Generative phonology and the aspirated consonants of colloquial Maithili

This paper attempts to describe the aspirated consonants of Maithili in the framework of generative phonology. The main question that will be asked is: Are the Maithili aspirated consonants to be treated as unitary phonemes or as clusters of two phenomes? In an effort to resolve the situation, 'simplicity metric' criteria will be used and their efficacy and value assessed. A modified version of the distinctive feature system of Chomsky and Halle will be used. Maithili is the second major language of Nepal and is spoken by about 21 million people in the state of Bihar in the north of India and in the Terai of Nepal. It is one of the modern Indo-Aryan languages of south Asia and is more commonly referred to in linguistic literature as one of the three dialects of 'Bihari'.