Date: 28/03/2014
Time: 4:30 pm
Venue: Lecture Room, 11, Mansingh Road, New Delhi
Abstract: In descriptive grammar the word substantive denotes a class of words primarily noun as ‘substances’ i.e. names of persons, places, things etc. Substantive verb on the other hand can be defined as set of verbs that denotes an affirmation or existence in opposite to negative verb that denotes negation. In Bengali as like many other languages of the world there is a superfluity of substantive verbs. In Bengali the three main substantive verbs are [hɔ/ ho] ‘to be’ , [ach] ‘is/are’ and [thak] ‘to remain’. Among these three verbs the second one is a defective verb in Bengali. Because the verb root [ach] is not conjugated in all tenses and moods. The verb [ach] has no future form in Bengali and it is neither conjugated in imperative mood. The scope of this paper is to show their use in syntactic level in Bengali where these verbs does not always have the role of substantive verb because of shift of semantic connotation.