SHINA (ASTORIJA) NOUN PHRASES AND THEIR STRUCTURES: A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF X-BAR THEORY

Abstract

This study is a syntactic analysis of the Shina (Astorija) noun phrases. It analyzes the internal structure of Shina noun phrases within the framework of X-Bar Theory so as to identify the distribution and hierarchical arrangement of elements such as determiners, adjectives, and quantifiers. It also examines whether Shina noun phrases conform to or diverge from the general template suggested by X-Bar theory.  The study has used a qualitative descriptive research design to make it align with its objectives. The analysis focused on identifying the internal structure of noun phrases and presenting them through tree diagram under X-Bar. The sources from where the secondary data has been taken include works by:Bailey (1924), Schmidt & Kohistani (2008), and Radloff (1992). Whereas, primary data has been collected directly from native speakers of the Astorija dialect of Shina. Participants were native speakers of Shina (Astorija dialect). They were adults both male and female aged 20- 40 years who have lived most of their lives in Astore. For data elicitation, the participants were provided with English phrases with Urdu translation, to make it easy for understanding, and they were asked to translate phrases into Shina. The phrases were selected considering all the possible structures. The analysis reveals that in most of the Shina noun phrases, the optional elements such as PPs and APs usually precede the head noun in the phrase. Occurrence of the head noun at the end of the phrase includes the Shina language in the list of head-final languages like Turkish and Japanese. The study found that the Shina noun phrases, selected in this study, conform to the general template suggested by X-Bar Theory.