DefinePK

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the formation of clauses in Pahari within Chomsky’s (1995, 2000, 2001, 2005) Minimalist Derivational Theory. This work is based on the natural data consisting of five conversations that were collected from Pahari speakers living in the district Sudhnoti Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. The study identified seven morphologically distinct case morphemes in Pahari. Except for the NP in the nominative case, the NPs in other cases in this language are morphologically marked. This study reveals that the case marking on NPs plays a vital role in the derivation of clauses in Pahari. Pahari shows different types of case combinations in its clauses. So depending upon the case marking on NPs, Pahari clauses can be divided into six different types like nominative-nominative clauses, nominative-accusative clauses, nominative-dative clauses, ergative-nominative clauses, ergative- accusative clauses, and ergative-dative clauses. This work also brings in to light that Pahari clauses are derived through different movement operations. Subject in a Pahari clause originates in spec. VP, from where it moves to  Spec  T  position to check the Nominative case. The object always moves out of its position VP, gets attached with T to check the EPP features on T. This study also reveals that the nominative case is assigned by T while the ergative case is assigned by the Asp. The little v assigns two cases in Pahari; it assigns the dative case to the subject and accusative case to the object.