Analysis of negative and non-negative uses of nā, particle of negation in Bengali.

The present paper consists of a linguistic analysis of different uses of the particle nā in Bengali. For any native speaker of the language, it is the particle of negation denoting absence or non-existence. Equivalent of no and not in English, nā however has a much wider use. We find many instances where nā, unlike its counterparts in English fulfils, at least apparently no negative function. Nā in such cases is redundant ; its omission does not render the sentence incorrect at the syntactic level , nor does it lead to any change in the semantic content of the proposition.This nā is termed in traditional Bengali grammar as bakyalankarbachak abyay i.e. expletive indeclinable. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the apparently non-negative nā performs actually a negative role, though in a different sense. The secondary non-negative uses of nā are in absolute conformity with the fundamental characteristic of nā, the particle of negation. Through an in depth study of examples of negative and non-negative uses of nā we have attempted to bring out the unifying factor.

An In depth Study of a Song of Tagore HL¢V lh£¾cÊp‰£a : a¢æù f¡W.

The aim of the present paper is to explore the linguistic aspects of one of the most popular song of Tagore : ami chini go chini tomare ogo bideshinee. It should be noted that this study is limited to the poetical framework of the song; the musical aspect is excluded The song pivots on the theme of bideshinee (foreign woman). Contrary to the widespread popular belief, the lady evoked here is not Victoria Ocampo, as is evident from Tagore’s own remarks about the composition of the song as well as all other relevant biographical data. Our objective however is not to establish the identity of this lady who dwells in a distant land, whose image the poet contemplates against the background of an autumn morning or a spring night. Through an in depth study of the salient linguistic features of this song we have tried to demonstrate how the theme of bideshinee had been developed at various levels of the song : phonetic, lexical, morpho-syntactic and semantic levels.