A Comparative Study of WH-Movement in Urdu and English : A Minimalist Perspective

The present study aims at presenting a comparative study of Urdu and English in terms of Wh-movement in the light of the minimalist program (MP) as the theoretical framework of the study. For this purpose, Urdu and English data related to Wh-expressions is used. The empirical evaluation of data reveals that Wh-movement is mandatory in English while, non-mandatory in Urdu. Furthermore, it shows that the movement of tense markers in English is obligatory along with the movement of Wh-phrase as compared to Urdu in which it is optional. The movement of tense markers is covert in Urdu as compared to its overt movement in English. The findings of the study show that the feature of [+WH, EPP] stimulates the movement of Wh-expression in order to check these features. The findings of the study are expected to prove helpful for students and researchers in understanding the nature of syntax in general and Wh-movement particularly.


Introduction
All languages are similar and different from each other in a certain respect because all languages are similar in the sense that all are equipped with UG (universal grammar) and it is generalized that there are two contents of UG, Principles, and Parameters (Radford 2004;Kim & Sells, 2008).Principles are considered universals on the basis of which it is suggested that all languages are similar, while on the other hand, Parameters are regarded as those elements which mark sharp differences between different languages (Miller, 2016;Yeo, 2009;Givon, 2001).
The current research tries to investigate the parametric variation between Urdu and English in terms of Wh-movement.Assuming Minimalist Program proposed by the researcher Rivero (1978), as the method for investigating the comparative nature of Wh-movement (a type of movement operation with the help of which a Wh-expression moved out from its original position towards the fronting position of the sentence) in Urdu and English.
Therefore, the present study focuses on the investigation of Wh-movement between Urdu and English language.Furthermore, it concentrates on investigating how the movement of Wh-expression affects the grammaticality of the sentence and why it is always triggered towards the fronting position of the sentence in English as compared to Urdu.It is hoped that the findings of the present study would prove beneficial for researchers, students, and readers in order to have a better understanding of syntax in general and Wh-movement in particular.

Classification of Wh-movement
Wh-movement can be classified into following categories on the basis of distance and on the basis of position regarding the application of the movement.

Distance-Based Classification
On the basis of distance, Wh-movement can be classified into followings:

Wh-movement with no Distance
The movement of a Wh-expression in a sentence containing one clause termed as Wh-movement without distance.Such as what are you saying t?

Wh-movement Based on Distance
The movement of a Wh-phrase in a sentence which contains one main clause and two or more subordinate clauses regarded as the Wh-movement with distance.In such types of sentences, a Wh-expression moves from its extracting point of the subordinate clause towards the landing point of the complementiser phrase specifier position of CP of the main clause (Horrocks & Stavrou, 1987;Simpson & Bhattacharya, 2003).Wh-movement with distance takes place in a cyclic fashion, e.g.what did you think that he eat t?

Wh-movement with Multiple Wh-expressions
There are a number of sentences containing one or more than one Wh-words.The movement of Wh-word in such a sentence based on the Attracts Closest Principle (Dayal, 2017).This principle states, "A head which attracts a given kind of constituent attracts the closest constituent of the relevant kind" e.g. who might he think t has done what?The above example is the s-structure representation of the D-structure of the following sentence; he might think who has done what?Since in the sentence, there are two Wh-words who and what and according to Attract Closest Principle "who" is closer to the main clause than "what", so "who" will move towards the Specifier position in CP of the sentence (Simpson & Bhattacharya, 2003).

Classification on the Basis of the Position of Applying Movement
On the basis of the position of movement, the movement of Wh-phrase can be observed on the syntactic and semantic level.

Movement on a Syntactic Level
The movement of Wh-word on the syntactic level is applied in the D-structure of the sentence and its representation can be observed at S-structure.Movement in terms of the syntactic level is considered compulsory for the languages which incorporate it.Therefore, if the Wh-expression does not undergo movement from its argument position towards its non-argument position, the resulting structure is considered ungrammatical in nature (Hartmann, 2016).

