Reflexivization in Binding: An Analysis of Mewati NP Structures

Abstract

This paper investigates the structural binding of NPs in Mewati language with a special focus on the use of anaphors within NPs. The origin of Mewati dates back to Old Mewat and Rajhistan in India. This language is spoken among the Meo people living in Lahore, Sialkot, Narowal, Kasur and various other cities in Pakistan. The syntactic order of Mewati is SOV which is a definable feature of most of the Indo Aryan languages. Nominal pronouns of Mewati language differ in terms of case, gender and number but reflexive pronoun is neutral with regard to phi-features. The principles and conditions laid in Binding theory proposed by Chomsky (1981) provide a theoretical framework for this study.The findings explore that in contrast to English where reflexive vary with gender and number, a single reflexive or anaphor is used in Mewati. The results recommend investigating the syntactic patterns of all Pakistani languages in order to create computational frameworks in those languages.