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Simin Karimi (University of Arizona)
Persian, an Iranian language, contains a vast number of Complex Predicates (CPr henceforth) consisting of a Light verb (LV) and a Nonverbal (NV) element. In CPrs, the NV ranges over a number of elements (Noun, eventive Noun, Adjective, Prepositional phrase, Particle), and the LV comes from a subset of simple verbs (xordan 'eat, collide' in zamin xordan 'to fall down'). The interdependence of the nonverbal element and the light verb has been shown to contribute in systematic ways to the syntactic properties, the event structure, and the alternation possibilities of the CPr (Folli, Harley, Karimi 2005). In this paper, I extend this analysis to other Iranian languages, specifically some Kurdish dialects.
It has been argued that the argument and event structures of Persian CP, as well as their syntactic properties, such as control, cannot be simply derived from the lexical specifications of either NV element or LV. Therefore, the syntactic and semantic properties of these elements are determined in syntax rather than in the lexicon. For example, the event structure of the LV is not always the same as the event structure of its heavy counterpart (Karimi 1997). Furthermore, the choice of LV determines the agentivity of CPr (Mohammad & Karimi 1992, Megerdoomian 2002). The LV also determines the eventiveness of CPr. That is, a change of LV results in a change of stativity of the CPr even when the NV element remains the same (compare 1b with 1d).
Folli, Harley, Karimi (2005) show that a constructionalist model, in which argument structure alternations are generated by inserting the same root in different syntactic structures, translates naturally to Persian CPrs for unergatives (2b), inchoatives (3b), and causatives (4b). They further show that within this system, there is a correspondence between the type of embedded structure below the vP and the Aktionsart of the whole CPr. The unergative predicate is characteristically an Activity, in Vendlerian terms, while the inchoative and causative are Accomplishments. The crucial difference between the two classes seems to be the type of clause that appears in the complement of v: when the lower phrase is an (non-event) nominal, the CPr has an Activity or a Semelfactive reading (e.g. 2b); when the lower phrase is a predicate and its subject (that is, a small clause), the CPr denotes an Achievement or Accomplishment (cf. 3b&4b). They further show that the telecity of the CPr is determined by the NV element as long as the light verb can be both telic and ateic. In the case of light verbs that are inherently telic, such as shod, 'became', the category of the NV element does not have an effect on telecity, as in (5), where the NV element is a nominal expression.
In this paper, I extend the analysis of Persian CPr to some of Kurdish dialects (Kurmanji, Gorani, and Sorani). This comparison is specifically interesting with respect to the nominal NV element. This element has been suggested to be distinct from the direct object of the verb (Karimi 1997). However, Kurdish data show that this assumption might not be the correct one. The fact that Kurdish is an ergative-absolutive language, as opposed to Persian, a nominative-accusative language, sheds light on the true nature of the nominal NV element in Iranian languages.
(1) a. Kimea esm -e un-o be yâd dâr-e
K.
name-Ez her-râ to memory have-3s
'Kimea has her name
in her memory.'
b. *Kimea esm-e un-o dâr-e
be yâd dâr-e
K.
name-Ez her-râ have-3sg to memory have-3sg
Lit. *Kimea is
having her name in her memory.
c. Kimea esm-e un-o be
yâd mi-yar -e
K.
name-Ez her-râ to memory hab-bring-3sg
'Kimea remembers her name.'
d. Kimea esm -e un-o
dâr-e be yâd
mi-yâr -e
Kimea name-Ez her-râ
have-3sg to memory hab-bring-3sg
'Kimea is remembering her
name.'
(2) kare âb shod
butter water became
'The butter melted.'
Neiloufar Family (EHESS, Paris)
Persian has a deceptively small repertoire of about 160 single word verbs which belies an intricate system of light verb constructions (LVC), similar to the English take a walk or give a speech. In fact, about 15 light verbs (LV) form the foundation of a vast array of LVCs in Persian. Most verbal notions expressed in other languages by a simple verbs are expressed in Persian through these constructions (e.g. to dream is ‘see sleep’, etc.). A sophisticated verbal system results from this small set of general-action verbs. The LVs, combine with an open set of preverbal elements (PV) to produce new verbal expressions semantically distant from the LV itself. In other words, the meaning of the whole is more than the sum of the meaning of its parts.
xun ændaxtæn - blood THROW - cause to bleed
kam šodan - few HIT - be diminished, lessen
arameš dadan - calmness GIVE - calm
jašn gereftan - party GET - celebrate
topoq kešidan - pipe PULL - smoke a pipe
qorbat kešidan - remoteness PULL - suffer a longing for home
This productive compounding has evolved according to certain principles that help organize semantic space in Persian and is the only manner of verb formation. Unlike English, where nouns morph into verbs, as in ‘I will phone you,’ Persian speakers must always produce verbs by combining words with an appropriate, non-random LV (e.g. telefon zædæn ‘telephone HIT’ to phone).
The objective of the current study is to investigate the mechanisms that regulate the meaning of LVCs. Although the system is easily acquired by Persian speakers, the rules underlying this compounding process have never been deciphered. The framework needed must account for the key features of this system: compositionality, productivity, and polysemy. The tenets of Construction Grammar inherently provide us with these features.
I introduce the idea of islands, where a cluster of LVCs express similar verbal notions using the same LV and a strict class of PVs. Each island is represented by a construction which includes an LV and attributes of the PVs, resulting in an LVC with a meaning different from the sum of its components and not derivable by strict compositionality. For example, one of the several islands of gereftæn ‘OBTAIN’ expresses covering with a liquid that hardens and sets. In this case, the PV refers to such a liquid.
gatš gereftan - plaster OBTAIN - set in plaster
tæla gereftæn - gold OBTAIN - gold-leaf
siman gereftæn - cement OBTAIN - cover in cement
These islands form a generative system in which knowledge is organized in constructions (see diagram below for an illustration of the semantic space of zædæn ‘HIT’). Furthermore, some islands of one LV can predict islands in other LVs. For example, an island of xordæn ‘EAT’ hosts the notion of being hit with a weapon where the PV is the weapon. The LV zædæn ‘HIT’ combines with the same set of PVs to express hitting with a weapon. Thus, the knowledge about one island can safely predict others.
Through my study of the Persian verbal system I have found that the productive capacities of Persian speakers actually lie in the knowledge and development of a highly structured semantic space. This space contains many nodes that serve as attractors to certain types of verbal notions. My analysis shows that Persian LVCs contain semantic, lexical, and syntactic information, and that differentiation between the grammar and the lexicon is superfluous. This is the first study to investigate these properties of LVCs in Persian using and extending several cognitive linguistic theories, including Construction Grammar.
Nahid Yarahmadzehi (Tehran University)
This paper firstly studies the internal structure of DP in Balochi aiming to investigate the current hypothesis that the clause and noun phrase share structural as well as transformational properties.
Following Abney (1987),Ritter (1991) and others, I suggest that Balochi DP is divided in to three domains which I refer to as Determiner domain (D domain), Modifier domain (Mod domain), and Thematic domain (? domain) respectively .D domain consists of two functional projections : Determiner phrase (Det P) and Demonstrative phrase ( Dem P) heads of which host different elements like definite and indefinite quantifiers , articles and demonstratives. These functional heads eventually check and delete un interpretable features "U definite and U specific" on the noun head in an Agree relation giving it different values for definiteness and specificity .In Mod domain several modifying functional projections are merged in a fixed hierarchical order. Possessive DPs, prepositional phrases and various adjectival phrases are merged in the specifier position of these Mod phrases . number and classifier are also merged as a single complex head of one of these Mod phrases. Following Cinque (1994) and Kahnemuyipour (2000), I assume that the heads of the phrases inside Mod domain host a mod feature which should be checked against a mod feature on noun head. Finally, I consider nP shell as the ? domain which like vP shell and following UTAH Principle is a place for assigning thematic roles to the arguments. Tree diagram (1) displays the assumed structure for Balochi DP.
There is great amount of variety in the word order in Balochi DP. The second part of this paper, thus, is devoted to the investigation of the possible motivations of the movements responsible for this variety. I assume these motivations have a feature checking nature and are of three major types.
1_ In a leftward movement, the agentive DP exits ? domain (nP) and occupies the spec position of modifier possessive phrase (Mod P (poss)) in order to be assigned a genitive case.
2_ Due to some Mod functional heads with a strong mod* feature which needs to be locally checked ,the noun head is moved and adjoined to these heads and/or a whole modifier phrase moves and occupies their spec position.
3_ There is some kind of optional strong EPP* of a [-V] nature on Det , Dem , and Poss heads which triggers the movement of the existing prepositional phrase ,possessive, agentive or patient DPs out of their merge domains and in to the D domain of Balochi DP.
This study shows that Balochi is a left branching language and its DP internal movements are done for feature checking purposes.
1 _ There can be more than one Mod adjectival phrases in the DP of Balochi language
Gerardo De Caro (School of Oriental and African Studies / Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project)
Tâleši (North-West Iranian, Tatic) is, literally, the language of Tâleš, a Caspian area politically split between Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan (Asatrian & Borijan 2005). The term indicates a diverse dialectal spectrum, usually divided into three main clusters (Northern, Central, Southern) according to lexical, phonological and grammatical factors (Stilo 1981 and to appear). Among the latter, a prominent role is played by alignment (Nichols 1992), i.e. the morphosyntactic coding of grammatical relations, with emphasis on core arguments (S=intransitive subject; A=transitive subject; P=transitive object). In this talk, the investigation of alignment focuses on Mâsâli, a southern dialect that, despite its prestigious role across Tâleš, remains largely understudied (Nawata 1982). My fieldwork-based data (December 2006) include both narratives and elicitations of grammatical forms. Alignment is considered in its interdialectal variation, in the different coding strategies of Mâsâli grammar, and in the linguistic divergences among Mâsâli speakers.
All Tâleši varieties display binary noun declension (direct [DIR] vs. oblique [OBL]), with singular DIR unmarked. In the verbal domain, they exhibit the typical set of past forms (preterit, perfect, pluperfect) historically derived from perfect-participle (PfP) constructions. PfP-forms of transitive verbs generally show a fossilised P-marker in the third person singular (°3SG); when marked, A-agreement relies on mobile clitics liable to float from their verb-internal slot to post-A positions. As for alignment, Tâleši presents two common Iranian features: (a) differential object marking (DOM), with DIR singular expressing non-specificity and OBL selected in highly transitive contexts, i.e. for specific/topical P-arguments (Hopper & Thompson 1980, Bossong 1985), and (b) morphological split in the PfP-environment. In central Tâleši (Yashater 1996), PfP-induced ergative morphology (A=OBL; S, P=DIR) is thought to block DOM; in some northern dialects, by contrast, DOM is increasingly accepted (Guizzo 2003). In Mâsâli and southern dialects (Lazard 1978), DOM has fully extended to the PfP-environment, producing a wide range of structures (see ex. 1-3). In highly transitive environments, the expected double-oblique system can be found (ex.1a), which progressively gives way to accusative alignment (ex. 2a-c) among younger speakers. Formally ergative constructions can only occur when A-clitics are hosted by P-arguments (ex. 3a; ungrammatical ex. 3b would be accepted in some central/northern Tâleši dialects).
In order to explain such variation, the hypothesis here suggested is that a clitic hosted by a singular direct P-argument works as [+DOM] and is therefore in complementary distribution with the singular oblique marker (see ex. 1c). Both historical investigation and comparative research on "ergative" Tâleši dialects may support this claim. On the one hand, A-clitics originate as oblique pronouns, which may still have, beyond the anaphoric orientation to oblique-marked A-subjects, a possessive, i.e. determining, function. On the other hand, A-clitics show a tendency to attach to new information, which is often expressed as the P-argument - especially if it is highly topical and referential (pronouns and specific nouns). This tendency may have stabilised as DOM function in southern dialects, which also spread the oblique P-marking strategy from non-PfP environments. The result would be double: (a) conflict between the singular oblique suffix and the A-clitics in P-position, and (b) possibility of identical oblique marking for A and P. Both phenomena would have consequences on agreement marking and clitic movement. The sources of ambiguity which arise in the clitic-marked ergative system (possessive vs. anaphoric interpretation of A-clitics) and in the double-oblique system (A/P oblique merging and anaphoric opacity of A-clitics) will be considered as grammar-internal reasons liable to explain, on a par with external factors (language contact, literacy), the increasing preference for a generalised accusative system.
