Eastern Burushaski and English/Contrastive Grammar

Ergative/Absolutive

English is a nom/acc language while Burushaski is an erg/abs language. A such, Burushaski treats the object of transitive verbs like the subject of intransitive verbs, while English treats the subjects of these two types of verbs similarly and distinguishes the object.

Examples:

• (bsk) e tis amana baa. → (eng) I made a mistake. (#I #mistake #I# become #be.)
• (bsk) aa ine gane t̪ayaar baa. → (eng) I am ready for him ( #I #that #for.the.sake.of #ready #be.)

In these examples, it is evident that the Burushaski sentences contain different first-person pronouns while English uses "I" in both cases.

Verb Final

Burushaski is a SOV language, while English is SVO. This difference can be accounted or by changing the word order.

• (bsk) d̪aa šaam meey bila. → (eng) It gets dark again. ( #and #evening #become.IPFV #be.)
• (bsk) it̪e paad̪šaa buc̣ bila. → (eng) That is the oriental plane of the king. ( #that #king #oriental.plane.(tree.species) #be.)
• (bsk) ine paad̪šaa t̪alo yuu bam. → (eng) That king had seven sons. (#that #king #seven #sons #be.)

Shown in these examples, the copula is consistently placed at the end of the sentence, while in English, it usually follows the subject.

Case Marking

• (bsk) eer<prn><pers><p3><sg><dat> → (eng) for<pr> him<prn><obj><p3><m><sg>
• {{transferTest|bsk|eng|gušpurate<n><loc> | on<pr> the<det><def><sp> prince<n><sg>