Establishment of Argument Structure in Baloch Verb Phrases: An Analysis of Recipient, Location and Beneficiary Theta Roles.

Abstract

The present research study aims to investigate, analyze, explore, and describe the establishment of Argument Structure in Balochi verb phrases in terms of the assignment of Recipient, Location as well as Beneficiary Theta Roles in consort with Thematic Relations. The current study intends to see that how arguments are allotted Recipient, Location as well as Beneficiary Theta Roles/Semantic Roles by Balochi verbs. The objective of this study is to explore and establish the Argument Structure and Thematic structure in terms of Recipient, Location as well as Beneficiary Theta Roles/Semantic Roles by Balochi verbs. The establishment of Argument Structure with respect to Recipient, Location as well as Beneficiary Theta Roles occurs in transitive, intransitive and di-transitive verbs of Balochi. The assignment of Recipient, Location as well as Beneficiary Theta Roles are analyzed, explored, and described under the theoretical framework of Carnie’s (2006) Theory of Theta/Thematic Roles. Distinguishing between Goal and Location is quite confusing. The key is generally the preposition that precedes these NPs. The Goal is the entity towards which the action of the verb moves. The Location is the entity where the action of the verb is taking place. Theta-Criterion theory declares that a preposition cannot be used to designate a Theta Role but if a noun appears in a prepositional phrase (PP), it receives a Theta Role that is determined by the function it performs in the sentence (Chomsky, 198i8; Carniie, 200i7). The data for the concerned research work were collected by means of unstructured interviewees from the two native speakers of Balochi language. The data are collected from natural verbal/oral form of Balochi sentences.  The qualitative method has been applied in consort with analytical, explorative, and descriptive research designs (Neuman, 2005; Kumar, 2011; Creswell, 2013; 2014). The analysis also illustrates that a slight morphological, lexical, and phonological modification in verbs become the cause of completely new shape as well as the meaning of the Balochi verb. The modification of inflections helps to modify the form and meaning which then changes the aspect, tense, number, or person of the subject. During the study, it was also found that Balochi sentences followed the sentence construction pattern, ‘Subject Object Verb’ (SOV) pattern.