Today our topic of discussion is – Morphological analysis of Perso-Arabic loanwords:
Morphological analysis of Perso-Arabic loanwords
At this stage of our study we will be analyzing the Perso-Arabic elements exist in Bengali language from the morphological point of view. For doing so we will show their morphological nature as well as morphological processes. While borrowing, these elements had to come through some certain morphological processes
. As we know that a morphological process is a means of changing a stem to adjust its meaning to fit its syntactic and communicational context. Processes which occurred in the case of Perso- Arabic loanwords are mainly the following –
1. Compounding
2. Affixation
Compounding:
Compounding is a morphological process occurs almost in all language. Words which are formed with more than one root are called compounded words and this process is known as compounding. Generally the root can belong to the same or different languages. Many Perso-Arabic words entered in Bengali came through this process.
In this case, one Arabic word or free morpheme combines with another Persian free morpheme. There are three types of Perso-Arabic compounded words entered in Bengali as loan. These are the following-
1. Persian free morpheme with another Persian free morpheme
2. Arabic free morpheme with another Arabic free morpheme
3. Persian free morpheme with Arabic free morpheme
We, therefore, give below a few common Perso-Arabic compounded words as example.
Persian free morpheme with another Persian free morpheme: In this case a Persian root or free morpheme combines with another Persian root and create a new word.
Arabic free morpheme with another Arabic free morpheme: In this case an Arabic
root or free morpheme combines with another Arabic root and end up with creating a
new word.
Morphological analysis of Perso-Arabic loanwords
When a native element or word of a language is mixed with a foreign element, it ends up creating a new word which is called a hybrid word and this process of morphology is called affixation. There are a lot of words in Bengali vocabulary which are made in this process.
The Perso-Arabic loan elements in Bengali are highly responsible for creating plenty of new words in its vocabulary ‘Bengali borrowed some fixes from Persian, and did not borrow any other grammatical element’ (Azad, 1998: 123)
In the interest of Bengali philology, it is also necessary to note that a few Persian terms and endings were introduced together with the main Perso- Arabic elements, inducted to the enrichment of the language.
In due course, these foreign terms and endings lost their foreign filiations and assumed indigenous characteristics as st fixes to be able to extend their linguistic influence to a wider field of utility (Ghulam Maqsud Hilali, 1967)
As it is said above, Bengali language borrowed some Perso-Arabic affixes, which are. prefixes and suffixes along with words. These affixes created lots of words combining Bengali elements. On the other hand, new words were also created by using Perso- Arabic affixes with the words of these very languages. The processes of affixation are the following
1. Persian prefix with Arabic word
2. Persian prefix with Persian word
3. Arabic word with Bengali suffix
4. Bengali word with Persian suffix
5. Persian prefix with Bengali word
Persian prefix with Arabic word: There are lots of words in Bengali vocabulary which were created by adding Persian prefixes with the Arabic words. For example-
Persian prefix with Bengali word: In Bengali vocabulary some words were created by adding Persian prefixes with Bengali words. Such as-
In the above analysis we see that there are some certain morphological processes occurred between Perso-Arabic and Bengali words while taking those words as loan. In the domain of linguistics these kinds of changes in loanwords were fully active in Bengali in the beginning of its formative period
Morphological nature of Perso-Arabic loanwords:
From the perspective of grammatical categories, Perso-Arabic words which came in Bengali fall under a certain classes. These are-
1. Noun
2. Adjective
3. Interjection
The categories are mentioned below with their examples.
Noun: Plenty of noun as one of the grammatical categories came in Bengali from Perso- Arabic. For instance-
Adjective: Many adjective came in Bengali from Persian origin. Such as-
Interjection: Due to the influence of royal language Persian, some interjections came in Bengali. For example-
We, therefore, found that two morphological processes occurred while borrowing Perso- Arabic elements. One is compounding and the other is affixation. Besides as grammatical categories, there are three classes of Perso-Arabic word in Bengali vocabulary: noun, adjective and interjection.
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