Urdu and English Verb Phrases: A Syntactic Analysis of Sub-Categories and Verb-Agreement Relationship

Abstract

Living in a global world interconnected linguistically results in bilingualism and multilingualism. It is need of the hour to analyze the structure of different languages. This study aims to investigate the structure of Urdu Verb Phrase by identifying its subcategories and highlighting verb-argument relationship through a comparison with those of English where needed. Urdu, a national and official language of Pakistan, is taught and read at different levels in Pakistan along with English, the other official language of Pakistan. The study is expected to assist the students working on the sentence structure of both languages with a focus on VPs. Based on the Minimalist Program the study is descriptive as it utilizes qualitative research approach. The data are collected through observation method where the native speakers of the Urdu language are observed to collect data through purposive sampling. The findings indicate that Urdu VPs show all the sub-categories as suggested by Carnie (2007) for English VPs. Moreover, Urdu VPs carry more agreement relationships to show person, number and gender.