Analyzing the Structure of Urdu NPs with Multiple Genitives

Abstract

In this article the syntactic structure of those noun phrases of Urdu is explored in which there are multiple instances of genitive marked elements. The structural ambiguities in such phrases are described. It is shown that only the attributive genitive modifiers stack together at the same level to modify the head noun otherwise there is always a hierarchical structure for the genitive modifiers. The nominal which license genitive marked arguments are described and their classification is given. This classification will help building an enriched lexicon for the development of a computational grammar for Urdu.