Morphology of Eng vs Urdu

Morpholo gy of English and Urdu Language s

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This short research paper includes the comparison and contrast of morphology of English and Urdu languages

[URDU vs ENGLISH]

To:

Ma’m Yasmeen Fatima

Code# 5657 AIOU Islamabad

By: Ismat Manzoor BD563661

Contrast and Comparison of English and Urdu Morphology

INTRODUCTION What is Language? A language is a systematic means of communication by the use of sounds or conventional symbols. It is the code we all use to express ourselves and communicate to others. It is a communication by word of mouth. It is the mental faculty or power of vocal communication. It is a system for communicating ideas and

feelings

using

sounds,

gestures,

signs

or

marks.

Any

means

of

communicating ideas, specifically, human speech, the expression of ideas by the voice and sounds articulated by the organs of the throat and mouth is a language. This is a system for communication. A language is the written and spoken methods of combining words to create meaning used by a particular group of people.

Language, so far as we know, is something specific to humans, that is to say it is the basic capacity that distinguishes humans from all other living beings. Language therefore remains potentially a communicative medium capable of expressing ideas and concepts as well as moods, feelings and attitudes. A set of linguists who based their assumptions of language on psychology made claims that language is nothing but ‘habit formation’. According to them, language is learnt through use, through practice. In their view, ‘the more one is exposed to the use of language, the better one learns’.

Written languages use symbols (characters) to build words. The entire set of words is the language’s vocabulary. The ways in which the words can be

meaningfully combined is defined by the language’s syntax and grammar. The actual meaning of words and combinations of words is defined by the language’s semantics.

English Language: English is thought to be one of the most important languages in the world. There are many reasons why English is so important. One of the reasons is that English is spoken as the first language in many countries. There are 104 countries where English is spoken as the first language.

Even in countries where English is not the native language, people use it for business and tourism. English is used for these purposes in most countries. English is considered the business language. English is the official language of the United Nations. English is also the official language of airlines and airports. All airline pilots that fly to other countries must be able to speak English. Importance of English language is due to its international use. It is a fact that a vast knowledge of the universe has been demonstrated in this language. For the achievement of that knowledge, it is essential to understand this international language. We may assume that it shares with the other highly developed languages of Europe the ability to express the multiplicity of ideas and the refinement of thoughts that demand expression in our modern civilization. We can make use of English to promote our worldview and spiritual heritage throughout the globe. English language is one tool to establish our viewpoint. We can learn from others experience. We can check the theories of foreigners against our experience. We can reject the untenable and accept the tenable. We can also propagate our theories among the international audience and readers.

Urdu Language

Urdu, one of the most sophisticated languages, contributed to the political and cultural development of society in a very significant way. The Urdu language is the national language and one of two official languages of the country of Pakistan. The other official language is English. It is also one of 22 of the official languages that exist in India. It is also a language that is heavily associated with the Muslim religion, and there are around 65 million speakers of Urdu worldwide. 52 million of these speakers reside in India, with another 12 million in Pakistan. In minority communities throughout the world, there are also a significant number of Urdu speakers, in countries such as the UK, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh. Urdu is considered one of the major languages of the world after Chinese and English, which is spoken and perceived at every level. The vastness and depth of Urdu is amazing, having its roots in so many different languages and also in so many rich and varied cultures. The Urdu Vocabulary has a word for every shade of emotions.

Urdu holds an important position in society. This is indeed an undeniable fact. The intelligent use of our national language through media could be very helpful in order to establish a national narrative on important issues.

The Urdu language uses a Persian-Arabic script, though it is written in a particular format. This format is the Nastaliq calligraphy style, which was developed in the 14th century in the country of Iran. It was originally used for the Persian alphabet, though it has since been used for Arabic, and certain South Asian languages. It is still written in many countries as an art form. These days, the Urdu language has many different dialects not only in Pakistan, but in India also. In recent years, the Pashto, Punjabi and Sindhi languages have been very strong influences on the Urdu languages. Rather than resisting change, the Urdu (and primarily Muslim) speakers of Pakistan welcome change as it enables them to distinguish the language clearly.

