Abstract
The current study investigates grammatical and syntactical functions of auxiliaries in Urdu and English to draw certain distinctions regarding the behavior, syntactic representation and semantic content auxiliaries add to the main verbs (Vs) through the X-bar theory as a theoretical framework within the minimalist program (MP). The data of the current research were collected from authentic sources (Urdu and English text books and grammars) to consider a diverse range of possible usage of Urdu and English auxiliaries. 200 sentences extracted from textbooks and grammars were analyzed grammatically in terms of morphology, and syntax (through tree-representation and their movement). The findings indicate sharp differences related to the syntactic position of auxiliaries in Urdu and English. In Urdu, auxiliaries always occupy their position after the main verbs in a sentence and their position is fixed and also have the ability to mark number (singular & plural) and gender (masculine & feminine). In contrast, English auxiliaries can only mark number. Another sharp difference is observed in the question formation process. In Urdu, unlike English, auxiliaries cannot be moved from its latent position towards the specifier position at the beginning of the sentence to construct question structures, because, if it happens, the sentence is considered ungrammatical which may result in the violation of MP. The findings of the study would prove helpful for understanding the semantic, grammatical and syntactical nature and behavior of auxiliaries comparatively in Urdu and English.
Highlights
Auxiliaries refer back to the Latin language for their origin, and in modern English, mean to add something to the meaning of the verb (Vs) or to support; so an auxiliary verb is such a kind of verb that supports the main verb of the sentence. Alagbe (2009) claims English Auxiliaries are often referred to as supporting verbs due to their supportive nature which they exhibit during the communication
The current study examines the grammatical and syntactical function of auxiliaries in Urdu and English to draw certain distinctions regarding the behavior, syntactic representation, and semantic content which auxiliaries add to the main Vs by employing the theoretical framework of X-bar theory within the field of the minimalist program
“Wala” cannot have the inflectional morpheme because its addition results in ungrammaticality of sentence, which is not possible within the framework of universal grammar
Summary
Auxiliaries refer back to the Latin language for their origin, and in modern English, mean to add something to the meaning of the verb (Vs) or to support; so an auxiliary verb is such a kind of verb that supports the main verb of the sentence. Alagbe (2009) claims English Auxiliaries are often referred to as supporting verbs due to their supportive nature which they exhibit during the communication. As regards Schmidt's (1999) and Kulkarni’s (2020) work, the auxiliary form Hona is such an auxiliary that could inflect with tense He claims that present tenses (habitual and continuous) use the present tense auxiliary Hona, in contrast, past tenses use the auxiliary Tha. Many researchers have used different terms for Urdu auxiliaries regarding the nature of the function that they perform in an utterance such as light verbs (Butt 1995; Diesing, 1997) intensifier (Schmidth,1999), modal auxiliary (Abbas & Khan, 2009, Bhatt et al, 2011; Wade, 2020). What semantic content do they add to the meaning of main Vs in Urdu and English?
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