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Urdu Nick Names and their Social Implications
Abstract
Names are social identity markers. They change their social dimensions through the insertion of different morphemes in the base word. Urdu, an Indo-Aryan language, is unique in the sense that the personal names in that language present three social dimensions such as diminutive, derogatory and augmentative with three morphemic insertions such as/i/, /u/ and /a/ respectively. For example [Majeed] has diminutive, derogatory and augmentative forms as [Majeedi], [Majeedu] and [Majeeda] respectively. Similarly,[Kareem] has diminutive, derogatory and augmentative patterns as [Kareemi], [Kareemu] and [Kareema]. Sometimes the matter goes beyond simple affixation and there can be seen the operations of truncation and base modifications which generate newer patterns. In this way a single name exhibits three dimensional sociomorphic patterns. These formations show linguistic productivity and social diversity of the language. The data, in the form of various proper names of Urdu, have been analyzed with the help of Distributed Morphology (DM), a sub-field of Generative Grammar. This research may work as the yardstick in comparative and contrastive linguistics.
Authors
Muhammad Riaz Gohar
Ph. D Scholar, Department of English, University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan
Dr. Riaz Ahmad Mangrio
Associate Professor, Department of English, Sindh Madrsssatul Islam University Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