Morphology

Morphology is the science and study of the smallest grammatical units of language and of their formation into words, including inflection, derivation and composition. According to Dorfman;

“ morphology is the study of the ways and methods of grouping sounds into sound-complexes or words fo definitem distinct, conventional menaing.” Bloomfield calls it the study of the constructions in which sound forms appear among the constituents.

Morphology is “a level of structure between the phonological and the syntactic.” It is complementary to syntax. Morphology is the grammar of words; syntax the grammar of sentences. The way morphemes combine to form words is known as the morphology of a language system, whereas syntax refers to the form of the arrangement of words in phrases and sentences. Agreement, for example, is a morphological feature and word order is syntactic feature of language system.

Urdu Morphology: Urdu is a challenging language because of, first, its Perso-Arabic script and second, its morphological system having inherent grammatical forms and vocabulary of Arabic, Persian and the native languages of South Asia. Urdu is a morphologically rich language. It has a variety of morphological phenomena in various grammatical categories, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives. Urdu has a lot of Noun Morphology, both Derivational and Inflectional. Urdu is rich in generating nouns from existing noun and non-noun words, and using inflections even for gender of un- animated items, which is not possible in English. Honor is also an interesting phenomenon in Urdu Morphology. There are more than 50 Morphological forms (and around 20 Surface forms) associated with a Verb. Like Nouns, Adjectives are divided into two groups: those which have suffixes that change to show gender and number (marked adjectives), and those which do not (unmarked adjectives). There are other grammatical categories in Urdu that have regular Morphological patterns, e.g. Numbers, Particles etc.

English Morphology: Morphology in the English language is important because of its crucial impact on ones understanding of a lexicon and how one interprets that lexicon in a sentence. However, its importance is in more than just ones correct interpretation of a sentence. It is also an important aspect in the language which allows the use and entry of new words into English. The combination of different morphemes in the English language has proven itself an important aspect in the development of the language. Throughout history words have been often put together with other words to create new and more descriptive words. For example, the word deadlock which is a combination of two words put together, Dead (to die) and lock (to be chained or have no access to). When the two words are put together the meaning becomes an exaggerated way of expressing that the progress has stopped, things have become stagnant, or inactive. It can also refer to a cell that would be used for solitary confinement of a prisoner. As one can see Morphology is used in spoken language and literature in creative ways to expand the English language and to help people further express and better communicate with one another. English morphology is particularly important because native speakers of English create new words constantly. It is important to know how to change words to make them different parts of speech (verb, noun, adjective, etc.) since English speakers tend to continually change words and add suffixes and prefixes to create new words.

Every language which can be broken down into components can be studied by morphology. To examine morphology of Urdu and English, we need to first understand the components of a word. When we look at the smallest grammatical unit in English we are talking about a morpheme. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language, making it different from a word.

Morphemes Morpheme can be defined as the smallest meaningful morphological unit of a

language that cannot be further divided or analyzed. In other words, morpheme can be described as the minimal units of meaning. Minimal units of grammatical structure such as the four components of un, faith, ful, ness, are called morphemes. Telephones has three morphemes {tele}, {phone}, and {s}. Morphemes are customarily described as minimal units of grammatical analysis, “ the units of ‘lowest; rank out of which words, the units of next ‘highest’ rank are composed. So morphemes are those distinct, minimal syntactical units which form words. They can also be defined as the minimal units of meaning out of which meaningful words are composed in various ways. A morpheme may be monosyllabic as {man} and {a/an/the} or polysyllabic as {happy} and {nature}. Morphemes are usually put into braces, i.e. curly brackets {} {the} {help} {less} {boy} {s}

Morphs Any phonetic shape or representation of a phoneme is a morph. To quote John Lyons, “When the word can be segmented into parts, these segments are referred to as morphs.” Thus the words shorter is analyzable in two morphs, which can be written orthographically as /short/ and /er/. Each morph represents a particular morpheme, but each morpheme does not have a morph. For example, the plural noun sheep has one morph, but it has two morphemes {sheep} and {}. ‘Went ‘ has one morph, but two morpheme {go} and {ed}.