(1a) x?rdan-i asb -i vel
â -du -a
child -OBL horse-OBL
loose PRV-give:PST-°3SG[P]
(1b)? x?rdan-i asb -i vel
â -du =š -a
child -OBL
horse-OBL loose PRV-give:PST=3SG[A]-°3SG[P]
(1c)* x?rdan-i asb - i=š
vel â -du -a
child -OBL
horse-OBL=3SG[A] loose PRV-give:PST=°3SG[P]
(2a) x?rdan asb -i vel
â -du -a
child horse-OBL
loose PRV-give:PST-°3SG[P]
(2b) x?rdan-i asb -i vel
â -du =š-a
child -OBL horse-OBL
loose PRV-give:PST=3SG[A]-°3SG[P]
(2c) x?rdan-i asb -i
vel = ?š
â -du -a
child -OBL horse-OBL
loose=3SG[A] PRV-give:PST-°3SG[P]
(3a) x?rdan-i asb =?š vel
â -du -a
child -OBL horse=3SG[A]
loose PRV-give:PST-°3SG[P]
(3b)* x?rdan-i asb -Ø
vel â -du=š -a
child -OBL
horse-DIR loose PRV-give:PST-°3SG[P]
'The child let the horse
go'.
References
Asatrian, Garnik & Borijan, Habib (2005) Talish and the Talishis (The State
of Research). Iran and the Caucasus 9
Bossong, Georg (1985) Empirische Universalienforschung. Tubingen: Gunter Narr
Verlag
Guizzo, Daniele (2003) Le varieta talei di Tularud e di Karganrud. PhD thesis
(L'Orientale University -- Naples)
Hopper, Paul & Thompson, Sandra (1980) Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse.
Language 56
Lazard, Gilbert (1978) Le dialecte tlei de Msuleh (Giln). Studia Iranica 7
Nawata, Tatsuo (1982) The Masal Dialect of Talishi. Acta Iranica 22
Nichols, Johanna (1992) Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago: UCP
Stilo, Donald (1981) The Tati Group in the Sociolinguistic Context of Northwestern
Iran. Iranian Studies XIV
Stilo, Donald, to appear. The Polygenetic Origins of the Northern Talyshi language.
Schulze, Wolfgang (2000) Northern Talysh. Munchen:Lincom
Yarshater, Ehsan (1996) The Talesh of Aslem. Studia Iranica 25
Geoffrey Haig (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)
As yet, no consensus has been reached in the analysis of the Ezafe-particle in Persian, and indeed, there is not even agreement on just what kind of element it is (for differing views see Samiian 1994, Ghomeshi 1997, Kahnemuyipour 2000, Samvelian 2005). This paper takes a look at the cognate particle in another Western Iranian language, the Behdînî dialect of Kurdish (BK), spoken in North Iraq. In this language, one exponent of the Ezafe has undergone a very different development: it is arguably no longer part of an NP (or DP) at all, but is now a particle with a particular tense/aspect value, presumably part of a Tense projection in the clause. Typical examples are the following, where the transcription has been simplified, and the relevant particles are in bold type:
(1) xusk-a min ya
çuy-î
sîk-ê
sister-IZ.F 1S.OBL IZ.F go:PST-PTCPL
market-OBL
'My sister has gone to the market' (own fieldwork)
(2) got -ê ku
šah-ê wan yê
mir -î
say:PST-to.him that king-IZ.M 3PL.OBL
IZ.M die:PST-PTCPL
'(He) said to him that their King had died.' (MacKenzie
1961)
Examples (1)-(2) show that the particle in bold type is sensitive to the gender of the subject. The paradigm of forms available to this particle is identical to the paradigm found for the NP-based Ezafe (as in xusk-a in the first example); MacKenzie (1961) had already pointed out that the two are etymologically identical. I will refer to the latter as the Tense Ezafe. In MacKenzie's data, the tense Ezafe was largely restricted to co-occurrence with state or locational predicates, and participial verb forms. But more recent field-work shows that the Ezafe particle now regularly occurs with finite present-tense verb forms (I am grateful to Newzad Hirori, Sadiq Basid and Neçirvan Hirori for their assistance with the data. In particular, Newzad Hirori has also published (in Kurdish) on this usage in the online journal Nefel). With finite present tense verb forms the Tense Ezafe contrasts with clauses lacking such particles, indicating that the particle is indeed now part of the system of tense/aspect distinctions in the language, adding a particular sense of immediacy or current relevance:
(3a) Ez yê xwarin-ê çê-di -k -im
1SG IZ.M meal-OBL PREV-PROG-do:PRES-1SG
'I am making/preparing a meal (right now)'
(3b) Ez xwarin-ê çê-di -k -im
1SG meal -OBL PREV-PROG-do:PRES-1SG
'I (generally) make Kurdish food'
The question raised in this paper is: how did an Ezafe particle come to be part of the tense-system of an Iranian language? More specifically, four goals are pursued: (a) reconstructing the most plausible diachronic scenario that led to the current situation, noting the striking parallels to the developments of copula elements from nominal linkers/pronouns in Hebrew and Mandarin (Li & Thompson 1977); (b) relating the findings to the framework of Roberts & Roussou (2003) on the grammaticalization of functional heads; (c) suggesting that the pathway concerned involved the reanalysis of an originally hybrid element, the Old Iranian ancestor of the Ezafe, which conflated a C and a D projection, with the latter ultimately leading to the Tense-projection position of the BK Tense-Ezafe. Finally, I will be suggesting that the hybrid nature of the ancestor of the Ezafe (which I suggest was both complementizer and pronominal) bore the seeds of the difficulties regularly encountered in its analysis in the daughter languages.
References
Blau, J. 1975. Le Kurde de ´Amâdiya et de Djabal Sindjâr. Paris: Klincksieck.
Ghomeshi, G. 1997. Non-Projecting Nouns and the Ezafe Construction in Persian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15-4:729-788.
Haider, H. & Zwanziger, R. 1984. Relatively attributive. The ezâfe-construction from Old Iranian to Modern Persian. In: Fisiak, J. (ed.) Historical syntax. Berlin: Mouton, 137-172.
Haig, G. Forthcoming. Alignment change in Iranian languages: A construction grammar approach. Berlin: Mouton.
Kahnemuyipour, A. 2000. Persian Ezafe construction revisited: evidence for modifier phrase. Paper presented at Proceedings of the 2000 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association Conference, Edmonton.
Mackenzie, D.N. 1961. Kurdish Dialect Studies, Vol. 1. London: OUP.
Li, C. & Thompson, S. 1977. A mechanism for the development of copula morphemes. In Li, C. (ed.) Mechanisms of syntactic change. Austin: University of Texas.
Roberts, I. & Roussou, A. 2003. Syntactic change. A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP.
Samiian, V. 1994. The Ezafe Construction: Some Implications for the Theory of X-bar Syntax. In Persian Studies in North America. M. Marashi (ed), 17-41. Maryland: Iranbooks.
Samvelian, P. 2005. The Ezafe construction in Iranian languages. Paper held at the First International Conference on Iranian Linguistics, 17-19. June 2005, Leipzig.
Zohreh R. Eslami (Texas A&M University) & Abbass Eslami-Rasekh (Esfahan university)
Researchers have claimed that studies in the area of speech acts and politeness have suffered from ethnocentrism (Gumperz, 1979; Wierzbicka, 1985, 1991; Gudykunst & Kim, 1992). To expand the scope of cross-cultural speech act studies this study investigates and discusses a number of differences between English and Persian in the area of speech acts and links them with different cultural values and norms. The Persian speakers' use of different semantic formulas when apologizing was compared with American English speakers' performance cited in previous literature. Discourse Completion Task (DCT) was used as the main instrument for data collection. 52 male and 52 female Persian native speakers participated in this study. In addition, 15 Persian-speaking subjects were interviewed regarding their perception of apology speech act strategies in relation to contextual factors. A detailed analysis of the use of the illocutionary force indicating device (IFID) strategies and supportive strategies revealed important differences in communicative styles of the two groups which can give us insights into understanding different cultural values, norms, and assumptions concerning interpersonal use of language in a Western and a non-Western language (Eslami-Rasekh 2004). This study shows that in situations of moderate offense Persian speakers use multiple strategies, primarily overt apology, and that like many other cultures, frequency of overt apology often varies according to the status of the addressee. However, it can also be influenced by culture-specific factors. It is shown that Persian speakers are more sensitive to contextual factors and vary their face keeping strategies accordingly whereas English speakers mostly use one apology strategy and intensify it based on contextual factors.
The results show that contextual factors have significant effect on the frequency of the intensifiers used in different situations. The sex of the speaker and hearer were found to affect the frequency of the supportive acts and intensifiers used in different situations.
The study has both theoretical and pedagogical implications. The findings can contribute to the construction of a comprehensive theory of language in general and speech act studies and politeness in particular. The results have implications for language teaching, assessment, and translation.
References
Eslami-Rasekh, Z. (2004). Face keeping strategies in reaction to complaints: English and
Persian. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication. 14 (1), 181-198.
Gudykunst, W., & Kim, Y. (1992). Communicating with strangers: an approach to
intercultural communication. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wierzbicka, A. (1985). Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts.
Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 145-178.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics: the semantic of human interaction.
New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Donald L. Stilo (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)
A linguistic buffer zone is formed when two typologically opposite isoglosses meet and overlap. In the overlapping areas, we find both isoglosses in effect simultaneously. In order to accommodate this simultaneity of two opposite patterns, the following typological developments may occur in the buffer zone: (A) split patterns (e.g., both prepositions and postpositions or both N-gen and gen-N), (B) doublets (e.g., the same adposition functions as both preposition and postposition), (C) merged or hybridized patterns (e.g., circumpositions or circumposed genitival expressions that frame the head), and (D) various combinations of all the preceding. I have introduced buffer zone phenomena elsewhere (Stilo 2004) with various patterns - specifically (a) adjective-Head/Head-adjective, (b) genitive-Head/Head-genitive, (c) preposition-Head/Head-postposition - and have also treated adpositions more in depth (Stilo 2006, 1987) and showed that (1) languages of northern Iran are postpositional, that (2) those of southern Iran are prepositional, and that (3) the languages of the buffer zone in central Iran have a wide range of mixed typologies. I will demonstrate the claims made in the present paper by examining the typology of adpositions in more depth within the buffer zone of western Iran.
In this paper I would like to demonstrate that we can say much more about buffer zones than simply stating that they exhibit mixed typologies. My current research has lately been uncovering a very revealing pattern to the areal distribution of these split, doublet, or hybridized patterns. That is, such overlapping buffer zones should not be thought of as necessarily having either abrupt borders or internal uniformity. While the particular typological pattern covered by the isogloss may exhibit an open-ended class in the more consistent areas in the heart of the isogloss (i.e., where postpositions are the usual case and prepositions are non-existent or very rare), the class can become statistically less frequent in the peripheral areas of the isogloss that are within the buffer zone. Or, for instance, there might be a rather frequent use of a limited number of members of the particular class (e.g., only one or two postpositions) in this peripheral zone but the class itself (e.g., postpositions) is no longer open-ended (but the class of prepositions, instead, is). That is, we find a diminishing or "fading out" effect of an isogloss of one typological pattern as its peripheral areas approach the zone where the opposite isogloss is in force. As a complementary phenomenon, however, we can also view the peripheral areas of the isogloss within the buffer zone as the beginning of a simultaneous "fading in" of the opposite isogoloss with its role becoming greater as the other isogloss fades out. In the case of adpositional typology, for example, we find a fading out of postpositions on the southern periphery of the postpositional zone. In the overlapping buffer zone area, however, we simultaneously encounter a fading in of prepositions on the northern periphery of the prepositional zone. That is, the peripheral areas of the two isoglosses overlap and thus form the buffer zone between the two opposite, and more consistent, typologies. These fade-out/fade-in phenomena form the main point I wish to make in the paper.