Movement on Semantic Level
In some languages in which Wh-expression does not move from its authoritative position towards Specifier position of CP, the movement said to take place at the semantic level.In simple terms, according to Simpson and Bhattacharya (2003), such languages are regarded as "Wh-in-situ language, in which movement occurs but not visible at S. structure of the sentence and the movement of Wh-word occurs at logical form (LF) of the language-independent component of human language faculty and used for interrogative purposes (Toosarvandani, 2008).In Government and Binding theory, it is maintained though Wh-phrases do not move in a syntactic part in Wh-in-situ languages, a rule such as Wh-movement in logical form is applied (Manetta, 2010).
In English language, the movement of Wh-expression is considered a syntactic property because it requires the movement to be visible at S-structure in order to form a question, while the syntactic structure of Urdu is different from English (Dayal, 2017).In Urdu, the movement of Wh-word as a rule of transformation is constructed as syntactic meanwhile pragmatic in nature (Manetta, 2010).It is not mandatory for Urdu to show Wh-movement at the syntactic level.Since Urdu is a multidimensional language, therefore, the movement of Wh-expression will be assumed multifunctional.Hence, in this study, the Wh-movement is investigated in both Urdu and English.
In recent years many studies have been conducted on Wh-movement taking into consideration different perspectives.Fakih (2015) in his study on "Wh-questions in Hodeida Arabic: A phase-based approach" tried to provide a satisfactory account of their syntactic behavior in the light of Chomsky's' phase-based approach.He proved that the movement of Wh-expression is obligatory in nature in Hodeida Arabic.He also proved that the movement of Wh-phrase satisfies Noam Chomsky Phase-based approach and Phase-Impenetrability Condition.
Another study conducted by Bayer (2015) to investigate Wh-in-situ position taken into account different concepts related to Wh-in-situ such as, covert movement and logical form, quantifier raising, and movement, covert movement in Wh-in-situ languages, parallels between Wh-extraction and Wh-in-situ, difference between overt movement in Wh-in-situ, coping, pied-piping, Q-Binding and D-linking.Furthermore, the researcher discussed various accounts of Wh-in-situ in the light of Minimalist theories covering the following perspectives: Feature/particle movement, overt movements, Remnant as a disguise, Pronounce lower Copy, No movement, and Wh-in-situ or Wh-ex-situ etc.The researcher also discussed non-syntactic treatments of intervention effects including movement versus in situ position of Wh-expressions.Mowarin and Oduaran (2014) in their study, "A contrastive Inquiry into Wh-interrogatives in English and Nigerian Pidgin" took Noam Chomsky's Minimalist Program of transformational grammar as the theoretical framework, to investigate the Wh-interrogatives movement.They used a pedagogical approach for the study.In their study, they studied English and Nigerian Pidgin and cross-linguistic typological variations of Wh-questions, the Wh-interrogatives in English and Nigerian Pidgin with focus on Wh-word and phrases, movement, pied-piping and constraints on Wh-movement in two languages including the learning problems that a competent speaker of Nigerian pidgin encountered.The findings of their study illustrated that the problems of language deficit in English faced by Nigerian students can be reduced if English as the second language was taught by contrastive methods of teaching.Abedi, Moinzadeh, and Gharaei (2012) conducted their study "the movement of Wh-expression in English and Persian in the light of the framework of GBT".They did a comparative study of movement in terms of Wh-expression.For this purpose, they employed Chomsky's GB (1982) theory as the theoretical framework of their study.On the basis of the analysis, the researchers concluded that the English language has similarity in terms of the application of Wh-movement with the Persian language.Among the similarities, certain concepts such as theta criterion, case generator and case filter principle over Wh-expression were noted.In terms of differences between the syntactic categories of two languages, certain aspects were analyzed such as: • Obligatory nature of Wh-movement rule in English Vs its non-mandatory rule in Persian.
• Syntactic Vs non-syntactic movement of Wh-expression in English is in contrast with Persian.
• Syntactic trigger Vs pragmatic trigger in English as opposed to Persian.
• The fixed syntactic position of CP for Wh-expression as opposed to a different position for Wh-word in English and Persian respectively.Malhotra (2009) investigated "Intervention Effect and Wh-movement" in which the researcher argued that intervention effects are visible in many natural languages, which has become a debatable issue in the semantic and syntactic literature in the last decades.In the current study, the researcher tried to highlight the limitations in the earlier proposed model about intervention effects and WH-movement in order to propose a reanalysis of intervention effects in terms of head-moved.The paper also provided an alternative Wh-movement approach for some languages that show intervention effect in respect of Wh-in-situ languages.The researcher also claimed that the nature of Wh-movement in natural languages has a direct consequence on the nature of Wh-quantifier interactions.For the purpose of achieving the objectives of the study, the researcher examined data from different languages particularly Hindi, English, and Chinese so that the nature of Wh-movement in these languages can be used to predict the intervention as well as Island effects.In a similar vein, Al-Touny (2011) investigated the formation of questions in English and Cairene Arabic under the framework of Minimalist Program and optimality theory which consider the formation of high-ranked constraints in a typology that is language particular.Abu-Jarad ( 2008) studied a typology of Wh-movement in his study "Wh-movement in Palestinian Arabic".Findings illustrated that Wh-operators perform two functions in Palestinian Arabic on the basis of the type of Wh-operator either it is Wh-argument or it is a Wh-adjunct.In this paper, he supported his argument "Wh-adjuncts undergo syntactic movement, while Wh-argument do not undergo" in light of Wabha (1992) and Cheng (2000) proposed works.Cheng's (1997) studied "Partial Wh-movement" re-examined the notion of Wh-movement in terms of its partial movement.Partial Wh-movement refers to a type of movement which possess the following characteristics; 1) A Wh-word is moved "half-way", landing at a Spec position of CP which is not associated with the scope of the Wh-word.
2) A scope marker appears at the CP where the Wh-word is interpreted as taking a scope.
To come up with appropriate findings, the researcher employed the Minimalist Program as the theoretical framework of his study.He suggested that partial Wh-movement involves the overt movement of part of a Wh-word (i.e.partial), namely the Wh-feature of a Wh-word.On the basis of this suggestion, the researcher tried to show that the feature movement can provide some sort of natural expectations to question raised due to the phenomena of partial Wh-movement.For this purpose, the researcher comparatively analyzed partial movement involved in German and Hindi and reached a the conclusion that in later language (Hindi) partial Wh-movement did not involve overt feature movement.It can be seen from above-mentioned studies that no study is conducted as far the Urdu language is concerned.Therefore, the present study would be of considerable importance because it aimed at the comparative study of Wh-movement in English and Urdu within the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995).The study would weigh great significance because it is syntactic in nature and if we look in Pakistani context there are few studies conducted in this particular context (syntax) or if any, in those studies no attempt was made to study the comparative nature of Urdu and English in spite of the fact that these two languages are regarded as echo languages to one another.The application of Chomskyian syntactic theory of MP seemed rare in Pakistani context especially in case of Urdu language, due to which it is hoped that the study could enjoy good repute by bringing into the limelight this particular phenomenon.The current study would be of exceptional importance because it focusses on providing subsidiary literature related to the phenomena of movement of Wh-expression in English as well as in the Urdu language as compared to other studies carried out at the nominated issue in particular.Furthermore, the present work would help the researcher and reader in the general understanding of the Chomsky's Principle and Parameter approach (1981) towards the study of syntax.It is hoped that the findings of the current study will be fruitful in resolving the controversy about the status of Urdu in terms of head-final or head-initial language.