Allomorphs: Morpheme sometimes manifests itself in various phonetic shapes or forms. The plural morpheme can be realized as /-s/ or /-z/ or /-iz/ and so on. Similarly, the past tense morpheme can appear as /-d/, /-t/ and /-id/. Each of these morphs belongs to the same morpheme. These are called allomorphs. Plural Allomorphs: The plural morpheme in English ( which combines with a noun morpheme to form a plural) is represented by three allomorphs /s/, /z/ and /iz/ in different environments (which are phonologically conditioned).

{e(s)} /iz/ e.g. in the case of /s/, /z/, /∫/ /t∫/ /3/ /d3/ buses, vases , bushes, churches, rouges, judges. /s/ e.g. in the case of words ending in voiceless consonants (other than s, ∫, t∫) cats and caps. /z/ in the case of words ending in voiced sounds (other than z, 3, d3) e.g. boys and bags Similarly the present tense morpheme {-e(s)} has three allomorphs /s/, /z/, and /iz/. e.g. gets, runs, washes Past Allomorphs: The past tense morpheme of English, {e(d)} has also three different (phonologically conditioned) alllomorphs /t/, /d/ and /id/. {e(d)} /t/ aftger morphs ending in voiceless sounds (except) /t/) Booked, pushed etc. /d/ after morphs ending in voiced sounds (except /d/) Loved, bagged etc. /id/ after morphs ending in /t/ an /d/ wanted /wanted/, wedded /weded/

Types of Morpheme: Two types of morphemes have been identified on the basis of their occurrence in larger constructions: 1- Free form 2-Bound form.

Free Morpheme:

A morpheme that occurs alone, or can stand alone is a free form. It does not require the presence of another morpheme; in other words, such a morpheme does not need the support of any other element. All content words are free forms.

Examples: house, church, girl, cat, walk, see, red, short, book, water.

Some form words are also free forms, always, though, but, never, and, or, if. The meaning of such words is ‘contained in their ability to refer to some point in the world outside’.

Bound Morpheme: A second class of morphemes called bound form; contain elements that must always be attached to some other elements. They cannot occur or stand alone. In words like watery, invisible, reader, possibility, madness, cats, and manly we can identify such morphemic particles as –y, in- , -er, - -ty, -ness, -s, and -ly. Their meaning is in their grammatical functions such as noun-making, verb-forming, pluralizing, adjectivising, and so on. They can be attached to any other free forms of the same form class to construct similar segments. Isolated they do not stand by themselves.

Two types of bound form that are widely used are prefix and suffix. As a class they are known as affixes. Infix is the free form or a root. Prefix precedes it e.g. in uncommon, recycle, descend, un, re and de are prefixes. The prefix is derivational which means that it always changes the meaning of a word and can also change its grammatical class. For example; happy-> unhappy (change in meaning + both are adj), able-> enable (change in meaning+ change in form adj->verb) So they are also class maintaining and class changing. Suffix follows a free form. Examples are less, ation, ment and ness in sleeveless, temptation, government ,darkness etc. Prefixes and suffixes are word formative elements Suffixes are further classified into two categories in the basis of their function. 1- Inflectional 2- Derivational 3- Bound Base Inflectional: An affix that cannot take another affix is generally identified as inflectional affix. If we add -s or -ed to present we will get derivative words presents and presented. We cannot add another suffix to it. Inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of the original word. So in "Every day I walk to school" and "Yesterday I walked to school", the words walk and walked have the same basic meaning. In "I have one car" and "I have two cars", the basic meaning of the words car and cars is exactly the same. In these cases, the suffix is added simply for grammatical "correctness" Example; dog->dogs,

like-> he likes etc.

Derivational: A significant feature of the derivational affix is that other suffixes can be added to it. One of the functions of derivational affixes has been recognized as that of ‘formation of new words’ . This is one of its functions. Another function is that they maintain the form-class. Examples are: Globe (N) global (Adj), globalize (vb), globalization (N) Child (N), Childish (Adj) ), childishly (Adv), childishness (N). Each time a

derivational affix is added in the above examples, we see the form-class changing.

