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Article published In: Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
Vol. 45:2 (2022) ► pp.312–337

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Causative constructions in Bodo-Garo

 | Central Institute of Indian Languages
Published online: 4 November 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.21023.bra
Abstract
The Bodo-Garo group of languages consisting of Kāchārī or Bodo, Lālung (autonym Tiwa), Dīmā-sā, Gārō, Koch, Rābhā, Tipurā (autonym Kokborok), Chutiyā (autonym Deori) and Morān (Grierson, G. A. 1903. Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III1, Part II. Kolkata: Superintendent of Government Printing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) are mainly spoken by about four million people in north-east India.
BG exhibit systematic processes of formation of causative verbs through prefixation, suffixation and very rarely, infixation. Lexical causative verbs are also employed in these languages whereas periphrastic causatives are found in the form of verb stacking. This study aims at finding out the causative prefixes which co-occur with the root verbs to form their causative counterparts; categorizing the prefixes in terms of their occurrences with certain roots; and, analyzing the environments and linguistic conditioning of the occurrences of the prefixes. This study also discusses several syntactic and semantic features associated with causation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction to Bodo-Garo group of languages
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Methods of data collection and analysis
  • 4.Formation of causative verbs in Bodo-Garo
    • 4.1Formation of causative verbs through prefixation in Bodo-Garo
      • 4.1.1Bodo
      • 4.1.2Dimasa
      • 4.1.3Kokborok
      • 4.1.4Rabha
      • 4.1.5Tiwa
      • 4.1.6Causative from transitive verbs
    • 4.2Phonology of BG causative verbs
      • 4.2.1Vowel harmony
      • 4.2.2Consonant devoicing
      • 4.2.3Consonant co-occurring pairs
      • 4.2.4Gliding
    • 4.3Causative suffixes in Bodo-Garo
    • 4.4Causative infixes in Bodo-Garo
    • 4.5Double causative
    • 4.6Triple causative
    • 4.7Causative constructions in Bodo-Garo as verb incorporation
    • 4.8Periphrastic causative constructions
  • 5.Case assignment by causative verbs to their different roles
  • 6.Change in valency and occurrence of causative affixes
  • 7.The case of {bi-}: Syncretism of close but different features
  • 8.Inherent causative constructions
  • 9.Functions
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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