Code-mixing is a device of indigenization whereby Pashto speakers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have adopted and nativized the English elements in their local use. Code-mixing and lexical borrowing have led to a large amount to indigenized English elements in Pashto. English nouns appear in determiner phrases marked with Pashto case endings, and English verbs have to carry Pashto inflections. In different bilingual language pairs, different strategies are found to create these links and associations, since the functional categories involved are generally taken from the matrix language (Myers-Scotton, 1993).ĢThis paper analyses this question with a case study of English-Pashto code-mixed bilingual speech. Nouns are the core of determiner phrases, and associated with functional categories expressing case, quantity, and definiteness. Verbs are often linked to functional categories expressed through inflection, including marking for Tense, Aspect and Mood, and for person and number. How can nouns and verbs from one language be felicitously incorporated into sentences from another language? Both nouns and verbs need embedding when taken from one language to another. 1A recurring issue in the analysis of code-mixed speech concerns the strategies for incorporating nouns and verbs.