Topicalization in Pashto
The present study is concerned with the phenomenon of topicalization in Pashto. It analyzed the information status of the referents in a sentence and their grammatical functions. The study is another contribution after the work of Roberts (2000) and Rahman (2014). The study was descriptive in nature and it found out the relationship between subject and topic in a sentence. The grammatical function of the subject and the topic were found out coincidentally occurring with the topic of the sentence. Both the subject and topic were found out commonly appearing at the initial position of the sentence. If the topic was any other constituent than the subject, then topicalization happened. The topicalized element is moved to the second or initial position of the sentence. Word order is determined by the information status of the referents where the topic comes first followed by the focused constituents, if not overruled by intonational prominence.
-
Grammatical Function, Information Status, Pashto, Topicalization.
-
(1) Ghani Rahman
Assistant Professor, Department of English,Hazara University, Mansehra, KP, Pakistan.
(2) Muhammad Anees
Lecturer,Department of English, Govt college, Peshawar, KP, Pakistan.
(3) Arshad Ali Khan
Assistant Professor,Department of Linguistics,UMT, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
- Babrakzai, F. (1999). Topics in Pashto syntax. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Hawai'i at Manoa: Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, USA.
- Benineca, P. & Poletto, C. (2004). Topic, focus and V2: Defining the CP sublayers. In L. Rizzi (Ed.) The cartography of syntactic structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Belloro, V. A. (2007). Spanish clitic doubling: A study of the syntax-pragmatics interface. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation) State University of New York at Buffalo: Buffalo.
- Comrie, B. (1989). Language universals and linguistic typology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Blackwell.
- Crasborn, O., Van Der K., E., Ros, J., & De Hoop, H. (2009). Topic agreement in NGT (Sign Language of the Netherlands). The Linguistic Review, 26(2-3), 355-370.
- De Swart, H. and Helen, D. (2000). Topic and focus. In L. Cheng, & R. Sybesma, (Eds.), The first glot international state-of-the-article book (pp. 105-130). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Dryer, M. S. (2008). Order of Subjects, Objects and Verbs. In M. Haspelmath, M. S. Dryer, D. Gil and B. Comrie (Eds.), The world atlas of language structures online (301-344). Munich: Max Planck Digital Library.
- Farrell, P. (2005). Grammatical relations. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Farkas, D. & Henriëtte, D. (2006). Article choice in plural generics. Lingua 117, 1657-1676.
- Givón, T. (1979). On understanding grammar. Perspectives in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics. New York/San Francisco/London: Academic Press.
- Givón, T. (1988). The pragmatics of word-order: Predictability, importance, attention. In M. Hammond, E., Moravcsik & J. Wirth (Eds.), Studies in Syntactic Typology. (pp. 243-284). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Ltd.
- Greenberg, J. H., & O'Sullivan, C. (1974). Frequency, marking, and discourse styles with special reference to substantival categories in the Romance languages. Working Papers on Language Universals, 16, 47-72.Chicago: Chicago University Press.
- Haiman, J (1983). Iconic and economic motivation. Language 59, 781-819.
- Holton I., E. F., Bates, R. A., Seyler, D. L., & Carvalho, M. B. (1997). Final word: Reply to Newstrom's and Tang's reactions. Human resource development quarterly, 8(2), 95-145.
- Jaeggli, O. A. (1986). Passive. Linguistic inquiry, 17(4), 587-622.
- Lambrecht, K. (1994). Information structure and sentence form. A theory of topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Levelt, W. (1989). Speaking. From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
- Levin, B. and Malka, R. H. (2005). Argument realization, research surveys in linguistics series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Rahman, G, (2014). Verbal Clitics in Pashto. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Azad Jammu and Kashmir University: Muzaffarbabad, Pakistan.
- Rahman, G. & Bukhari, N. H. (2014). Case System in Pashto: Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 17(1), 173-193.
- Rahman, G, Riaz, D. & Iqbal, M. (2017). Cognitive Accessibility and Referents Encoding Possibilities. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 20(2), 37-50.
- Rizzi, L. (1997). The fine structure of left periphery. In L. Haegeman (Eds.). Elements of grammar (pp. 281-337). Dordrecht: Springer.
- Roberts, T. (2000). Clitics and Agreement. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Massachusetts, USA.
- Skopeteas, S. and Elisabeth V. (2009). The interaction between topicalization and structural constraints: evidence from Yucatec Maya. The Linguistic Review, 26(2), 173-176.
- Tegey, H. and Robson, B. (1996). A Reference Grammar of Pashto. Washington, DC. Office of International Education (ED).
- Tomlin, R. S. (1986). Basic word order: Functional principles. London: Croom Helm.
- Trijp, V. R. (2017). The Evolution of Case Grammar. Berlin: Language Science Press.
- VallduvÃ, E. (1990). The informational component. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
- Vogels, J. (2009). Subject first or topic first: A corpus study of the position of bare and definite plural subjects in Dutch. (Unpublished Master's thesis). Radboud University: Nijmegen.
- Weissenrieder, M. (1995). Indirect object doubling: saying things twice in Spanish. Hispania, 78(1), 169-177.
Cite this article
-
APA : Rahman, G., Anees, M., & Khan, A. A. (2020). Topicalization in Pashto. Global Social Sciences Review, V(I), 163-171. https://doi.org/10.31703/gssr.2020(V-I).17
-
CHICAGO : Rahman, Ghani, Muhammad Anees, and Arshad Ali Khan. 2020. "Topicalization in Pashto." Global Social Sciences Review, V (I): 163-171 doi: 10.31703/gssr.2020(V-I).17
-
HARVARD : RAHMAN, G., ANEES, M. & KHAN, A. A. 2020. Topicalization in Pashto. Global Social Sciences Review, V, 163-171.
-
MHRA : Rahman, Ghani, Muhammad Anees, and Arshad Ali Khan. 2020. "Topicalization in Pashto." Global Social Sciences Review, V: 163-171
-
MLA : Rahman, Ghani, Muhammad Anees, and Arshad Ali Khan. "Topicalization in Pashto." Global Social Sciences Review, V.I (2020): 163-171 Print.
-
OXFORD : Rahman, Ghani, Anees, Muhammad, and Khan, Arshad Ali (2020), "Topicalization in Pashto", Global Social Sciences Review, V (I), 163-171
-
TURABIAN : Rahman, Ghani, Muhammad Anees, and Arshad Ali Khan. "Topicalization in Pashto." Global Social Sciences Review V, no. I (2020): 163-171. https://doi.org/10.31703/gssr.2020(V-I).17