In the proposed paper, I will demonstrate the statistics for the frequency of prepositions, postpositions and circumpositions in the various languages of the buffer zone of central Iran as well as those just to the north and to the south of the buffer zone. These statistics are based on representative samples of spoken narration of approximately eleven minutes in length from various languages within the area taken from Lecoq (2002), Eilers (1979) and Al-e Ahmad (1959). Statistics for Masulei, north of the buffer zone and exclusively postpositional, and Verzenei, south of the buffer zone and exclusively prepositional - each demonstrating opposite poles with no mixed typology - are also given.
These statistics will then be plotted out onto a map of the buffer zone (see Map One) to show the NW-to-SE cline of postpositional fade-out even though the languages represented in this buffer zone belong to two different subgroups of western Iranian languages, the Tati and Central Plateau Dialect groups. Along this geographic cline, beginning in the north with Southern Tati (Sagzabadi), the northernmost language within the buffer zone, and progressing to the southernmost, Gazi, postpositional typology fades out as we move to the south and southwest (from 82.7% to 10.1% in these two languages respectively). The consistent typology of the prepositional zone begins at about the latitude of the city of Esfahan (Esfahan Jewish, Verzenei: 100%) and remains exclusively prepositional to the south of this line. While Gazi is on the very edge of the postpositional isogloss, the language of the Jews of Esfahan, only 18 kilometers southeast of Gazi - and probably mostly mutually intelligible with it - is still outside the buffer zone and is exclusively prepositional. Other locales on Map One are also known to have mixed adpositional typologies, but not enough naturalistic textual material is available from these languages to enable us to say anything meaningful about the frequency of the various adpositional types. Over 100 other locales speaking these Central Plateau Dialects (Borjian, in press) have been identified, geographically both inside the buffer zone and south of it. More fieldwork must be conducted among these highly endangered languages before we can expand this picture with any more detail than given here. At the same time, however, the high degree of bilingualism with Esfahani Persian in the area is also a huge factor, especially among the younger generation, most likely heavily affecting such subtle issues as adpositional typology as discussed in this paper.
References
Al-e Ahmad, Jalal, 1337/1959. Tatnešinha-ye Boluk-e Zahra. Tehran.
Borjian, Habib, in press. "Geography of Median Dialects" [in] Encyclopaedia Iranica, E. Yarshater (ed.), New York.
Eilers, Wilhelm and U. Schapka, 1979. Westiranische Mundarten aus der Sammlung Wilhelm Eilers II: Die Mundart von Gäz, 2 vols., Wiesbaden.
Lecoq, Pierre, 2002. Recherches sur les dialectes kermaniens (Iran central): Grammaire, textes, traductions et glossaires, Acta Iranica 39, Louvain.
Stilo, Donald L., 2006. "Circumpositions as an areal response: The case of the Iranian Zone" [in] Johanson, Lars (ed.), Turkic-Iranian contact areas: Historical and linguistic aspects, Wiesbaden, pp. 310-33. (Reprint of Stilo, 1987)
idem, 2004. "Iranian as Buffer Zone Between the Universal Typologies of Turkic and Semitic," [in] Éva Ágnes Csató, Bo Isaksson, Carina Jahani (eds.), Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic, London, pp. 35-63.
idem, 2004. Vafsi Folk Tales, Wiesbaden.
idem, 1987. "Ambipositions as an Areal Response: The Case-Study of the Iranian Zone," [in] Select Papers from SALA-7: South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable Conference, Bloomington, pp. 308-336. (Reprint of Stilo 1987)
idem, in press. "Esfahan: Jewish Dialect" [in] Encyclopaedia Iranica, E. Yarshater (ed.), New York.
idem, in press. "Gazi" [in] Encyclopaedia Iranica, E. Yarshater (ed.), New York.
idem, in press. "Dialects of Isfahan Province" [in] Encyclopaedia Iranica, E. Yarshater (ed.), New York.
Yarshater, Ehsan, 1969. Southern Tati Dialects, The Hague/Paris.
Pakzad Yousefian (University of Sistan & Baluchestan) & Abdollah Nazari (University of Sistan & Baluchestan)
Baluchi is mainly spoken in Pakistan, Iran, Afganistan, The Gulf States, and
Turkmenistan. Linguistically, it belongs to the Western group of Iranian branch of the
Indo-European languages. This work is a comparative study of causative construction
types in two major dialects of Baluchi spoken in Iran including Rakhshani Sarhaddi
(S) and Makorani (M).
The framework within which these structure will be analyzed are two main categories:
1) Lexical (simple) causatives
2) Periphrastic (complex) causatives
The kinds of constructions in which the causing action and its (caused) effect are
expressed in a single (simple) sentence are referred to as lexical (simple) causative
structures where the causee fills direct object or indirect object position.
They are discussed in three subgroups of verbal root causatives, morphological
causatives, and auxiliary causatives.
1.1) Verbal root causatives:
a. Causative verbs of the same root:
(S)
(M)
(1) prošten
prošag
‘to break’
(2)
pakketen
paèag ‘to
cook’
b. Causative verbs of different roots:
(S)
(M)
(3) murten->kušten
mæræg->košæg
'to die ->to kill'
(4)
šoten -> borten ræwæg-> bæræg
'to go' ->'to take'
c. Compound causative verbs of different roots:
(S)
(M)
(5) yad
gipten ->nešan daten yad
giræg->nešan dæyæg
'to
learn' ->'to teach'
(S)
(M)
(6) pa raks dær aten->pa raks dæar na:c
kenag ->na:c parwayenæg
a(w)orten
'to
dance'->'to make sb dance'
1.2 Morphological causatives:
(S)
(M)
(7) wæpten ->wæpenten
wæpsæg ->wæpenæg
'to
sleep'->'to make (sb) sleep'
(S)
(M)
(8) ændeten->ændenten
kændæg ->kandenæg
'to
laugh' ->'to make (sb) laugh'
1.3 Auxiliary causatives:
(S)
(M)
(9) tal oten->tal
korten zæ:(h)r
bæyæg ->zæ:(h)r kenæg
'to
become bitter'->'to make bitter'
(S)
(M)
(10) mazan oten->mazan korten
mazan bæyæg->mazan kenæg
'to
get old/large'->'to make old/large (grow, ...)'
2. Periphrastic (complex) causatives: They are constructions which usually
need a
clause as their complements and can have a main clause and a subordinate clause
starting with the subordinator 'ke' in most examples.
(11) a.(S) e: jæn
kari kort ke æli wæ:š
bi:t.
This
woman work do
SUB Ali happy
was
PAST-3SG
'This
lady (did sth to make) made Ali happy.'
(11) b.(M) ye jenen ba:es bi:t ke
æli gæ:l bebi:t.
This
woman cause SUB Ali
happy was
PAST-3SG
'This
lady caused Ali to be happy.'
Finally we will consider the degree of contact induced lexical/syntactic
patterns with
the dominant language of Persian.
References
Comrie, B, 1989. ‘Language universals and linguistic typology’,
2nd ed., Oxford: Basil, Blackwell.
Dabirmoghaddam, M. 1988, ‘Causative constructions in Persian’, Iranian
Journal of linguistics, Vol. 5, No. 1.
Jahani, C. & Korn, A. 2003, ‘The Baloch and their neighbours, Ethnic
and linguistic contact in Balochistan in historical and modern times’,
Germany: Richert Verlag Weisbaden.
Shibatani, M. & Bynon, T. 1995, ‘Approaches to language typology,
Oxford university press.
Lewis Gebhardt (Northwestern University)
Numeral classifiers in Persian are not obligatory (Mahootian 1997, Rubinchik 1971, Boyle 1966, Elwell- Sutton 1963, Faroughy 1944), as in (1).
1) se (ta) gorbe
three (CL) cat
‘three cats’
However, there is at least one syntactic context in Persian in which the classifier is required, partitives.
(2a) pænj ta æz pesær-ha dir resid-aend / (2b) *pænj æz
pesær-ha...
five CL of boy -PL
late arrived-3P / five
of boy -PL
‘Five of the boys arrived late’
The classifier ta must appear between the numeral pænj ‘five’ and the PP/partitive æz pesær-ha ‘of the boys’; omitting it results in ungrammaticality.
First I show that the obligatoriness of classifiers in Persian partitives is a serious problem for earlier accounts of classifiers (Chierchia 1998, Borer 2005). Briefly, Chierchia’s theory states that in some languages all nouns are mass and therefore need a classifier to convert them into predicates, which then can be restrictors of numerals. But the PP æz pesær-ha ‘of the boys’ is neither noun nor mass, so his theory is at a loss to explain the required classifier in a partitive. For Borer, the mass/count distinction stems from the functional projections within DP: if a noun is the complement of a “divider” (i.e. either a classifier or plural morphology), then it becomes a count noun. The problem for her is that since æz pesær-ha ‘of the boys’ is not a noun it cannot reside in an appropriate syntactic position within DP to be divided by the classifier.
I propose that classifiers are generally optional in Persian because the divider feature à la Borer can float to other elements, such as the numeral. Borer suggests this much. This is why the classifier is optional, as in (1). But while the dividing feature can in principle be spelled out in either the classifier or the numeral, the numeral also subcategorizes for a number phrase. Since PPs are not number phrases, in the sense of Ritter (1991, 1992), the classifier is the only way to save the derivation. Since English numerals also seem to take number phrases, one might then wonder why five of the boys is grammatical. Based on the assumption that the functional projections in DP are universally available, I argue that English also uses classifiers in partitive constructions, although they are null.
References
Borer, Hagit 2005. In Name Only. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Boyle, John Andrew 1966. Grammar of Modern Persian. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.
Chierchia, Gennaro 1998a. Reference to kinds across languages. Natural Language Semantics 6, 339-405.
Elwell-Sutton, L.P. 1963. Elementary Persian Grammar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Faroughy, A. 1944. A Concise Persian Grammar. Orientalia, New York.
Mahootian, Shahrzad 1997. Persian. Routledge, London.
Ritter, Elizabeth 1991. Two functional categories in noun phrases: evidence from Modern Hebrew. In Rothsten,
Susan (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 25: Perspectives On Phrase Structre. Academic Press, New York.
Ritter, Elizabeth 1992. Cross-linguistic evidence for number phrase. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 37:2, 197-
218.
Rubinchik, Yu. A. 1971. The Modern Persian Language. Nauka Publishing House, Central Department of
Oriental Literature, Moscow.
Moharram Eslami (Zanjan University/ Technische Universität Dresden) & Samaneh Abhari (Zanjan University) & Safura Fada'izadeh (Technische Universität Dresden)
This paper is based on a corpus based research in which the texts with different subjects amounting to 500.000 words were transcribed phonemically by three people holding MA in linguistics during two years. This corpus includes only 30,000 words. Then the inflected forms and foreign words were deleted manually and the output was a lexicon including 16883 lexemes. These lexemes had different frequencies in our corpus and their total weight was equal to 419082 lexemes. The lexemes were divided into seven classes according to the number of syllables in their structure. The data were analyzed from the view point of absolute frequency and total frequency to reach to the most common and unmarked syllable structures in Persian in order to use the results in evaluating the conscious word-formation which is currently done by The Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL). Every class of the lexemes were analyzed according to the type, number and arrangement of their syllables to find out the most unmarked structures within every specific class, for example, in two syllable words, the syllable structures CV.CVC and CVC.CVC have the most frequencies respectively as in Persian words madar/mother and jadval/table . Therefore it is justified that one newly made two syllable word having the above structures may be accepted easily than the word having the structure of CVCC.CVCC like the Persian equivalent barqkaft for the English word electrolysis by APLL. If the high frequency could be considered as a symbol of unmarkedness in languages, then one can conclude that word-formation in the framework of unmarked structures is in accordance with the native speakers' linguistic competence. Relying only on the frequency, and disregarding other linguistic criteria such as syntactic and semantic limitations, one can say that on the basis of Persian phonotactics and phonological system, between two options like "balgard" and "charxbal" for the English word "helicopter", "balgard" has more chance to be accepted by the natives and the experience supports this claim. These two equivalents have the syllabic structures of CVC.CVCC and CVCC.CVC and these structures have the frequencies of 230 and 100 respectively in our data.