Bound Bases: Bound bases are tose morphemes which serve as roots for derivational forms but which never appear as free forms. Examples: in the word “conclude” –clude and in “perceive” –ceive are bound bases.

Similarities Between English and Urdu Morphology

English Morphology

Urdu Morphology

1- Morphs English language has phonetic representation of every morpheme. E.g. writer {rait}{ә}

1-Morphs Script of Urdu language is based on joint letter system and it is a phonetic language so in Urdu phonetic representation instead has harkaat ( ‫ـ‬ ‫ )حرکات‬zabr ‫ ـــــ‬zair ‫ ـــــ‬pesh ‫ـ‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ــ پبچپپن‬ e.g. ‫ن‬ ‫{ پبچپپ‬gher } {taraqi } {yafta} Allomorphs Urdu language has also phonologically conditioned allomorphs. / ،/‫ییاں‬/،/‫ے‬ ‫ات‬/،/‫ییں‬// Morphologically conditioned morphs are ‫نت‬ ‫ن ئ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫بج‬ ‫یت بیجہ ـ – ن تا ـ‬ ‫نخاتون ـ — خواتیپن۔‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫ـ‬

2- Allomorphs Allomorphs in English language are phonologically conditioned and also morphologically conditioned. , for example, in plural morpheme and past morpheme, (/s/, /z/, /iz/ ) and (/d/, /t/, /ed/) respectively are phonologically conditioned. 3- Plural Morpheme English has plural morphemes and they are put in after free morpheme to make regular plural morphemes. For example s, es, ies,ves, are put in the end to form plural morpheme. Roses, cells, knives. etc 4. Gender morpheme Regular gender (feminine) morpheme is put at the end of word. Like ess. e.g. Prince  princess. Lion  lioness. 5. Past Morpheme. In English regular past morpheme is made by putting ed with first form of verb. Pass+ed, expect+ed, beg+ed Irregular Inflections -6 There are many irregular inflections of .plurals Foot—feet, mouse—mice, syllabus— syllabi 7- Suffixes and Prefixes

3- Plural Morpheme In Urdu also plural morphemes are put after free morpheme. At the end of free morpheme. /‫ات‬/ ،/‫ییں‬/ ،/‫ییاں‬/،/‫ے‬/ ‫ت‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ ک تابتیپں۔ ایببجادات‬،‫ لڑک یتاں‬،‫ے‬ ‫پبچ‬ Gender morpheme Here too gender morpheme are put at the end of‫ ن‬word. ‫ی‬ ‫ٹ ٹ‬ ‫ٹ‬ ‫ٹ‬ ‫بنیی تا بنیتٹی‬ ‫ پپٹھانی۔‬،‫پپٹھان‬ Past Morpheme. Past is also regular. Like, ‫ ئ‬morpheme ‫ئ‬ ‫گ یتا آییا آ ئے۔ آنی۔‬ Irregular Inflections Similarly Urdu has also irregular .inflections ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫مکتببہ ـ — مکا ت خل‬ ‫نبق ـ — اخلقخط ـ — خ طوط ـ‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫ـ‬ Suffixes and Prefixes

We use suffixes and prefixes to make new words. Some of them change their class while others are class maintaining. Motionless. Government, activate, darkness…. Uncommon disappoint, recycle, Degrade. Decentralize 8- Zero Suffix Many nouns in their plural inflections that have zero suffix. As in Sheep— Sheep Fish—Fish Cattle—Cattle Gender change is Cat—Cat, teacher—teacher,

Same is the case with Urdu. Class changing and class maintaining affixes are there. ‫خوش پوش کمتر صحت مند خالہ زاد ۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫بیاح یتا سراببجام‬ ‫ئے قد ر ان گننت‬ ‫ب‬ 8-Zero Suffix In Urdu also there are zero suffixes. Plurals like ‫ پچپجا زاد‬،‫ تپپھوپپھا‬، ‫ن‬ ‫ینت ییم غر ینب‬ ‫ مہمان‬are gender zero suffix.

