Other grammatical Observations

4.0. Several scholars working on Manipuri or other Tibeto-Burman languages have been trying to analyze the language using the medium/model which is acquainted to them. This practice is not encouraging because the languages have their own particular structures. There are differences among the languages coming under the same family.  We have noticed that Punjabi is tonal. Arabic like the Tibeto-Burman languages is agglutinative. Our main concern shall be to disseminate the various components of the sentences and the words, like the motor mechanic (Langacker) and show it to the world. In doing so we must try to analyze the language in terms of its structure and contents and not to fit its information (data) to an earlier framed model of some other language. 

In this chapter emphasis is given in the grammatical categories. These include – Number, Gender, Case, Tense, Aspect, Modality, etc. Let us examine them:

4.1. Number:  This concern with the singular and plural numbers. It is hard to accept that here are singular and plural numbers in Manipuri. Manu scholars have shown that there are numbers. Some scholars claim that {-siN}, {-khoy} etc are plural markers. This is not correct. They have been claiming that ucek ‘bird’ is singular and uceksiN is plural. If uceksiN is plural then we must have

uceksiN m«yAm. But this is not acceptable in Manipuri. However it is found that ucek  m«yAmsiN and  ucek m«yAm are used in the language. It must be kept in mind that m«yAm means ’many’, as such it has nothing to do with the plurality.

With regard to the {-khoy ~ -hoy} which occurs with personal pronouns and which has been claimed as plural markers, it may be noted that it occurs with the nouns like tomb«khoy, tomb«khoygi etc. The meaning here is Tomba and others. Hence it cannot be considered as plural.

In both the above cases one common instance is there is no inflection i.e. change in the verbs whenever these markers are added to the nouns or pronouns.

    4.2. Gender: Another problem is the institution of

   the category of Gender in the language. Although

   natural gender is present there is no grammatical

   gender.  Many scholars have shown the gender

   distinction by adding {-pi ~ -bi} in several different

   classes of words. In fact this is an {-i} insertion

   because most of the cases where they made this

   distinction are on the derived forms. For example:

            Male                                       Female

       ph«j«b« ‘beauty(n)          ph«j«bi ‘beauty (n)

       «yonb« ‘seller’                     «yonbi   ‘seller’

       yenbA ‘cock’                         yenbi ‘hen’

       phisAb« ‘weaver’              phisAbi ‘weaver’

Their claim is in the above examples those ending with « are masculine and whoever ends with i are feminine. It is really funny because the scholars have borrowed the Hindi system and tried to posit the same in Manipuri language. If we examine the following sentences it can be seen clearly that these are not gender distinctions; Examples:

s«nAh«nbi phisAb« h«y‘Sanahanbi know weaving’

 Sanahanbi  weave(n) expert/know

tomb« phisAb« h«y  Tomba knows weaving’

 Tomba  weave(n) expert/know          

 ph«j«b« nupim«cA «m« lAkle ‘A beautiful girl has come’

 beautiful (n) girl       one/a come+complete

The following illustration will make it more clear:

n«Ngi n«mA phi sAb« h«y ‘your mother knows how to weave’

mAgi m«buN phi sAb« h«y ‘Her brother knows how to weave’

mAgi m«mAsu m«buNsu phi sAb« h«y ‘Both her mother and brother know how to weave’

From the above examples it is clear that there is not grammatical gender distinction in this language. Sanahanbi is a Female while Tomba is a Male. But in both the cases the word phisAb« is used. In the same way ph«j«b« ‘beautyful (n)’ is used with nupim«cA ‘girl’. In the same manner n«mA ‘your mother’ and m«buN ‘her brother’ also have the same form sAb«, although one is male and the other is female. Therefore, the institution of gender in Manipuri is a misnomer.

4.3. Case: In Manipuri there are four main case affixes indicating Nominative, Accusative, Genetive and Locative. Some scholars claim that the Instrumental case is also there, while some scholars do not like to mention it.

The Nominative case marker is {-n«}. In the sentence tomb«n« cAwb« phuy meaning Tomba beat Chaoba, tomb« is in the nominative case because it has the nominative case marker {-n«} and also it is the subject in the sentence.

The Accusative case marker is {-bu ~ -pu}. In the sentence tomb«n« cAwb«bu p