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Title Science of Transformations: A Comparative Study of Syntactic Constructions in Punjabi and English Languages

Author(s) Bilal Hussain

Abstract The goal of a grammarian is to develop a theory of grammar which could describe and explain all and only grammatical constructions of natural languages. To achieve this, different grammar theories, for example, prescriptive, descriptive and generative, were developed. Noam Chomsky developed the theory of generative grammar in the 1950s, which also underwent many revisions and modifications since then. Chomsky’s theory of generative grammar has been applied to many occidental and oriental languages to draw syntactic similarities and disparities. Punjabi is one of the major languages spoken in Pakistan, India and various parts of the world, and its various aspects like phonology, morphology, status in Pakistan and its desertion have been researched. However, Punjabi language has not been studied and compared to English language by applying the revised extended standard theory of transformation grammar. For this qualitative study, the purposive data have been taken mainly from ‘Punjabi Descriptive Grammar (2013) by Tej Bhatia’, and analyzed through the X bar model. The analysis of data reveals that Punjabi and English are syntactically distinct languages. Punjabi is a head final while English is a head first language. Punjabi is a split-ergative language and employs both transitive and intransitive verbs to have passive constructions; moreover, oblique noun case is used to have Punjabi passive rather than nominative case. Besides passives, there are a number of closed-ended interrogative constructions such as neutral, leading, alternative and echo questions are used. Furthermore, the position of question words is usually post-subject in Punjabi constructions and they do not undergo any movement to generate surface structure as it is one of the in-situ languages. On the contrary, English is an ex-situ language; however, it behaves like an in-situ language when the question word is the subject of the construction. In addition to these, Punjabi imperative constructions are generated with and without the deletion of pronouns. Finally, the exclamatory constructions of Punjabi language are generated without undergoing any movement rule. The transformations rules employed to generate Punjabi syntactic constructions include addition/insertion, head movement, A-movement, deletion and embedding. The movement rules of auxiliary inversion, wh movement and operator movement are not usually applied to generate v Punjabi surface structures. The syntactic disparities and the differences of varied transformational and movement rules applied to generate syntactic constructions of both the languages have implications for Punjabi and other SOV languages. The language teachers may draw syntactic similarities and highlight dissimilarities to facilitate the learning process. For future research, government and binding theory may be applied to both Punjabi and English languages.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2024-03-27

Subject PhD English Linguistics

Publisher PhD English (GS)

Contributor(s) Dr. Arshad Ali

Format As per departmental guidelines

Identifier Dr. Muhammad Haseeb Nasir (PhD English Program Coordinator)

Source PhD

Relation PhD

Coverage

Rights