LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13 : 1 January 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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The Study of Pro-drop Parameter in Two of the Persian Dialects -
Baluchi and Sistani

Mohammad Reza Pahlavannezhad, Ph.D.
Elham Akhlaghi, Ph.D. Candidate

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present certain aspects of the pro-drop parameter among two of the least studied languages in the Middle East, Sistani and Balochi which are spoken in the south-eastern corner of the linguistic area of Iran, where until recently there were no such phenomena as language planning, education, mass media, newspaper or administrative language (Breseeng, 2001: 133- 134). According to this research, the Persian language is pro-drop and in Iran it has started to play a constantly growing role in Balochistan.

Key terms: pro-drop parameter, Balochi, Sistani

Introduction

Absolute universal is a property that all languages have in common. These universals are scarce (Bauer, 1992: 166). For example, all languages contain vowels. There are also frequency based universals such as those found in Greenberg (1963) which state general tendencies for languages of a particular type. When Chomsky (1965) discussed the problem of poverty of stimulus, principles and parameters theory, he made use of absolute and probabilistic universals to solve this problem. He proposed that learners possess an innate grammar, which consists of universal rules and these principles are true of all natural languages (Haegeman, 1991: 12). His theory also consists of a set of parameters, or options which contain binary choices. These binary choices refer to the fact that rather than learning many individual rules, a learner merely chooses between two possible types of rules and all other characteristics associated with that rule are followed consequently. Pro-drop is one of these parameters which describe languages that do not require an overt subject. According to this parameter, there are four characteristics of a language that should pattern together.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavannezhad, Ph.D.
Linguistics Department
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
PO box 91779-48974
Park Square
Mashhad
Iran
rezapahlavan5@yahoo.com

Elham Akhlaghi, Ph.D. Candidate
Linguistics Department
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
PO box 91779-48974
Park Square
Mashhad
Iran
elhamakhlaghi80@ymail.com
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