A MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE VERBS IN LASI

Abstract

Lasi is one of the dialects of Sindhi language, which is spoken in district Lasbela, Balochistan (Ali, Zafar & Brohi, 2021; Ali, et al., 2022). This study investigates the process of morphological properties of transitive and intransitive verbs in Lasi. Verb is a linguistic feature which means to expresses actions. The data are collected from the native speakers of Lasi through participant observation, informal talks, and unstructured interviews so that we may have primary data. Descriptive and exploratory research designs (Creswell, 2013) are used in the study. Using Haegeman’s (1994) theory of agreement and X-bar theory, the current study finds that transitive and intransitive verbs in Lasi agree with their subjects in number, gender, and person in present and future tenses. It is also found that transitive verbs do not agree with subjects in past tense; in fact, agreement is seen between verb and object. However, intransitive verbs do agree with their subjects in present, past, and future tense. It is also found that passive forms do not require vivid subjects in the surface structure of sentences. The results show that Lasi allows dropping NPs in surface, but inflections with verbs show recover the hidden arguments (NPs).