Description

The study embodied in this work represents an attempt to deal with the reduplicated structures of Asamiya,Bangla and Odia from the contrastive point of view.Reduplication is a unique mode of communication.Asamiya (Assamese), Bangla (Bengali) and Odia (Oriya) are three eastern New Indo-Aryan languages spoken in a contiguous area and specified in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.Asamiya’ (Assamese) is the official language of Assam. It is also
spoken by a considerable number of speakers in Arunachal Pradesh,
Meghalaya and Nagaland. The number of speakers who returned the
language as their mother tongue in the 1991 Census, is 13,079,696. Among
the eighteen scheduled languages, Asamiya occupies the twelfth position
in terms of the number of speakers in the 1991 Census of India.Bangla” (Bengali) is the official language of West Bengal and Tripura and is also considered as the regional official language of the Cachar district in Assam. A considerable number of Bangla speakers is found in the neighbouring states of Assam, Bihar, Orissa and in Madhya Pradesh. The number of speakers who returned the language as their mother tongue in the 1991 Census is 69,595,738. Among the eighteen scheduled languages Bangla occupies the second position in terms of the number of speakers in the 1991 Census. In this connection, it is worth noting that Bangla has been declared the national language of Bangladesh.Odia (Oriya), is the official language of the state of Orissa. It has also been recorded to be spoken by a substantial number of speakers in the neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh,
West Bengal, Assam, and in Maharastra, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.Among the eighteen scheduled languages, Odia occupies the tenth position In the terms of the number of speakers according to the 1991 Census.The number of persons who returned odia as their mother tongue in the Census is 28,061,313.In regard to the origin of these languages, it is known that Asamiya, Bangla and odia are the three New Indo-Aryan languages
belonging to the Eastern Magadhan speeches. Like Magahi, Maithili and
Bhojpuriya, they are said to be derived from Magadhi Apabhraṁsa. The
close genetic relationship of the three languages naturally gives rise to
some commonness of form and meaning in respect of such an important
grammatical aspect as reduplication Still, owing to their distinct socio-political and cultural traits they have developed some individuality.Therefore, how far they share the common features of the phenomenon of reduplication and in what way they differ from each other in respect of reduplication, have been made the focal point of the present work.
The phenomenon of reduplication has been defined in different!
ways by different scholars. Sapir (1921:76) states, “Nothing is more natural than the prevalence of reduplication, in other words, the repetition of all or part of the radical element. This process is generally employed, with self-evident symbolism, to indicate such concepts as distribution, plurality,repetition, customary activity, increase of size, added intensity,
continuance”. According to Bloomfield (1933:218), “Reduplication is an affix that consists of repeating part of the underlying form”. Chatterji(1939:195) views reduplication as a process of repetition of a word. Bloch and Trager (1942:57) say, “Reduplication is the repetition of all or part of the base, with or without internal change, before and after the base itself”.