Verb Morphology in Awadhi of Azamgarh

This study is the very first detailed description of the (finite) verb morphology in
Azamgarhi, a unique Awadhic Indo-Aryan language spoken exclusively by a significant
number of Muslims of the Azamgarh region of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is a part of a
broader goal of holistic and comprehensive documentation of the Azamgarhi language,
filling a gap in the descriptive literature, beginning with a detailed discussion on the
social and linguistic background of the language in question and then moving to discuss
the morphology of verb stems and their uses. The data presented here is based on
analysis of elicited and textual materials from mainly the Southern dialect. Azamgarhi
verbal morphology constitutes derivation and inflection.
All the derivation in the language occurs at the verb root itself, which is optionally
followed by stem increment or, more appropriately, theme formation, in certain instances
before the suffixes encoding inflectional information attach to the derived stem.
This research is also the first-ever comprehensive structural and functional account of
the theme formation phenomenon in any Eastern Hindi language. Inflectional morphology
constitutes of portmanteau suffixes encoding information for TAM and PNG
subject agreement. Inflection markings in context give rise to a range of interpretations,
explored in this dissertation primarily through the theory-neutral basic linguistic
description.
In addition, this work illustrates Azamgarhi being typical of Eastern Hindi
languages—though having nominative-accusative alignment throughout, the transitive
verbal conjugations pattern differently from their intransitive counterpart in the perfective
constructions along with different perfective participles, thereby making the verbal
conjugation system much unpredictive and complex. Finally, it investigates the realis–
irrealis modal concepts in Azamgarhi.