.Google Scholar
Kashyap, Abhishek Kumar, and Foong Ha Yap
In press. “Epistemicity, Social Identity and Politeness Marking: A Pragmatic Analysis of Bajjika Verbal Inflections.” Linguistics.
Kashyap, Abhishek Kumar and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen
Forthcoming. “The Representation of Motion in Discourse: variation across registers.” Language Sciences.
Kumar, Abhishek
2003 “A Study in the Transitivity of Bajjika: Verbs and Verb-endings.” CIEFL Bulletin 13(2): 1–18.Google Scholar
2009 Mood, Transitivity and Theme in Bajjika in Typological Perspective: A Text-Based Description. PhD dissertation. Sydney: Macquarie University.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig
(eds.) 2013 Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth Edition. Dallas: SIL International. Online version: http://​www​.ethnologue​.com. Accessed: 31 March 2013.Google Scholar
Masica, Colin P.
1991 The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M.
1993 “Register in the Round: Diversity in a Unified Theory of Register Analysis.” In Register Analysis: Theory And Practice, ed. by Mohsen Ghadessy, 221–292. London; New York: Pinter.Google Scholar
2015. “Register in the Round: Registerial Cartography.” Functional Linguistics 2(9): 1–48.
Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M., and Abhishek Kumar Kashyap
2014 “The Construal of Space in Different Registers: An Exploratory Study.” Language Sciences 45: 1–27. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Miranda, Rocky V.
2003 “Konkani.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 729–766. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko
2016 “A poststructuralist approach to structural gender linguistics. Initial considerations.” In Gender, Language and the Periphery. Grammatical and social gender from the margins, ed. by Julie Abbou and Fabienne Baider, 65–88. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Muchnik, Malka
2016 “Trying to change a gender-marked language Classical vs. Modern Hebrew.” In Gender, Language and the Periphery. Grammatical and social gender from the margins, ed. by Julie Abbou and Fabienne Baider, 25–46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oberlies, Thomas
2003 “Aśokan and Pāli.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 161–203. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pandharipande, Rajeshwari
2003 “Marathi.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 698–728. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rojo, Martín L.
2006 “Gender and Political Discourse.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. by Keith Brown, 742–749. Amsterdam: Elsevier. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shackle, Christopher
2003 “Punjabi.” In Indo-Aryan languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 581–621. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Michael C.
2003 “Hindi.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 250–285. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tiwari, Siyaram
1964 “Bajjikā Bhāśā aor Sāhitya [The Bajjika language and literature].” Paper presented in Bihār Rāśtr bhāśā pariśad kā trayodaś wārśikotsav held in Hyderabad , India.
Upadhyay, Shiv R.
2009 “The Sociolinguistic Variation of Grammatical Gender Agreement in Nepali.” Journal of Pragmatics 41: 564–585. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Verma, Manindra K.
2003 “Bhojpuri.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 515–537. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vilās, Rām
1996 Satbhaiā. Muzaffarpur: Swastik Prakāśan.Google Scholar
1997 Gharbās. Muzaffarpur: Swastik Prakāśan.Google Scholar
Yadav, Ramawatar
1996 A Reference Grammar of Maithili. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2003 “Maithili.” In Indo-Aryan Languages, ed. by George Cardona, and Dhanesh Jain, 477–497. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yadava, Yogendra Prasad
2003 “Language.” In Population Monograph of Nepal. Kathmandu: Central Bureau of Statistics. Online https://​sites​.google​.com​/site​/nepalcensus​/home​/cen2001​-mono (Accessed: March 28, 2013).Google Scholar