Differences Between Urdu and English Morphology English Morphology

Urdu Morphology

1- No. of Morphemes English words can have many morphemes Denaturalization has 5 morphemes,

1-No. of Morphemes Urdu words have not more than 3 morphemes.‫ت‬ ‫ث ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن ت‬ ‫ اکثر ینتییں‬،‫غیثر ترقی ییافتبہ‬

2-Subject Conditioned Morphemes In English there is no system of subject conditioning Like verb “read” remains the same with every subject. He will read They will read I will read.

2-Subject Conditioned Morphemes In Urdu verb has inflections according to subject. e.g. ‫مییں پتڑھوں گا‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ے پتڑھیپں گے‬ ‫پبچ‬ ‫ببپجہ پتڑھے گا‬

3- Prepositions In English there are prepositions which don’t effect subjects or objects of the sentences. Children came I gave toffees to children children is same in both situations.

3- Postpositions In Urdu there are postpositions which effect subjects and objects in sentences. e.g. ‫ئ‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ے آئے۔‬ ‫پبچ‬ ‫ٹ ن‬ ‫ن ب‬ ‫مییں ئے پبچوں کو یاف یتاں دی۔‬ Inflections of word bcha changed. Active Postposition also exists in Urdu ‫ن‬ but not it English. ‫ ئے‬It changes the subject inflection to " ‫"وں‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ہے۔‬ ‫پبچوں ئے اودھم مپجا رکھا ہ‬ 4- Suppletion There are no suppletions in Urdu.

4-Suppletion In suppletion the whole form of word changes instead of partial change. Good becomes better Adjective of noun “moon” is “lunar” Tooth to “dental” 5- Adjectival Inflections. English has adjectival inflections Sweet sweeter, sweetest, Pretty prettier prettiest.

6- Present Morpheme English has present morpheme only for singular subjects Get gets,

5- Adjectival Inflections Urdu does not have adjectival inflections It uses adverbs to show the degrees. ‫سب سے اپچھی‬ ‫ببہت اپچھی‬ ‫اپچھی‬ Present Morpheme. Urdu‫ ت‬has complete present morphemes ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ as ‫یا ئے نی‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ے‬ ‫کہت تا کہٹی کہت‬

7- Mehmal English does not have such kind of meaning less morphemes to join with words in spoken language.

8- Infinitives English has infinitives that are the base form of verb. “to” is used to make infinitive. To read, to make, to set. SO it does not have separate morpheme for it but “to” is a separate word.

7- Mehmal Urdu has some morphemes to be put with main noun words to exaggerate. They have no meanings at all. They are used to generalize the talk. ‫میل کچیل‬ ‫سچ مچ‬ ‫کام وام‬ ‫پانی وانی‬ ‫گپ شپ‬ ‫بات چیت‬ 8- Masdar In Urdu base form of verb is Masdar. It has specific morpheme to be join with verb That is ‫نا‬ for example. ‫رکھنا‬ ‫کھیلنا‬ ‫بنانا پڑھنا‬

Conclusion

Morphology of a language is a very vast subject. In this research work similarities and differences of Urdu and English morphology are found out. Every language has a universal grammar. It matches to other languages in one or other aspect. We have noticed that there are many similarities in the formation of words of English and Urdu language. Though they are very different in every aspect, their origin, script, grammar, sentence structure every thing is different but there are many similarities do exist in both languages. Those similarities are in the structure and internal not external or surface. As shown in the table of similarities, many words formation have similar rules. In the table of Differences, we saw that there are many usages of both the language that do not match. Sometimes these differences are too clear but some differences are very little that they require attention to be noted.

So we come to conclusion that, though both the languages are different and don’t have one another’s influence in formation but then too many similarities are found just because of the existence of universal grammar that may be similar in all the world for all human beings. In the same way any of two languages can be compared, we will find many similarities in both of them.