Morphosyntactic Status of Pashto Light Verbs

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to provide a detailed description and analysis of the morphosyntactic status of light verbs in Pashto. Light verbs, which are found in all languages, have been intensively researched across the world. They have been studied cross-linguistically; however, most of the research has focused on Indo-Aryan languages, as these languages make pervasive use of light verbs in their syntactic structures. Pashto, an Indo-Iranian language, likewise makes considerable use of light verbs in its constructions called light verb constructions; however, light verbs in Pashto have remained unexplored to a greater extent. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap and provide a descriptive analysis of Pashto light verbs, especially from morphosyntactic perspective. The study follows a descriptive and qualitative approach and uses data collected from various sources, such as personal observation, Pashto books, articles, journals and other relevant sources, to highlight the hidden aspects of the Pashto light verbs.