This research investigates the three books which include the equivalents presented by APLL for borrowed words and concepts and compares it with the results of the research on natural data to show the degree of accordance of their efforts with linguistic competence of the natives. Of course the writers of this paper are aware of the limitations and scientific considerations in specialized word-formation, but our data emphasize that those syllable structures which are absent or have little frequencies in natural data are hard to be accepted by natives.
This research suggests that in conscious word-formation as a kind of language planning, the linguistic intuition of the natives must be taken into account; otherwise any attempt in this relation is subject to failure.
Mohammad Rasekh Mahaand (Bu Ali Sina University) & Saideh Asadi (Bu Ali Sina University)
In this paper we talk about different functions of pronominal enclitics in Persian. These enclitics include (-am, -at, -aš, -eman, -etan, -ešan). They have various distributions. They could be added to nouns, prepositions and verbs. Traditionally it was supposed that these enclitics act as pronouns and they are the bound form of full personal pronouns. In this paper we try to show that only one of their functions is to act as a pronoun, and they have three other functions, not properly discussed in Persian linguistics literature. First, they can mark object agreement in Persian transitive clauses. Object agreement marking in this language is optional, opposed to subject marking. Second, they can mark subject agreement in a group of Persian complex verbs called "enclitic complex verbs" and third, they act as resumptive pronouns. When they act as pronouns, they are exchangeable with nouns and full pronouns, when used as object agreement, they can co-occur with full objective pronouns or instead of them, indicating the optional nature of object agreement in this language. In this second function, they are not acting as pronouns and different criteria, including binding and dependant marking are used to support this claim. When acting as a subject marker, they are used obligatorily and are not exchangeable with nouns or full pronouns, showing the obligatory nature of subject agreement in Persian. The last function of these pronominal enclitics is to act as rsumptive pronouns. They are used in Persian relative clauses and left dislocation from genitive structure and prepositional phrases. This paper discusses the distribution of resumptive pronouns in Persian and uses Keenan and Comri's (1977) Accessibility Hierarchy to discuss the optionality and obligatoriness of these pronouns in Persian. It is concluded that resumtive pronouns are obligatory in left dislocation from genitive structure and prepositional phrases in Persian. They are also needed when the head of relative clause is indirect object or prepositional object. But they are optional if the head of the relative clause is direct object and banned if the head is subject. These findings are in line with the functional explanations of Hawkins (1999, 2004).
References
Borer, H., (ed.) 1986, The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics, Syntax & Semantics Vol, 19, Orlando: Academic Press.
Carstairs, A., 1981, Notes on Affixes, Clitics and Paradigms. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Ghomeshi, Jila, 1996, Projection and Inflection: a study of Persian phrase structure, Unpublished Ph.D, dissertation, University of Toronto.
Hashemipor, Margaret M., 1989, Pronominalization and control in modern Persian, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at San Diago.
Haverkort, M., 1993, Clitics and Parametrization: Case Studies in the Interaction of Head Movement Phenomena, Ph. D. dissertation, Tilburg University. Distributed as ESF EUROTYP Working Papers VIII, 2.
Hawkins, J. A., 1999, "Processing Complexity and filler-gap ependencies across grammars", Language 75, 2, 244-285.
Hawkins, J. A., 2004, Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars, Oxford: Oxford university Press.
Kayne, R.S. ,1975, French Syntax, The Transformational Cycle, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kayne, R.S. , 1989, "Null Subjects and Clitic Climbing", in: O. Jaeggli & K. Safir (eds.), The Null Subject Parameter. ordrecht: Reidel, 239 - 261.
Keenan, E. and Comrie, B., 1977, "Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar", Linguistic Inquiry, 8, 1: 63-89.
Keenan, E., 1977, "On surface form and logical from", in Keenan E., universal Grammar: fifteen essays, London: Croom Helm, 89-120.
Klavans, J.L. ,1979, "On Clitics as Words", in: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society 15: 68 - 80.
Klavans, J.L., 1982, Some Problems in a Theory of Clitics, Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Klavans, J.L., 1985, "The Independence of Syntax and Phonology in Cliticization", Language 61: 95 - 120.
Ouhalla, J., 1991, Functional Categories and Parametric Variation, London: Routledge.
Prince, Ellen, 1990, Syntax and discourse: a look at resumptive pronouns, In Hall, K. et al., eds. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Pp. 482-97.
Rivas, A., 1977, A Theory of Clitics, Ph. D, Dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Taghavipour, M., 2004, "An HPSG analysis of Persian relative clauses", In: S. Muller (ed.), Proceedings of the HPSG04 Conference, CLSI Publications.
Zwicky, A.M., 1977, On Clitics, Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Zwicky, A.M., 1985, "Clitics and Particles", Language, Vol.61, No.2, Pp: 283-305.
Zwicky, A.M. and G.K. Pullum ,1983, " Cliticization vs, inflection: English n't", Language, Vol. 59, No.3, Pp:502-513.
Anders Holmberg
My paper is set in the following theoretical landscape:
1. Ergativity in general, and split ergativity of the Indo-Iranian type in
particular, involves
the interplay of case and agreement. The Minimalist framework, initiated by
Chomsky (1993)
and developed in more recent works by Chomsky and other scholars, has a particularly
well
articulated theory of case and agreement.
2. One of the cornerstones of Chomskian theory is that constructions such
as the passive,
relatives, wh-questions, etc. are not grammatically primitive but are epiphenomena
resulting
from the interplay of the argument structure of lexical items and primitive
relations such as
case, agreement, and scope of operators, subject to universal conditions but
with limited
variation across languages permitted by ‘parameters’, that is points
where universal rules and
principles are underspecified.
3. According to Kayne (1994) and much subsequent work OV order is always
derived by
movement of the object.
4. Transitive verb phrases are made up of a transitivizing light verb v merged
with a VP
headed by a lexical root. The light verb is sometimes spelled out (in fact,
often in Iranian
languages) but may be abstract. v assigns Agent role to the subject.
5. The subject is always first-merged within vP (more generally, within the
predicate), from
where it usually moves higher up in the syntactic structure.
6. Given 4 and 5, the variation between the NOM-ACC and ERG-ABS systems can
be
located to properties of v: In the NOM-ACC system v assigns ACC case to the
object, no case
to the subject, which means that the subject is free to be assigned NOM by
T(ense) and to
assign values to T’s j-features in return (which are spelled out as an
agreement affix on the
finite verb). In the ERG-ABS system v assigns ERG to the subject, no case
to the object,
which means that the object is free to be assigned NOM/ABS case by T, and
to assign values
to T’s j-features in return, i.e. to agree with T (hence with the finite
verb).
7. In most Indo-Iranian languages v with Past tense (and/or Perfective aspect)
is ‘defective’
and does not assign ACC case (Nevins & Anand 2003, Bobaljik & Branigan,
to appear)
(which goes back to its origin as a participle with nominal properties), hence
the ERG-ABS
pattern.
In many of the Iranian languages ergativity crucially involves pronominal clitics. I will take my examples mainly from Hawrami (North-West Iranian, spoken in Iran and Iraq) but also from other Iranian languages with pronominal clitics. These languages demonstrate what SOV languages with pronominal subject and object clitics look like (European languages with clitics are all VO languages). (a) is an example of ‘ergativity’ in Hawrami: The subject is realized as an oblique clitic, and the verb agrees with the object.
(a) æsp-e -m di-e.
horse-PL-1SG saw-PL
‘I saw horses.’
In keeping with 2 I will show that ergativity in Hawrami is not found exclusively in construction with past tense, but is found in all constructions where there are two nominal arguments but where no ACC Case is assigned, including possessive sentences (‘I have a book’) and certain passives. Furthermore, assuming the current Chomskian theory of case and agreement in conjunction with a recent theory of pronominal clitics by Ian Roberts (forthcoming) I will show that the syntax of clitics in Hawrami provides very interesting support for a number of contentious claims in minimalist theory, including 3, 4, and 5. For example, consider the fact that the subject is realized in (a) as an enclitic on the object. This follows if the subject clitic is a realization of the j-features of v (in keeping with 4 and 5), and if the object has moved out of VP to a position preceding v (in keeping with 3).
Saeed Ghaniabadi (University of Manitoba)
In Persian DPs, when noun ellipsis occurs, the plural marker -hâ moves onto the rightadjacent attributive adjective (1a). In the absence of an attributive adjective, the plural marker is instead attached to its immediately preceding determinative, as illustrated in (1b):
DETM N -PL A DPposs
(1) behtarin daneju -ha -ye javan -e danegah
best student
-PL-EZ young-EZ university
'the best young students of the university'
a. behtarin daneju -ha-ye javan-ha-ye danegah
b. behtarin-ha-ye daneju -ha-ye danegah
This paper aims to provide an analysis of the distribution of plural marking in the Nellipsis construction in Persian. In so doing, the study examines the properties of DP-internal constituents that allow noun ellipsis and plural marking. I show that with an elided noun, only an attributive adjective can host the plural marker -hâ in Persian DPs. I argue that what distinguishes the attributive adjective from other phrasal modifiers in the Ezafe domain is its head status. Building on morphological and syntactic diagnostics, I propose a structural split between head modifiers and phrasal modifiers. I suggest that head modifiers (attributive nouns and adjectives) are N0-adjoined, as proposed by Ghomeshi (1997), and phrasal modifiers (AP, PP, and DPposs) are generated in SpecDP.
Plural marking in Persian is in general category sensitive in the sense that the plural marker cannot attach to elements other than nouns. This fact renders a syntactic account of plural marking in the N-ellipsis construction untenable. Adopting Distributed Morphology framework (Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994 and subsequent works), I propose that the plural morpheme is base-generated in syntax as an adjunct to a nominalized Root ( ROOT– n) and that the distribution of plural marking takes place postsyntactically at PF. I argue that the mobility of -hâ is motivated by a morphophonological requirement, imposed at PF, that (i) the plural marker -hâ must be visible and (ii) -hâ must always affix onto a phonologically realized head.
The need for displacing -hâ is shown to arise after Vocabulary Insertion and Linearization have taken place. At this point, the structure is subject to Local Dislocation Merger (Marantz 1988, Embick & Noyer 2001). When LD Merger applies, it creates a complex head by adjoining the plural marker onto its right-adjacent attributive adjective, as in (1a). If there is no element in the domain that can host the stranded -hâ, I propose, following Embick & Noyer (2001), that the structure undergoes string vacuous Local Dislocation, in which -hâ is allowed to appear on its left-adjacent determinative (1b).
-hâ mobility in the N-ellipsis construction seems to be a clear case in which a structure involving a null noun figures significantly in the morphology-phonology interface. The DMbased model of grammar provides a framework for this analysis in which the well-formedness of words is governed in accordance with language-particular criteria.
References
Embick, David and Rolf Noyer. 2001. Movement operations after syntax. Linguistic Inquiry
32.4: 555-595.
Ghomeshi, Jila. 1997. Non-Projecting Nouns and the Ezafe Construction in Persian. Natural
Language and Linguistic Theory 15.4: 729-788.
Halle, Morris and Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed Morphology and the pieces of inflection. In:
Hale, Kenneth and Samuel Jay Keyser (eds.) The View from Building 20: Essays in
Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 111-
176.
Halle, Morris and Alec Marantz. 1994. Some Key Features of Distributed Morphology. MIT
Working Papers in Linguistics: Papers on Phonology and Morphology 21, 275-288.
Marantz, A. 1988. Clitics, Morphological Merger, and the Mapping to Phonological Structure.
In: Hammond, M., Noonan, M. (eds): Theoretical Morphology: approaches in modern
linguistics, 253-270. Academic Press, San Diego.
Habib Borjian
The so-called Central Plateau Dialects (CDs) are spoken in central Iran, roughly around the Karkas range within the triangular area with Khunsar, Kashan, and Yazd at its corners. Historically, the entire area used to speak these dialects, but the dominant influence of Persian resulted in the ousting of the CDs not only in major towns but also in majority of villages. Currently, CDs are spoken to some 200 villages as well as the older generation of Jewish and Zoroastrian communities in a few cities and in diaspora. It is highly unlikely that CDs could survive long given the rapid expansion of the Persian education and mass media.
