STRUCTURAL CASE LICENSING IN PASHTO: A MINIMALIST PERSPECTIVE
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Date
2014
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Departmentof English & Applied Linguistics, University of Peshawar
Abstract
Because of its ubiquitous and predominantly overt nature, grammarians have never
been able to disregard the phenomenon of case. While the traditional grammar coined
dozens of names for different forms of case, due to treating case simultaneously along
syntactic, semantic and morphological lines, resulting in a confused tangle, the
generative enterprise, especially the minimalist program, introduced a certain amount of
clarity by separating these notions. However, Pashto grammarians remained oblivious
of these phenomenal achievements in the area of case. All that we have are a few
traditional accounts of case in Pashto.
To fill this gap, this thesis takes the minimalist idea of agreement in terms of features
between a functional head and a nominal (Schütze, 1997; Chomsky, 2001) as its
starting point. For Pashto language, it is proposed that a) ϕ-features agreement
between the functional category T and a nominal results in assigning nominative Case
to that nominal, b) ϕ-features agreement between υ or Voice and a nominal results in
assigning accusative Case to that nominal, c) ϕ-features agreement between the
functional head Appl and a nominal results in assigning dative Case to that nominal,
and d) agreement in terms of [N] feature between the functional head D and a
possessor results in assigning genitive Case to that nominal. Predominantly, Pashto
nominals show nominative-accusative pattern in the present and future tenses, and
accusative-nominative (ergative-absolutive) pattern in the past tense. The verb agrees
with the subject in the present and future tenses, and with the object in the past tense.
This thesis proposes that this has to do with the close relation that exists between the
past tense and the passive voice in Pashto, a well-established fact already reported for
other Indo-Iranian languages.