A Descriptive Grammar of Chhatthare Limbu - A Dissertation Report

The study aims to prepare a descriptive grammar of Chhathare Limbuin term of : phonology, morphophonology, morphology and syntax. It leaves semantics and discourse analysis for future inquiry. Chhatthare Limbu has dialectal variations but this work deals only with the dialect spoken in Banchare of Tangkhuwa village development committee. Limbu living in the Chhatthar area are called Chhatthare Limbu or Chhatthare Yakthungba. Their language is called Chhatthare Yakthungba Pan or Chhatthare Pan in the mother tongue and simply as Chhatthare Limbu in non-native language. It differs from other Limbu languages in phonology, morphology and lexical words. Genetically, Chhatthare Limbu belongs to Proto-Limbu, Kiranti, Mahakiranti, Himalayan, and Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Tibetan group of languages. In Chhatthare Limbu, there are twenty consonant phonemes and seven vowels without vowel length contrast. The syllable has CVC pattern and it extends from one syllable to five syllables with multiple patterns. Morphologically, Chhatthare Limbu is an ergative language. Syntactically, it is almost a head right language because, all the modifiers precede the head except than in a few cases.