In this paper I will try to show the dynamics of language shifts in CD area. Historical evidence suggests that CDs were native to the entire area, larger towns included, until the late medieval times. The big shift must have taken place during the Safavid dynastic rule, perhaps as a result of forceful propagation of Shiism. Positive evidence becomes available in the later 19th century when European travelers and Persian geographers begin to report on the language situation of the area. These data enable us to show patterns and rate of language shift in different regions within the CD area in the last century and half. Subsequently, causes of the shift within different communities (rural and religious minorities) will be discussed. Part of the data comes from my own field documentation in the last few years.
Abbas Ali Ahangar (Sistan and Baluchestan University) & Shahla Amou Ali Akbari (Sistan and Baluchestan University)
This study is a socio-pragmatic analysis of the request strategies used by native speakers of Persian. The main focus of this paper is Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. In their study, Brown and Levinson hold that some aspects of language use are universal. They claim that speakers, in all cultures, use negative politeness strategies in the realization of requestive speech act. In this study, the requestive acts of Persian native speakers are compared with the claim of Brown and Levinson (1987) about English native speakers to see if it can provide evidence to support Brown and Levinson's (1987) universal theory. And it also investigates the effect of the power of the hearer and the gender of the speaker on his/her use of politeness strategies. Ninety male and female university students participated in this study and a discourse completion test (DCT) was used to generate data. The results show that: (a) Persian Native speakers like English Native speakers use negative politeness strategies more than other strategies (b): power of the hearer affects speaker's choice of politeness strategies, and (c): gender of the speaker does not affect his/her choice of politeness strategies in the realization of requestive speech act.
Jan W. Amtrup (Kofax Image Products) & Karine Megerdoomian (The MITRE Corporation)
Complex Verbal Predicates (CPs) in Persian consist of a light verb combined with another nonverbal constituent, such as a noun, adjective, or adverb. The challenge of these constructions for machine translation (MT) is that they display both lexical and phrasal properties. They behave as lexical items in that the meaning of the construction is often non-compositional, but they also show phrasal properties as they can participate in syntactic processes; for instance, the constituents can be separated in an input sentence by intervening elements. In Persian, this problem is particularly severe, since most verbs are formed as complex constructions. Thus in many cases, Persian CPs present a translation divergence since they are translated as a single word in the target language (1).
Traditionally, Persian translation systems have treated CPs as lexical items that are explicitly listed in the lexicon as compounds. The problem with this approach is that translation fails as soon as the CP elements are separated, e.g., by a direct object or clitic, modifiers, or relative clauses (2). A slightly more robust representation of CPs within an automatic translation system consists of incorporating their structure inside a complex lexicon, which would treat the preverbal element as “subcategorized” by the light verb, listing the necessary syntax and translation elements with it. However, given that Persian CPs are semi-productive, in particular in the formation of loan words, and that the semantic content can be described in a more regular fashion (cf. Megerdoomian 2002, Folli et al. 2004), a more modular, combinatorial process taking advantage of recent linguistic advances in the study of CPs seems promising. In this approach, we treat the light verb as providing event and aspect information to the complex verbal construction, which then unifies with the information provided by the preverbal element. Hence the verb bâz kardan “to open” can be represented as a decomposed change of state verb as shown in the syntactic-semantic template in (3). In the target language, the corresponding lexical material (even if it appears in the form of a single word and not of a complex verb) leads to an identical syntactic-semantic representation, facilitating generation.
This combinatorial analysis of verbs for Persian based on their lexical conceptual structures extends those proposed by Fong et al. (2000) for English and Fujita et al (2004) for Japanese. In this system, the syntactic-semantic template acts as an interlingua representation, allowing for translation between different language pairs. The unification-based, modular analysis of Persian CPs uses several levels of representation: A Template Lexicon which contains the underlying and universal semantic and syntactic templates, and a Vocabulary which includes the words of the particular languages and maps them to the subparts of the semantic-syntactic templates. The preverbs and light verbs are combined during syntactic processing forming the verbal templates provided in the Template Lexicon.
This paper presents a new approach to modeling Persian CPs for MT applications based on a semantic template analysis and compositional formation of the verbal predicates. In this system, there is no need to build a separate lexicon for each language pair and the system can also capture previously unseen constructions, such as the ones formed with loanwords.
Examples
(1) jaru zædæn broom
hit ‘to sweep’
qosse xordæn worry
eat ‘to worry’
baz šodæn open
become ‘to open’
fekr kærdæn thought
do ‘to think’
(2) a. æks -ha ra nešan-æš
dad-im
picture-PL OM sign -CLIT.3SG
gave-1PL
‘We showed him the pictures.’
b. qeymæt-e næft æfzayeš-e
šædid-i yaft
price-EZ
oil increase-EZ intense-IE found.3SG
‘The price of oil increased
intensely.’
(3) [x CAUSE y BECOME <open>]
References
Folli, R., H. Harley and S. Karimi, (2004) Determinants of Event Types on Persian Complex Predicates, Lingua 115: 1365–1401.
Fong, Sandiway, Christiane Fellbaum and David Lebeaux. 2000. Semantic Templates and Transitivity Alternations in the Lexicon. In Proceedings of TALN 2000, Lausanne, 16-18 October.
Fujita, Atsushi, Kentaro Furihata, Kentaro Inui, Yuji Matsumoto and Koichi Takeuchi, 2004. Paraphrasing of Japanese Light-verb Constructions Based on Lexical Conceptual Structure. ACL Workshop on Multiword Expressions, Barcelona, Spain, 2004.
Megerdoomian, Karine. 2002. Beyond Words and Phrases: A Unified Theory of Predicate Composition. Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.
Ahmad R. Lotfi (Khorasgan/ Esfahan) & Peter Öhl (Wuppertal)
This paper is meant to describe and explain the structure of the following constructions in SpokenStandard Persian (Farsi):
(1) a) [DP In [CP ke [IP gorbeha šir
dust darand]]] tabi'I
ast.
DET
– that – cats – milk – like – have
– natural – is
'That cats like milk
is natural.'
b) Man [PP [DP in [CP ke [IP gorbeha šir dust
darand]]] ra] midanam.
I –
DET – that – cats – milk
– like – have – OBJ – know
'I know that cats like milk'
The examples show that in Persian, argument clauses may be determined by the definite determiner in preceding the complementiser (henceforth 'CMP'), and exactly like nominal objects, object sentences may be marked by the particle ra. Ra is a case marker occurring with specific direct objects (cf. LOTFI 1997; KARIMI 2003, 91). Its categoriacal status is that of a postposition (cf. BLAKE 2001, 165).
2) a. Man in doxtar ra didam.
I – DET – girl
– OBJ – saw
'I saw this girl.’
b. In pesar to ra
did.
DET – boy – you – OBJ – saw.
'This boy saw you.'
We intend to explain the Persian data before the background of a broader account of the comparative syntax of CP-embedding.
There are many languages characterised as SOV where CPs may occur (and do so predominantly) in postverbal position. Well known examples are Dutch, German, Hindi, Bengali and, last not least, Persian.
(3) a) Ich habe die Antwort (ACC) gewusst.
(German)
I - have
- the - answer - known
'I knew the answer.'
b) Ich habe gewusst, [CP dass [IP Katzen Milch
mögen ]]. (German)
I - have - known
- that -cats
- milk - like
'I knew that cats like
milk.'
(4) a) Man in doxtar ra didam.
(= 2a) (Persian)
I – DET – girl –
OBJ – saw
'I saw this girl.’
b) Man midanam [CP ke [IP gorbeha šir dust
darand]]. (1 1b) (Persian)
I –
know – that –
cats – milk – like – have
'I know that cats like milk.’
On the other hand, SOV languages like Japanese or Korean do not have such an asymmetry. Moreover, they overtly case mark object CPs the same way they do object DPs. Japanese uses a postposition o.
(5) Mary wa [PP [CP John ga koohii
o nomu no]
o ] mi-ta
Mary - TOP -
John - NOM - coffee - ACC - drinks - CMP - ACC - seePST
'Mary saw that John drank coffee'.
Persian allows preverbal CP objects optionally. It is exactly in this case, however, that it is obligatory to use the determiner in. Moreover, it is crucial to use the direct object marker ra that is also used with DP objects (cf. 2a/ 4a above). We regard this particle as a case postposition, exactly like Japanese o.
(6) a. Man [PP [DP in [CP ke [IP gorbeha šir dust
darand ]]] ra] midanam. (= 1b)
I –
this – that – cats – milk – like – have
– ACC – know
'I know that cats like
milk.'
b. *Man [CP ke [IP gorbeha šir dust darand ]] midanam.
c. *Man [DP in [CP ke [IP gorbeha šir dust darand ]]] midanam.
The Persian data strongly suggest that preverbal clauses are in fact DPs. Since 'bare' CPs are ungrammatical in the canonical object position of DPs (6b), we must assume that the distribution of arguments is constrained by their category. Moreover, since the data also suggest that preverbal A-positions must not be occupied by elements not bearing abstract case (6c; which is overtly realised by a postposition in Persian), this categorial restriction seems to follow from the inability of non-nominals to realise case.
What is very striking is that the Persian CMP ke is optional if (and only if) the CP follows the verb. It is obligatory, if the CP precedes it (6).
7) Man midanam [CP (ke) [IP gorbeha šir dust
darand]]. (cf. 4b)
I – know –
that – cats – milk – like – have
'I know that cats like milk.’
Parallel to that, languages like German allow V2 clauses as objects only in postverbal position. An object clause must have a CMP if it is topicalised.
8) a) Jeder weiß, [CP
Katzen mögen Milch ].
everybody - knows
- cats - like - milk
b) *[CP Katzen mögen Milch ], weiß jeder.
c) [CP Dass Katzen Milch mögen ], weiß jeder.
that -
cats - milk - like - knows- everybody
Our proposal is that the distribution of subordinate clauses is universally correlated with the category immediately dominating them and its ability to bear case. CPs in argument position must be NPs universally due to a constraint on the realisation of abstract case. CMPs like Persian ke are in fact nominal heads selecting clauses. The overt realisation of CASE and definiteness of clauses is a matter of parametrisation.
Following CHOMSKY (1995) in assuming that only exceptions from primitive properties are listed in the lexicon, it seems that c-selection can thus be removed from the lexical entry, if we generalise the category of structural arguments as [N] based on case assignment (cf. also PESETSKY 1982). PP-objects do not fall under c-selection either, if we assume that P is a specific realisiation of lexical case.
References
Blake, Barry J. (22001). Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Karimi, Simin (2003). On Object Positions, Specifity and Scrambling in Persian. In: Simin
Karimi (ed.), Word Order and Scrambling. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lotfi, Ahmad R. (1997) Word Order and Accusative Case Assignment in Modern Persian.
Proceedings of the 4th Conference of Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba'i University,
Tehran.
Pesetsky, David (1982). Paths and categories. Cambridge: MIT Working Papers in
Linguistics.
Karine Megerdoomian (The MITRE Corporation)
The nature of preverbal nouns in Persian and their relation to the verbal element has been the focus of much debate in the literature. Noun and verb combinations such as those illustrated in (1), in particular, have been difficult to classify since they do not behave as a single morphological unit and differ from the traditional light verb constructions, yet seem to be interpreted as a single predicate containing a nonreferential noun. These N+V constructions have been analyzed as a noun incorporation (NI) process (Dabir-Moghaddam 1997) or as juxtaposed Xo units (Ghomeshi and Massam 1994). In this talk, I will review the properties of these constructions and will show that the mixed characteristics observed are reminiscent of what has been described as Pseudo Noun Incorporation (PNI) in the literature (cf. Massam 2001, Dayal 2003). I will argue, however, that these constructions can be better explained if the preverbal nominal is treated as a nonspecific internal argument of the verb that remains in the lower verb phrase domain without positing NI, PNI, or juxtaposition.
Dabir-Moghaddam (1997) provides an incorporation analysis for the verbal constructions in (1), whereby the direct object incorporates into the verb "to create an intransitive compound verb which is a conceptual whole". According to this analysis, the specific noun qæzashuno in (2a) is a direct object of the verb xordæn 'eat', which may lose its grammatical endings and incorporate with the verb giving rise to the clause in (2b). Dabir-Moghaddam states that this process of noun incorporation is very productive in Persian, allowing any direct object that can be conceived nonreferentially to incorporate. These nouns are neutral in number (i.e., do not possess singular or plural implicature), are nonreferential and nonspecific, have narrow scope, and form verbal constructions that give rise to unbounded events and disallow gapping constructions. Ghomeshi and Massam (1994) also argue that these N+V constructions behave as single phonological and syntactic units, and treat them on a par with the light verb constructions in a juxtaposed Vo structure as shown in (3).
