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

Burushaski marks nouns for case, while English uses prepositions.

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