Issues in Maithili Syntax
A Government-Binding Approach
Yogendra Yadava Royal Nepal Academy
The purpose of this study is to present a syntactic analysis of Maithili, an Indo-Aryan language of the 'Bihari' group of the eastern sub-branch, which has a long and rich heritage of written literature and is spoken in the eastern plains of Nepal (as the second majority language in terms of number of speakers, viz. approximately 12%) and also in the north-eastern region of Bihar, India, by 21 million people (Yadav, 1996). When this study was undertaken, little had been done about Indo-Aryan syntax (and, for that matter, Maithili syntax) within the GB-framework. It was, therefore, deemed quite essential to make a study of this nature with a view to examining the "empirical adequacy" of the framework in question. This work is an attempt in this direction. More specifically, this study addresses itself to the analysis of movement rules involved in Maithili sentences and also of the related phenomena therein with a view to exploring their implications for the G(overnment)B(inding)-framework.
It is organized into the following six chapters: 1. Introduction, 2. Theoretical Background, 3. A Tranformational Analysis of Maithili Sentences, 4. Topicalization/Focussing in Maithili and the Trace Theory, 5. Raising in Maithili and the Binding Theory, 6. Case Assignment in Maithili and the Case Theory, and 7. Conclusion.
ISBN 9783895865473. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 26. 140 pp. 1998.