There is empirical evidence, however, against the NI or juxtaposition analysis of these verbal constructions, since the preverbal nouns may be modified or conjoined thus appearing as NPs and not just bare nouns, behave as internal arguments and are visible to syntactic processes, display phrasal stress patterns, and show some degree of referentiality since they can be questioned. I will show, instead, that the mixed properties that seem to call into question the traditional morphology and syntax divide can readily be derived from the syntactic structure in which the preverbal nominal appears: its lack of D features and the fact that it has remained within the vP domain give rise to the semantic and aspectual properties observed, while the fact that it is a nominal element appearing in a specifier-head relation with the verb derives the syntactic characteristics of these constructions. I claim that the need for positing PNI is an artefact of the grammatical framework adopted and the properties of these N+V constructions can be readily captured by the analysis provided.
(1) qæza xordæn food eat 'to
eat (food)'
zæhr dadæn poison
give 'to poison'
mahi gereftæn fish
catch 'to fish'
ketab foruxtæn book
sell 'to sell books'
(2) a. bæchche-ha qæza-shun -o
xord-æn
child -PL
food-POSS.3SG-ACC ate -3PL
'The children ate their food.'
b. bæchche-ha qæza xord-æn
child -PL
food ate -3PL
'The children ate.'
References
Dabir-Moghaddam, Mohammad. 1997. Compound Verbs in Persian. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 27(2): 25-59.
Dayal, Veneeta. 2003. A Semantics for Pseudo Incorporation. Rutgers University, Ms.
Ghomeshi, Jila and Diane Massam. 1994. Lexical/syntactic relations without projections. Linguistic Analysis 23(3-4):175-217.
Massam, Diane. 2001. Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean, NLLT 19(1): 153-197.
Nominal modifiers exhibit remarkable variation in form & position across Indo-Iranian (I-I). In Western Indo-Iranian (WI-I) (Farsi, Kurdish, Zazaki, Hawrami), modifiers standardly occur postnominally and “link” to the N head via an Ezafe particle (Ez), which may be invariant (Farsi, Sorani), or agree with N in ö-features (Kurmanji, Zazaki). The modifiers themselves show no agreement (1a-d). In Central Indo-Iranian (CI-I) Gilaki, modifiers occur prenominally and link to N via a “reverse Ezafe particle” (REZ) that is invariant in both major dialects; again modifiers show no agreement (2a-c). Finally, in Eastern Indo-Iranian (EI-I) Pashto, modifiers occur prenominally, show no Ezafe morpheme, and agree directly with N in ö-features (gender & number) and case (direct vs. oblique) (3a,b). In this paper, we propose a derivational relationship among the three types, with WI-I representing the base case, and CI-I and EI-I showing derived patterns. We argue that typological variation in modifier syntax elsewhere can be understood via the I-I parametric fan: that Germanic and Romance languages represent, in effect, the Pashto pattern, whereas Chinese and Japanese pattern like Gilaki. I-I thus offers a privileged glimpse into the parametric space of nominal syntax.
Larson and Yamakido (‘05,’06) and Larson (‘06) propose an analysis in which (predicative) nominal modifiers originate postnominally as inner arguments of D, which only afterwards combines with NP (4a). A subsequently merged light determiner (d) attracts the D head, deriving D–N word order (4b). [+N] modifiers are assumed to have a case requirement. WI-I meets this with Ezafe, which (following Samiian 1994) is analyzed as a case marker, licensing modifiers in situ (5a-d). Ez (heading EzP) agrees with D, which also agrees with N, hence the pattern of agreement & position in WI-I. By contrast in EI-I Pashto, absence of Ezafe means that [+N] modifiers are not case-checked in base position. Larson (2006) proposes that Pashto d has an edge feature that triggers raising of [+N] modifiers into the high domain of DP where case is checked by agree from a DP-external probe, accounting for modifier “concord”. The derivational steps are in (6a-e). Finally, CI-I Gilaki projects an Ezafe phrase, whose head we assume to trigger movement to its Spec, reversing their order (7a,b). We analyze this EzP as an inherently case-marked item, whose case must be realized in a case-checking position (similar to dative subjects). EzP must therefore raise as in Pashto, although the modifiers do not agree. This accounts for the basic space of I-I variation.
The analysis of cases in I-I can be extended to patterns found elsewhere, with that of Gilaki being particularly interesting. Chinese & Japanese exhibit prenominal modifiers with a “linker” particle or inflection appearing between modifier & N (see 8a-e for Mandarin). Cheung (2006a,2006b) proposes that Mandarin de is a form of Ezafe particle serving to mark case. Specifically, she suggests that modifiers begin as complements of de & raise to its Spec (9a,b); the entire de-phrase then positions higher within DP, deriving prenominal order, essentially along the lines proposed for Gilaki above. The patterning of RC position in Mandarin and Gilaki appears to provide further support for her view. Cheung observes that since Mandarin is tenseless, Mandarin RCs might be expected to pattern essentially as participial/adjectival RCs, requiring case like other [+N] modifiers, and occurring before de. Gilaki, by contrast, is a tensed language and hence generates a different prediction. Specifically we would expect Gilaki finite RCs to occur postnominally, and not to exhibit REZ, since finite CPs do not require case. By contrast, we would expect Gilaki participial RCs to pattern like Mandarin: to occur prenominally and show REZ (10b). This appears to be what we find (10a,b), although the final vowel in the participial hides REZ phonetically. Hence Cheung’s Ezafe analysis of Mandarin de seems promising. We close with a brief discussion of Japanese prenominal modifiers and inflection, noting (following Yamakido 2005) that these appear remarkably similar to (reverse) Ezafe markers. In particular Japanese appears to be the “reverse Ezafe” counterpart of Zazaki and Hawrami, which exhibits different Ezafe according to whether the modifying element is an AP or an N.
Examples
(1) a. gol- e sorx b.
minal - i pcuk- i bash c.
cav-e res
flower-EZ red children-EZ
small-EZ good eye-EZ(m)
black
'red flower' (Farsi)
'good, small children' (Sorani)
'the black eye' (Kurmanji)
d. cav-en sor
e. zere-o gird
eye-EZ(pl) red
partridge-EZ(m) large
'the red eyes'(indicates great anger)
(Kurmanji) 'large partridge' (Zazaki)
(2) a. surx-e gul b.
ba -e gul-an
red-REZ flower
garden-REZ
flower-PL
'red flower' 'garden
flowers'(Gilaki)
(3) a. wegay alek' 'hungry boy' b. wege pegla 'hungry girl' (Pashto)
(4) a. [DP [NP man] [D the* [AP happy]]]] b. [dP the-d [DP [NP man] [D the* [AP happy]]]]
(5) Derivation for Farsi un gol-e sorx 'that red flower'
a. [DP [NP gol] [D, un [EzP -e [AP sorx]]]]
Merge Initial args of D; D agrees with AP
b. [dP d [DP [NP gol] [D,un [EzP -e [AP sorx]]]]
Merge
little d
c. [dP un-d [DP [NP gol] [D,un [EzP -e [AP sorx]]]]
Raise D
d. [dP Pro [d,un-d [DP [NP gol] [D, un [EzP
-e [AP sorx]]]] Project DP Subj
(6) Derivation for Pashto agha tege peghla 'that thirsty girl'
a. [DP [NP peghla] [D, agha [AP tege]]]
Merge Initial args of D; D agrees with AP
b. [dP d [DP [NP peghla] [D, agha [AP tege]]]]
Merge
little d
c. [dP agha-d [DP [NP peghla] [D, agha [AP tege]]]]
Raise
D
d. [dP [AP tege] [d,agha-d [DP [NP peghla] [D,
agha [AP tege]]]]] d
attracts AP
e. [dP d [dP [AP tege] [D,agha-d [DP [NP peghla]
[D, agha [AP tege]]]]]] Merge
d
f. [dP agha-d-d [dP [AP tege] [D, agha-d [DP
[NP peghla] [D, agha [AP tege]]]]]]
Raise head
g. [dP Pro [D,agha-d-d [dP [AP tege] [D, agha-d
[DP [NP peghla] [D, agha [AP tege]]]]] Project DP Subj
(7) Derivation for Gilaki u surx- gul 'that red flower' (after b, as in 6)
a. [DP [NP gul] [D,u [EzP - [AP surx]]]] Merge
Initial args of D; D agrees with AP
b. [DP [NP gul] [D, u [EzP surx - [AP surx]]]]
Raise AP to Spec EzP
(8) a Zhangsan de xiezi b.
meiguo de yinhang c. hong de huaping
Zhangsan DE shoe America
DE bank red
DE vase
'Zhangsan de shoe(s)' 'American
bank(s)' 'red
vase(s)'
d. Zai Beijing de jia
e. wo mai de shu
at Beijing DE
house I buy DE
book
'the/a house in Beijing' 'the
book(s) which I bought'(Mandarin)
(9) a. [DP [NP huaping] [Df D [DeP -de [AP hong]]]]
b. [DP [NP huaping] [Df D [DeP hong-de
[AP hong]]]]
(10) a. u mard-e ki Hasan
(diru) bide b.
i suyis-e ji vagarse
juvon
that man-REL that Hasan (yesterday)
seePST3sg this SW-REz from back-turn
REZ? young
'The man that Hasan saw (yesterday)'
'this young (person) back from Switzerland'
Ilhan Cagri (University of Maryland)
Besides being required on specific direct objects (DO), the Persian accusative marker -ra can appear on expressions that are not DOs: on a time adverbial in (1), on a place adverbial in (2), and on a possessor in (3) (from Karimi (1996)). Proposals have been made that -ra is actually a specificity marker (Browne (1970); Karimi (1989, 1990)). Karimi (1996) suggests that -ra is a Functional head that checks an amalgam of +specificity and "Marked" case on a DP.
I argue along the Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995, 2000) that -ra is overt accusative case checked by a specific DP in [Spec, vP]. Arguments first merge into theta positions, internal arguments in the VP, and external arguments in the vP. Assuming that non-specifics lack a D° feature, only DPs raise overtly to [Spec, vP] for accusative and [Spec, TP] for nominative case. This explains the requirement of -ra on specific DOs and its prohibition on non-specific NP DOs, as NPs cannot raise to case-assigning positions. Similar facts are found in Turkish.
-ra on DPs other than DOs can be explained by assuming that elements enter into a derivation fully inflected, i.e. bearing relevant case morphemes. Case is checked in overt syntax, and once the case of a DP is checked, that DP is free to further A-bar move or scramble. Thus, direct objects with -ra may A-bar move to the CP domain.
The acceptability of -ra on time (1) and place (2) adverbials is constrained by telicity; -ra is unacceptable on atelic adverbials (4). Telic adverbials have a specificity feature designated in UG by D°. These adverbial+D° expressions can also take the accusative morpheme in the lexicon. As adjuncts, they do not merge into theta positions. Structural case-checking is a PF requirement, and structural case on an expression in the CP domain per se is not a PF violation. Nominals must have their case checked for interpretability at LF, but this requirement does not hold for adjuncts. Thus, the -ra morpheme is acceptable on adjuncts in the CP domain.
The presence of both nominative and accusative case on a DP is disallowed cross-linguistically. This is what bars the -ra on subjects which must bear null nominative case (5). Lexical case also conflicts with -ra and it is for this reason that -ra cannot appear on DP complements of prepositions (6). Evidence from Korean case-stacking shows that while structural case may be stacked onto inherent or lexical case, the converse is not possible; inherent case cannot be assigned (or checked) on top of structural case. An accusative marked DP cannot appear as the complement of a preposition which would assign/check lexical case.
