A Chomskyan Approach to the Syntactic Configurations of Passive Transformation in Pashto
Abstract
This paper undertakes a syntactic analysis of passive transformation in Pashto language. The analysis it discusses is based on Chomskyan module of passive transformation. Being a very rich area in English, much has been written and discussed about passivization in English. These formal and semantic descriptions of passivization have been applied to passive structures in Pashto. Although this area has not been systematically analyzed in much of the linguistic corpora of Pashto, the current study derives some significant conclusions regarding the syntactic structures of passive phenomenon. The study contends that passives in Pashto are morphologically marked by the insertion of auxiliary “shom” and a passive participle which takes “-le” ending. There are, however, some syntactic differences between English and Pashto regarding passivization. Whereas English has three types of passives, namely “Be”, “Get’ and “Have,” Pashto characteristically has one and that is “Be.” Moreover, English canonically has agentive passives while Pashto has agentless passives. The agentive passives, however, are possible and are realized as "-from PP" unlike English where it is “-by PP.” The study concludes with a few conclusive statements about passive transformation that may provide impetus to further research in this area.
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