Nepali surprise

[Cecilia E. Ford]

I recall, in studying Nepali, that there was a verb (I believe "rahecha")
which was used for surprise declaratives (unassimilated information) or for
narratives - especially fairy tales.

An example of the former (from a Nepali pedagogical text):

ko ho?  ko ho?         dhokama euta manche aeko rahecha

I don't have the morpheme-by-morpheme translation, but the gloss is

' Who is it? Who is it? Somebody seems to have come to the door.'

And a note about the utterance is--

        "Note this use of rahecha as alternative to cha.  The speaker has
just noteiced that somebody has come."




Cecilia E. Ford
Department of English
600 N. Park Street
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI  53706

ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu

"May I always be the kind of person my dog thinks I am"