A Comparative Study of Word Formation in English and Pashto: Compounding and Derivation
Abstract
Comparative analysis of the world’s languages reveals a good deal of correspondence in various areas like phonetics, phonology, grammar, syntax and morphology. Various features of languages range from perfect similarity to complete contrast. The process of word formation is one such feature. This correspondence concerns morphological and semantic aspects. The present study concentrates on the similarities and
differences in the processes of compounding and derivation in
Pashto and English. Following the trend of ‘Contrastive Analysis’ as a theoretical framework, the description and
comparison were used to interpret the data. The researchers compared described and compounds and derivatives taken from both languages with main focus on their semantic and morphological patterns and features. Primary data for this work were the tokens selected from Daryab, Taj u lughat and Oxford dictionaries. On the whole, 98 tokens were picked up
randomly from Oxford Dictionary and their equivalents were searched in Daryab, Taj u lughat. Qualitative and descriptive approaches were adopted in data analysis. The selected tokens
were compared and analyzed on semantic and morphological bases. Major findings reveal that in the phenomena of
compounds and derivatives in English and Pashto, there is perfect harmony where the equivalents in both languages have
resemblance on the bases of semantics and morphological patterns. Similarly, there are tokens in both languages where
there is partial harmony. Moreover, there are some other compounds and derivatives in which there is no similarity on morphological and semantic grounds. Thus, they are in complete disharmony. The study interest’s researchers in the
field of comparative linguistics, Pashto and English morphology and semantics, translation studies and the non- native speakers of Pashto to an extent.
References
References
Aitchison, J. (1987). Foundations of general linguistics. New York: Rinehart and Winston.
Akmajian, A., Farmer, A. K., Bickmore, L., Demers, R. A., & Harnish, R. M. (2017).
Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. MIT Press.
Ari, I.S.M. (2015). Word formation on transgender slang words in their community in Padang (Doctoral dissertation) Universities Negeri Padang.
Aronoff, M. (2013). Varieties of morphological defaults and exceptions. Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem-REVEL,11,84-97.
Bauer, L. (2003). Introducing linguistic morphology. Edinburgh University Press.
Bauer, L., & Laurie, B. (1983). English word-formation. Cambridge University Press.
Bieswanger, M.,& Becker, A. (2017). Introduction to English linguistics.(Vol.2752).UTB. Booij, G. (2010). Construction mrphology. Language and Linguistics Compass, 4(7), 543-555.
Çelik, M. (2007). Linguistics for students of English: Book I. Ankara: EDM.
Comrie, B. (1989). Language universals and linguistic typology: Syntax and morphology. University of Chicago Press.
Collins, C., & Stabler, E. (2016). A formalization of minimalist syntax. Syntax, 19(1), 43-78.
Crystal, D. (2018). The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge University Press.
Dominguez, J. A. (1991). The role of morphology in the process of language acquisition and learning. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 4, 37-47.
Hamid, A. (2018). The Syntax of Argument Structure in Pashto (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir Muzaffarabad).
Haspelmath, M., & Sims, A. (2013). Understanding morphology. Routledge.
Kolanchery, G. (2015). Analytical components of morphology in linguistics. Global English-Oriented Research Journal, 1(1), 161-166.
Lieber, R. (2004). Morphology and lexical semantics. Cambridge University Press.
Majroh, M. (2015). Taj-ul-loghat: Pashto dictionary.
Momand, Q., & Sehrai, F. (1994). Daryab: Pashto Dictionary.
Nordquist, R. (2020). Types of word formation in English.
O’Grady, W., & de Guzman, V. P. (1996). Morphology: The analysis of word structure. Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 132-180.
O’Grady, W., & John Archibald, J. (2015). Contemporary linguistic analysis: An
Introduction. Pearson Canada.
Qureshi, A. H., & Akram, M. (2014). Semantic classification of Urdu compounds.
Raja, V. L. (2014). Word formation: A morphological analysis. Journal of Language and Literature, 14(1), 81-86.
Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. W. (2013). Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. Routledge.
Savira, I., & Fitrawati, F. (2019). Types of word formation used in the 16th chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone novel written by JK Rowling. English
Language and Literature, 8(1).
Schmid, H. J. (2016). English morphology and word-formation (Vol. 25). Erich Schmidt Verlag.
Schmmit, N.(2000) Vocabulary in language teaching. Cambridge University Press.
Victoria, F. & Rondman, R. (1974). An Introduction to language. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Waite, M. (Ed.). (2012). Paperback Oxford English dictionary. Oxford University Press.
Yule, G. (2020). The study of language. Cambridge University Press.
