Insertion Transformational Rule (T-Rule): A Study of Parametric Variation Across English, Urdu and Punjabi

Abstract

The paper compares insertion t-rules across English, Urdu and Punjabi to explore the parametric variations prevalent among these languages. Insertion as a t-rule in the construction of interrogative, negative and passive sentences adds a constituent in the Deep-structure. This constituent apparently lacks in the Surface-structure of the sentence and whether with a combination of a movement or without it transforms a declarative into an interrogative, a negative or a passive sentence. In interrogation wh-movement is mandatory and with fixed wh-fronting in English and optional and wh-fronting, wh-in-situ and wh-final are present in Urdu and Punjabi posing semantic and pragmatic variations. Similarly, in negation, Urdu and Punjabi are multidimensional languages proposing various locations of insertion with semantic variance yet English has limited and fixed syntactic positions for insertion rules. Contrastively, in passivization, Urdu and Punjabi have postpositions (in contrast to prepositions of English) added with verb inflection for perfective tense marking. The exploration of parametric variation is core to second language learning and have pedagogical implications.