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This is one feature of linguistic convergence which has spread to this language by contact with the major Aryan languages like Hindi and Halbi which are spoken in the neighbouring areas. A study of various dialects of Gondi spoken in Madhya Pradesh reveals that Gondi borrowed many lexical items from Hindi and Halbi. Along with those lexical items a few Aryan grammatical features also were adopted into the language. One of those features is the adjectival concord.
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In Hindi, for instance, when an adjective with a final -a: qualifies a noun (1) -a: is replaced by -e: if the noun qualified is masculine singular and takes a case marker.
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| Examples: |
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ba a: laka: (singular without case marker) |
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bae: lake: ko: (singular with case marker) |
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Or, the qualified noun is masculine plural with or without case marker. |
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bae: lake: (plural without case marker) |
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bare: lako: ko: (plural with case marker) |
| (2) -a: is replaced by -i: if the noun qualified is feminine singular or plural with or without case marker. |
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bai: laki: (singular without case marker) |
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bai: laIki: (singular with case marker) |
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bai: laki:yã: (plural without case marker) |
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bai: lakiyõ:koi: (plural with case marker) |
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Similarly, adjectives in abujhmaria are inflected for gender and number according to the noun they quality.
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| 5.3.1. Gender Concord |
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ka:riya:l pe:ka:l |
‘black boy’ |
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pa:ndri: a:nca: |
‘white woman’ |
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In the above examples the adjectives take the masculine and feminine suffixes -a:l and -i: respectively to show gender concord with the following nouns. Se also the following examples:
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cu la: pe:ki: |
‘small girl’ |
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cula:l pe:ka:l |
‘small boy’ |
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enga: mara: |
‘tall tree’ |
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enga:l ma:nka:l |
‘tall man’ |
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