Search from the Journals, Articles, and Headings
Advanced Search (Beta)
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...

آنکھ سے دور سہی دل کے قریں رہنے دے

آنکھ سے دُور سہی، دل کے قریں رہنے دے
میری ہر سانس میں تو خود کو مکیں رہنے دے

میں کہ اک عکس ہوں گمنام سا پس منظر ہوں
کب کہاں کیسے کسی طور کہیں رہنے دے

اک نظر مجھ پہ مرے ماہِ منیر ایسی ہو
کب طلب میں نے کیا زر یا نگیں، رہنے دے

میں ہوں اس قافلۂ عشق سے بچھڑا راہی
میرا کب ٹھور ٹھکانہ ہے کہیں، رہنے دے

تجھ سے منسوب ہوئی، تجھ سے ہی منسوب رہوں
غیر کے آگے جھکے گی یہ جبیں، رہنے دے

دل میں یا آنکھ میں یا دستِ حنائی میں فضاؔ
تیری مرضی ہے جہاں چاہے، وہیں رہنے دے

The Making of Benazir Income Support Program

The Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), introduced in 2008-09, is a unique cash support scheme for economically stressed families. Its uniqueness arises from several facets. The cash transfers are provided only to women aged over 18 years and have been ever married. It is unconditional and aimed at supplementing income as opposed to alleviating poverty. It was politically neutral, given that the facility to identify potential beneficiaries was extended to all parliamentarians, irrespective of party affiliation. A set of filters, applied electronically, ensured objectivity in beneficiary selection. Disbursement mechanism was automated to ensure minimal leakage. This paper outlines the process of the preparatory work that went into designing BISP – the conceptual debates, the beneficiary identification and disbursement procedures, etc. – involving a combination of high quality research with political decision making. It also addresses the debates surrounding BISP, cites independent empirical studies that show that the parliamentarian-based beneficiary selection mechanism was efficient and equitable and did indeed cover the deserving, and also responds to the variety of criticisms. ______

Structural Case Licensing in Pashto: A Minimalist Perspective

Because of its ubiquitous and predominantly overt nature, grammarians have never been able to disregard the phenomenon of case. While the traditional grammar coined dozens of names for different forms of case, due to treating case simultaneously along syntactic, semantic and morphological lines, resulting in a confused tangle, the generative enterprise, especially the minimalist program, introduced a certain amount of clarity by separating these notions. However, Pashto grammarians remained oblivious of these phenomenal achievements in the area of case. All that we have are a few traditional accounts of case in Pashto. To fill this gap, this thesis takes the minimalist idea of agreement in terms of features between a functional head and a nominal (Schütze, 1997; Chomsky, 2001) as its starting point. For Pashto language, it is proposed that a) ϕ-features agreement between the functional category T and a nominal results in assigning nominative Case to that nominal, b) ϕ-features agreement between υ or Voice and a nominal results in assigning accusative Case to that nominal, c) ϕ-features agreement between the functional head Appl and a nominal results in assigning dative Case to that nominal, and d) agreement in terms of [N] feature between the functional head D and a possessor results in assigning genitive Case to that nominal. Predominantly, Pashto nominals show nominative-accusative pattern in the present and future tenses, and accusative-nominative (ergative-absolutive) pattern in the past tense. The verb agrees with the subject in the present and future tenses, and with the object in the past tense. This thesis proposes that this has to do with the close relation that exists between the past tense and the passive voice in Pashto, a well-established fact already reported for other Indo-Iranian languages. To deal with this split-ergative nature of Pashto, we xii propose that υ (not maintaining Chomskian distinction between υ* and υ) in Pashto past tense is defective (Chomsky, 2001), lacking [uϕ] features, hence unable to assign accusative Case. Following Collins (2005), we further propose (for Pashto) that [uϕ] in the past tense and the passive are withheld by the functional head Voice to itself. As such, whereas in the present and future tenses, υ is responsible for accusative Case assignment, in Pashto past tense and passive voice constructions, Voice assigns the accusative Case. We studied structural case assignment in various Pashto constructions; such as, monotransitives, ditransitives (datives), ao (and) conjoined subject constructions, unaccusatives, unergatives, copular, passives, determiner phrases, clitics, conjoined constructions, relative clauses, and the constructions where either one or both of the arguments are clauses with the overall conclusion that agreement (in terms of features) between a functional head and a nominal results in assigning structural Case to that nominal. This thesis, being the first of its kind, proposes argument structures/derivations for all of the above mentioned Pashto constructions, thus laying a solid foundation for future research on Pashto clause structure, light verb constructions, the nature of determiner phrases, Pashto verb base form, and the difference in continuous and indefinite aspects.
Asian Research Index Whatsapp Chanel
Asian Research Index Whatsapp Chanel

Join our Whatsapp Channel to get regular updates.