The presence of -ra on an expression in a CP projection does not cause a PF crash, a violation of the constraints against case-stacking does. Arguments bearing -ra may move to CP (as in the case of the DO), or they may directly merge there. Persian does not permit preposition stranding, nor does it allow possessor raising. In both these cases, the DP with -ra merged directly into the Topic position. Arguments that first merge into the CP domain must be bound into theta positions by resumptive pronominal clitics which themselves must be properly case-marked (3) and (7). Again, the option of merging directly to the CP domain is not possible for subjects as there is no case-checking head for the resumptive pronoun of a subject to cliticize to. DOs with -ra have the option of moving to or merging directly to the CP. If the DO merges to the CP, the DO resumptive clitic pronoun must also bear the -ra morpheme as it (being D°) must have its (accusative) case checked.
Thus, DPs (specifics) merge into a derivation with the -ra morpheme. The presence of the -ra morpheme in non-accusative case positions is prevented by PF conditions. Adjuncts with Dº require neither theta roles (no need for a resumptive pronoun) nor case checking. Non-DO DPs with -ra may merge directly to the CP domain where they do not violate PF multiple case constraints. Their theta requirements are met via binding to resumptive clitics.
Examples
1) do hæfte -ro kamel esterahæt
kærd-æm
two week-ACC complete rest did -1s
'I rested for a full two weeks'
2) [ta xune] -ro dovid-æm
until house-ACC ran -1s
'I ran [all the way] till [I got] home'
3) mašini-o dær -eši-o bæst -æm
car -ACC door-RP-ACC closed-1s
'The car, I closed its door.'
4) *væqte-ro æslæn bær-eš ærzeš nædare
time -ACC no.way for.it
worth neg-have-3s
Intended: 'The time, it's definitely not
worth it'
5) *re'ise jomhur -o (u)
færda soxænrani mikon-e
president-ACC
(he) tomorrow speech give -3s
'The President will give a speech tomorrow'
6) *Hatta bæraye Sara-ro, axbar mixun-e
even for Sara-ACC
newspaper read -3s
'Even to Sara, he reads a newspaper.'
7) Hushangi-o be madær-eši goft-æm
Hushang-ACC to mother-RP told-1s
'As for Hushang, I told his mother'
References
Browne, W. 1970. More on definiteness marker:interrogatives in Persian. LI 1: 359-63.
Karimi, S. 1989. Aspects of Persian syntax, specificity, and the theory of grammar. U. of Washington Ph.D. dissertation
Karimi, S. 1990. Obliqueness, specificity and discourse functions. Linguistic Analysis 20.
Karimi, S. 1996. Case and Specificity: Persian Ra Revisited. Linguistic Analysis 26.
Azita Taleghani (University of Arizona)
This paper presents an analysis of Persian progressive tense from morpho-syntactic and semantic point of view. Both present and past progressive tense are used in colloquial Persian. Persian Present progressive–as illustrated in (1) – is formed of the present stem of the verb dâštan ‘to have,’ dâr and the simple present tense of the main verb. Past progressive is formed by the same process with some distinctions. In past progressive tense, the present stem of the verb dâštan ‘to have,’ i.e., dâr is replaced with the past stem dâšt, and the simple present tense of the main verb is substituted by the past imperfect tense. This is shown in (2).
Morpho-syntactically–as (1) and (2) show– the structure of these tenses is V1 NP (PP) V2. Both V1 and V2 take the subject agreement and they share a single object. The structure looks like a bi-clausal construction but neither complementizer nor conjunction separates the two verbs, and the construction refers to a single conceptual event. These constructions are similar to Serial Verb Constructions (henceforth SVCs) in which several events can stack in a single clause, and describe a single conceptual event. In SVCs, the complex takes only one subject or external argument and each member of an SVC may display agreement features (Butt 1995: 224). As (3) shows, the similar construction is in Urdu. Butt (1995:102) explains that in (3), rah ‘stay’ makes no semantic contribution other than aspectually, and its only function is the expression of stativity. She notes that these constructions do not have any negative forms and the aspectual verb is always inflected. Butt calls these constructions Aspectual Complex Predicates.
In this paper, after analyzing the structure of Persian progressives morpho-syntactically and semantically, following Butt (1995), I suggest that Persian progressives are instances of Aspectual Complex predicates and these complex predicates have many common features with SVCs. However–as sentences in (4) and (5) show– in contrast to Serial Verb Constructions, they do not have negative forms. Furthermore, similar to Urdu, V1 in Persian progressives has an aspectual function and is the expression of stativity.
1) dâr-am ye nâme
be dust -am mi -nevis-am.
have-1stsg. one letter-ACC to friend-my Dur-write-Prs.Stm-1stsg.
‘I am writing a letter to my friend.’
2) dâšt-am ye nâme be
dust -am mi -nevešt-am.
had-1stsg. one letter-ACC to friend-my Dur-write-Pst.Stm-1stsg.
‘I was writing a letter to my friend.’
3) naadyaa kat likh
rah-ii hai
N.F=Nom letter.M-ACC write stay.F.sg be-Pres.3rdsg.
‘Nadya is writing a letter.’
(Butt 1995:102, 23)
4) a. *na -dâr -am ye
nâme be dust -am mi -nevis-am.
Neg-have-1stsg. one
letter-ACC to friend-my Dur-write-Prs.Stm-1stsg.
Lit. ‘I am not writing a letter to my friend.’
b. *na -dâšt-am ye
nâme be dust -am
mi -nevešt-am.
Neg-had-1stsg. one letter-ACC
to friend-my Dur-write-Pst.Stm-1stsg.
Lit. ‘I was not writing a letter to my friend.’
5) a. *dâr-am ye nâme be
dust -am ne -mi -nevis-am.
have-1stsg. one letter-ACC to friend-my
Neg-Dur-read-Prs.Stm-1stsg.
Lit. ‘I am not writing a letter to my friend.’
b. *dâšt-am ye
nâme be dust -am ne -mi -nevešt-am.
had-1stsg. one
letter-ACC to friend-my Neg-Dur-read-Pst.Stm-1stsg.
Lit. ‘I was not writing a letter to my friend.’
References
Browne, W. 1970. More on definiteness marker:interrogatives in Persian. LI 1: 359-63.
Karimi, S. 1989. Aspects of Persian syntax, specificity, and the theory of grammar. U. of Washington Ph.D. dissertation
Karimi, S. 1990. Obliqueness, specificity and discourse functions. Linguistic Analysis 20.
Karimi, S. 1996. Case and Specificity: Persian Ra Revisited. Linguistic Analysis 26.
Jon Dehdari (Ohio State Linguistics)
This paper examines the word order typology of Persian. Since the basic word order is SOV, a cursory hypothesis might be that the language is head-final. However an abundance of evidence from other structures in the language would easily invalidate this notion. For example, adpositions precede noun phrases, desideratives precede verb phrases, and nouns precede genitives and relative clauses. This could lead us to view Persian as head-initial, with the verb-object relation forming an exception (Comrie, 1989, pp. 98, 211; Mahootian, 1997, p. 5)
An alternative to categorically classifying Persian as either head-initial or head-final is split headedness. Roberts (2000) designates categories in Pashto as being either functional (head-initial) or lexical (head-final). A similar analysis could be applied to Persian. This division allows us to glean insights into the relationship between lexicality and headedness.
However an important sentential generalization gets overlooked when viewing Persian as either strictly head-initial (even with the possibility of movement) or split headed based on functional vs. lexical categories. Of the 18 head-dependent relations investigated in this paper, all of the headfinal relations involve main verbs or passive auxiliary verbs as heads. Building on previous work by the author, this paper proposes a split headed analysis of Persian based on structural categories. I will show evidence suggesting vP and lower predicate structures are head-final, while higher structures are head-initial.
References
Comrie, B. (1989). Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, second edition.
Mahootian, S. (1997). Persian. Descriptive Grammars. Routledge, London.
Roberts, T. (2000). Clitics and Agreement. PhD thesis, The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Anousha Sedighi (Portland State University)
I study constructions that have been introduced as Impersonal or Subject-less in the Persian literature (Thacktson 1983, Ghomeshi 1996, Karimi 2005, among others). Although these constructions always denote a psychological state to an experiencer, they have not been previously explored from the point of view of psychological constructions (Belletti & Rizzi 1988). In (1), the experiencer in subject position mæn is a 1st singular pronoun while the verb appears with 3rd sing/default morphology. This situation appears to be a violation of subject-verb agreement. Unlike the common belief, I provide evidence to show that these constructions do not involve compound verbs and that the lack of verbal agreement is only apparent. Adopting the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995-2004) and following Dabir Moghaddam (1997), I propose that the psychological state xosham is the theme subject of an unaccusative verb that induces agreement on the verb. I further propose that psych constructions have a Tense requirement and involve “non-core” arguments. I introduce two Applicative Phrases (Pylkannen 2002, Cuervo 2003) to account for the application of arguments in psych constructions. I propose a Super High Applicative head which takes a TP as complement and hosts the experiencer mæn. The SupHighApplP is a strong phase, similar to CP and vP of Chomsky, is propositional, and assigns the thematic role of experiencer to the arguments generated in its specifier. My analysis is along the lines of Heycock & Doron’s Broad Subjects (2003) for Arabic and Hebrew, and Pardeshi & Shibatani’s Dative Subjects (2001) for South Asian languages.
The second applied argument relates to the clitic pronoun -æm (1sg) that is attached to the psychological state xosh, and is co-referential with the sentence initial experiencer mæn. In the spirit of Pylkkänen’s (2002) and Cuervo’s (2003) analysis for possessor datives, I argue that this pattern is not a case of a genitive construction; rather, it constitutes a low possessive applicative phrase. The theme subject xosham constitutes a Low Applicative Phrase indicating a possession relation between the applied argument – æm and the psych-state xosh. The clitic pronoun æm (1sg) is not a direct argument of the verb amæd-Ø; rather it is the argument of the theme/psychological state xosh. The LowApplP expresses transfer of a theme (psych state/pleasure) towards a goal/location/affectee æm. Intuitively the informal semantic relations of the structure for (1) would be: To me came (my) pleasure and I am now in the possession of it/affected by it.
(1) (mæn) xosh -æm amæd-Ø
I pleasure-1sg
came -3sg
'I was pleased/I liked (something/someone')
References
Belletti, Adriana & Luigi Rizzi (1988) Psych-verbs and Į-theory. Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 6: 291-352.
Chomsky, Noam (2001) Beyond explanatory adequacy. MIT Occasional Papers in
Linguistics 20, Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Chomsky, Noam (2004) On Phases. Ms., MIT.
Cuervo, Maria Chrisitna (2003) Datives at Large. Ph.D. dissertation, MITP: MITWPL.
Dabir Moghaddam, Mohammad (1997) Compound verbs in Persian. Studies in the
Linguistic Sciences 27 (2): 25-59.
Heycock, Caroline & Edit Doron. 2003. Categorical Subjects. Gengo Kenkyu 123: 95-
135.
Karimi, Simin (2005) A Minimalist Approach to Scrambling: Evidence from Persian.
Studies in Generative Grammar 76. Mouton de Gruyter.
Pylkkanen, Liina 2002. Introducing Arguments. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Shibatani, Masayoshi & Parshant Pardeshi (2001) Dative Subject Constructions in south
Asian languages. In Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. New
Delhi: Sage Publications.
Mohammad Dabir-Moghaddam (Allameh Tabataba'i University)
In this article, I will argue for the grammaticalization of three syntactic domains which regulate the distribution of the Agent clitics of the transitive verbs in the past Tense-Aspect-Mood forms in the Iranian languages. The main group of evidence will be presented from the three South-Western languages Davani, Delvari, and Larestani. I will show that the distribution of these clitics in Davani initiates with the first word / phrase of the Clause, in Delvari with the first word / phrase of the Verb Phrase, and in Larestani with the (Prepositional Phrase +) Verb. These syntactic domains are illustrated in the examples (1)-(3) below, respectively:
(1) ušu-šu u
ze -gæl-e di
they-CLIT3PL that woman-PL -DEF saw
' They saw those women.'
(2) una ketav-ešu xer -i(d)
they book-CLIT3PL buy -PAST
' They bought the book.'
(3)a. æli ketab bori š -xond-e
Ali book a lot CLIT3SG-read-PERF
' Ali has read books a lot.'
(3)b. æli ketab bori o -š
xond-e
Ali book a lot PARTICLE-CLIT3SG
read-PERF
' Ali has read books a lot.'
(3)c. š -æ
mo got -e
CLIT3SG-to I said -PERF
'He/she has said to me.'