Urdu Wh-expressions and Minimalism
Chomsky's Minimalist Program was used as the method of the present study because it was used by the researcher as the theoretical background for this study.Chomsky worked over many years and provided multiple ideas that are considered central to the study of linguistics and syntax.Chomsky's ideas that are central to the study of syntax are collectively known as Minimalist Program which he has presented in linguistics since 1993.It was found that Chomsky's earlier work in the development of linguistic theory draws it's over complex picture by presenting a complex grammatical apparatus for the generation of well-formed derivations.
However, since 1993, his syntactic ideas presented in linguistics are considered as an attempt to minimize the theoretical and descriptive apparatus that are employed to account for the potential of monolingual speaker producing an infinite number of well-formed grammatical constructions.As a matter of fact, the central purpose of MP is the exclusion of all mechanisms that are not necessary on conceptual grounds.
In simpler terms, MP tries to provide an explanation of monolingual linguistic competence (MLC) which enables them to generate an infinite number of sentences which are grammatical in nature and considered as the expressions of one and only one grammar of a specific language.According to Seuren (2004), MP is comprised of two basic ideas.The central concept to the first idea is Principle and Parameter which are considered responsible for similarities and differences among different language pairs.Hence, all languages are similar in this respect that they all share the same fundamental principles, while differences are due to parameters because parameter setting varies across the languages due to which differences are predictable.The second idea proposed is that universal machinery should be seen in the perspective of the technical problem of how best to link up the propositional thought with sound (Seuren, 2004, p.5).However, the MP cannot be taken as a "Unified Theory of Language" (Cook and Newson, 2014, p. 242).
MP takes syntax as a cognitive system by rejecting the concepts of S-Structure and D-Structure of the Government and Binding theory proposed in 1982 (Chomsky, 1982).Syntax as a cognitive system in the light of MP connects with other two cognitive systems named as Articulatory-Perceptual (A-P) and Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) system.According to Chomsky (1995), it becomes compulsory for a syntactic model to bring into limelight the interface levels where it may interact with the A-P and C-I systems for the purpose of converting linguistic properties into signals to the brain for producing and interpreting language.
Similarly, such modular interfaces are recognized in MP as Logic form (which is used for the interpretation of language) and Phonetic form for the production of language (Chomsky, N. 1995).Distinct from Government and Binding theory that is applied at different levels of representation as for the grammaticality of a sentence is concerned, the conditions of grammaticality here are applicable on two levels of interfaces such as PF and LF in MP (Chomsky, 1995).
These two interfaces perform their function in connecting faculty of human language (FL) to two cognitive systems named A-P and C-I.If we talk about the design of the FL in MP it consists of two parts.One is a language-specific component and other is language independent component.The language-independent  ) the Wh-phra rdu, the Wh-e e sentence "Tu s also illustrate e phrase kaya e due to which sense to the se deals with the he effects of W t" moves out e move it to use in the light ry sentence eve ns at the move is grammatical sentence but w ovement effect dance with MP urnal of English 209 movement of W Kaya" in Urdu word "kaya" m ary "rhy ho" t enever the mov N's, EPP, +W Wh-phrase shou zer is introduce lish.Because i u, it is not oblig erivation of a Wh-expression " ase "kaya" oc expression equ um keh rhy ho ed in the form is moved from h it can be move entence.

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