On Grammatical Borrowing: The Case of Arabic Plurals in the Urdu Language

Abstract

The Urdu language, which represents a large-scale borrowing situation, has not only borrowed thousands of Arabic lexical items but also some grammatical aspects of Arabic. This paper deals more specifically with Arabic plurals in Urdu in terms of grammatical borrowing that is mediated by lexical borrowing. The paper supports the view that, though scarce, grammatical borrowing does nevertheless occur. The evidence is drawn from Urdu where some significant Arabic structures are adopted. The case of Arabic plurals has been taken as an example. The incorporation of Arabic plurals into Urdu plays an important role in plural formation in the language, particularly the use of Arabic broken plural (BP) patterns. BPs represent almost 86% of the collected data (150 items out of 175). However, it is worth mentioning that plural inflection is only restricted to those noun stems which have been already borrowed from Arabic. It is, then, a clear indication that Urdu has benefited from the richness of Arabic not only in the domain of beliefs and philosophy but also in the structure of Arabic grammar.