In the light of (a) these observations, (b) the options which are allowed by these languages in the placement of the clitics, and (c) the variations in the morphosyntactic realizations of them as enclitics and / or proclitics, I describe the status of a large number of other Western and Central plateau Iranian languages. This description shows that only Davani and a very few other Iranian languages indeed synchronically manifest Wackernagel's sentence second position.
I will then evaluate the findings of the study in the perspective of the explanatory mechanisms of the generative and cognitive linguistics.
Aria Adli (Centre for General Linguistics Typology and Universals Research (ZAS))
This paper presents a study of wh-scrambling in Persian showing that information structure plays an important role. Focus properties as well as structural preferences, due to a requirement of presuppositional adequacy, are in the center of our analysis. We use an experimental approach, working with a gradient grammaticality judgment test, based on the principle of graphic rating. Subjects express nuanced judgments by the length of a line drawn on a bipolar, anchored scale. The statistical analysis is based on a sample of 98 native speakers collected during fieldwork in Tehran.
In a first step we analyzed simple wh-questions, (1a) to (3c), distinguishing between (i) noninitial/ preverbal vs. initial vs. postverbal wh-positions, (ii) wh-adjuncts vs. wh-NPs, and (iii) canonical vs. postposed subjects. The results show that scrambling of wh-elements and non-wh-elements have exactly the same impact on grammaticality, supporting the assumption of the general scrambling approach proposed by Karimi (2005). Furthermore, we find a general preference of wh-adjuncts over wharguments, explained by their different semantics in terms of Reinhart’s (1998) choice functions.
In a second step, we turned to complex wh-questions, (4a) and (4b), as well as to long NP-scrambling, (5). The grammaticality degrees between simple and complex wh-questions is identical, i.e. there is not a general and simple correlation with complexity in terms of number of CPs. However, we find an interesting preference for long wh-scrambling compared to long NP-scrambling, which reveals the relevance of the target landing position in cyclic movement: Long scrambling preferably targets the matrix CP compared to an intermediate CP. We argue that most of the observed differences can be traced back to a general principle of presuppositional adequacy, which is inspired by Comorovski’s (1996: 146) answerability condition.
Finally, we tested multiple wh-questions, (6a) to (7b), with different linear orders of wh-subjects and wh-objects, and with or without the suffix -r marking specific direct objects. Although we find a preference for the subject-before-object order, it is only an apparent superiority effect. The quantitative results show that this difference can be fully explained by the principle of presuppositional adequacy. This case illustrates the analytical benefits of empirical grammaticality judgments that also allow synergetical understanding of grammatical principles governing different phenomena. The necessity of the object marker in the object-before-subject order is explained by the semantic requirements of the left periphery: NPs in FocP must have a unique referent.
On a conceptual level, we account for nuanced but systematic differences within the range of felicitous constructions by postulating the notion of preference constraint as an enrichment of the formal-syntactic apparatus.
Examples
(1a) sara ketab -eš -o kej
xæride? [S O Adjwh
V]
Sara book -her -OM when
bought
'When did Sara buy her book?’
(1a') sara kej ketab -eš -o
xæride? [S Adjwh
O V]
Sara when book
-her -OM bought
(1b) ketab -eš -o kej xæride
sara? [O
Adjwh V S]
book -her -OM when bought
Sara
(1c) babæk ki -jo emruz
zæde? [S Owh Adj V]
Babak who -OM today
hit
(1c') babæk emruz ki -jo
zæde? [S Adj Owh V]
Babak today who
-OM hit
'Who has Babak hit today?'
(2a) kej sara ketab -eš -o
xæride? [Adjwh S O V]
when Sara book
-her -OM bought
(2b) kej ketab-eš -o
xæride sara? [Adjwh O V S]
when book -her -OM bought
Sara
(2c) ki -jo babæk emruz
zæde? [Owh S Adj V]
who -OM Babak today
hit
(3a) * sara ketab-eš -o
xæride kej? [S O V Adjwh]
Sara book
-her -OM bought when
(3b) * xæride kej ketab-eš -o
sara? [V Adjwh
O S]
bought when
book -her -OM Sara
(3c) * babæk emruz zæde ki -jo?
[S Adj V Owh]
Babak today
hit who -OM
(4a) fekr -mikon -i ke
babæk emruz ki -jo zæde?
think -you
that Babak today
who -OM hit
(4b) [ki -jo]i fekr -mikon -i ke
babæk emruz ti zæde?
who -OM think -you
that Babak today
hit
(5) šiva goft [ke [ot -o]i hæds
mizæne [ke narges ti tamiz karde be ]].
Shiva said that room -OM guesses3rd,sg. that
Narges cleaned had
Shiva said that she guessed that Narges had
cleaned the room.
(6a)ki tši xord?
who what ate
(6b) *tši ki xord?
what who ate
(7a) ki tši -jo xord?
who what-OM ate
(7b) ?tši -jo ki xord?
what -OM who ate
References
Comorovski, Ileana (1996). Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Karimi, Simin (2005). A Minimalist Approach to Scrambling : Evidence from Persian. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Reinhart, Tanya (1998). Wh-in-situ in the framework of the Minimalist Program. Natural Language
Semantics 6, 29-56.
Ludwig Paul
In the Middle Persian of the Sasanian era (3rd -7th century A.D.), the suffix -en was very productive in forming material adjectives (e.g., abrešomen "of silk", aben "(consisting) of water", pašmen "of wool"), and also of certain other adjectives (e.g., xešmen "angry, wrathful"). The modern New Persian suffix -in, being the continuation of MP -en, is far less productive than its etymological predecessor and has mostly been replaced by the adjective suffix -i (< MP -ig), e.g. pašmi "of wool", carmi "of leather".
This replacement took place gradually, and in early and classical New Persian (e.g., the language of the Šahname) forms in -en, later -in, continued to be used widely. The "old" forms, therefore, partly persist in modern New Persian, but where they do, they belong to higher, literary registers of the language. In some cases, the old forms have taken on special or metaphorical meanings, e.g. ahanin "of iron" in expressions such as del-e ahanin "brave heart" or divar-e ahanin "iron curtain"; in a few other cases, they have deviated semantically from the word from which they are derived, e.g. širin "sweet" (from šir "milk") or sangin "heavy" (from sang "stone").
The aim of the present paper is to explain this replacement process and these semantic shifts, from Middle Persian to modern New Persian, on the basis of textual evidence; and to discuss this process in a general historical-linguistic context.
Marina Pantcheva (University of Tromsø)
In this talk I present an analysis of Persian spatial P2 Prepositions and show
that their nominal
properties can be explained by assuming a silent place element in the P projection.
Background: Traditionally, Persian (spatial) prepositions are divided into two
classes, with
respect to which of them take the Ezafe linker when followed by a complement:
P1 — prepositions
which directly take a complement, and P2 — those which require an Ezafe
before the
complement (Samiian 1994). Except for the availability of the Ezafe linker,
Persian spatial P2s
manifest a range of other distinctions compared to spatial P1s in that they
can (i) occur without
complement, (ii) follow a demonstrative, (iii) take plural morphology, (iv)
host pronominal
clitics, which typically express the possessor when attached to nouns, and,
finally, (v) can be
NP modifiers (Pantcheva 2006). P1s, in their turn, can precede any P2P to specify
a Goal
or a Source/Route Path and Location, depending on which P1 is used (see (1)).
However, all
P1s, except the ones expressing Source, can be omitted in front of a P2P. A
P1 is omitted also
when it is followed by a NP denoting a conventional place, e.g proper place
names, places for
activities (school, work), etc.
Previous accounts: As can be seen from (i)–(v), P2s exhibit nominal properties and their categorial status is therefore controversial. According to Ghomeshi (1996) and Larson and Yamakido (2005) they are nouns, whereas Samiian (1994) argues against this. The arguments she gives in favor of the distinction between nouns and P2s are based on the restrictions which hold for the latter but not for true nouns, e.g. the unavailability of adjectival modification and the ungrammaticality of quantifiers.
Proposal: In this talk, I first consider further evidence that P2s are not real nouns. Then, I suggest that spatial P2s are representatives of the syntactic category Ax(ial)Part, as proposed by Svenonius (2006). AxPart elements are part of the PP projection and are used instead of adpositions to express spatial meanings. Such AxPart elements can be found in a variety of languages, e.g. Japanese, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Kˆýˆýtharaka (Bantu), etc. and they all exhibit some or all of the properties (i)–(v). An important cross-linguistic property of AxParts is that they are noun modifiers and they exhibit nominal properties while at the same time being distinct from nouns. For instance, they can be preceded by a demonstrative. Crucially, then the demonstrative gets the interpretation of here or there. Katz and Postal (1964) decompose the words here and there into at this place and at that place, respectively. Interestingly, the Persian adverbs here and there consist of exactly the demonstrative in ‘this’ and un ‘that’, respectively, and the noun dja ‘place’. Therefore, following Katz and Postal (1964) and Kayne (2004), I suggest that there is a silent place selected by a spatial P1, the latter being usually omitted since place doubtlessly expresses conventional place. The nominal place element is then modified by the P2 Phrase, which is allowed, since P2s can be noun modifiers (see (v)). The Ground complement is the possessor of the space thus specified and this requires an Ezafe to attach to the last element of the phrase expressing the possessed thing, i.e. to the P2. Adopting Samiian’s (1994) proposal that Ezafe is a case marker, and Svenonius’ (2006) PP structure, I put Ezafe under K (Case). The proposed structure for the PP in (2a) then would be as in (2b). A similar approach is adopted by Terzi (2006) for Greek locative prepositions, Botwinik-Rotem (to appear) for Hebrew, and Bendjaballah and Haiden (2005) for Berber.
Extension: The presence of a silent place accounts for several aspects of the behavior P2s exhibit. First, place being a noun, it can be preceded by a demonstrative (cf. (ii) above). Since place is silent, the demonstrative will appear to directly precede the P2P at Spell-out, still the interpretation of here and there will remain. Secondly, the possessive relationship between the Ground DP and place allows the former to be replaced by a possessive clitic (iv). When the possessor is omitted, the P2 will appear without a complement (i). Finally, plural endings will attach to the P2, since they need a phonologically realized element to attach to (iii). In any of these cases, the whole phrase will behave as a PP because it is headed by an overt or covert P1.
(1) a. ketab (dær) posht -e
quti bud b. ketab-ra
(be) posht -e
quti gozæsht
book (atP1) backP2-ez
box was book-om (
toP1) backP2-ez box put
‘The book was behind the box.’
‘S/he
put the book behind the box.’
(2) a. ketab-ra gozæsht (be) in PLACE tu -ye quti
book-om put (toP1) this PLACE insideP2-ez box
‘S/he put
the book here, in the box.’
b. [P1 be ‘to’ [D in ‘this’ [N place [AxPart/P2 tu ‘interior’ [K ez [DPGround quti ‘box’]]]]]]
References
Bendjaballah, Sabrina and Martin Haiden. 2005. The Grammar of Prepositions
in Berber.
Available at http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000261.
Botwinik-Rotem, Irena. to appear. Why are they different? An exploration of
Hebrew locative
PPs. In Proceedings of Conference on Syntax and Semantics of Spatial P. Utrecht,
2-4 June,
2006.
Ghomeshi, Jila. 1996. Projection and Inflection: A Study of Persian Phrase
Structure. Ph.D.
thesis, University of Toronto.
Katz, Jerrold J. and Paul M. Postal. 1964. An Integrated Theory of Linguistic
Descriptions.
MIT Press, Cambridge, Ma.
Kayne, Richard S. 2004. Here and there. In Lexique, Syntaxe et Lexique-Grammaire/Syntax,
Lexis & Lexicon-Grammar: Papers in Honor of Maurice Gross, edited by C.
Lecl`ere, E. Laporte,
M. Piot, and M. Silberztein, pp. 253–275. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Larson, Richard K. and Hiroko Yamakido. 2005. Ezafe and the position of nominal
modifiers.
Ms. Stony Brook University; presented at the LSA.
Pantcheva, Marina. 2006. Persian Preposition Classes. In Nordlyd: Tromsø
Working Papers
in Linguistics, 33.1 , edited by Peter Svenonius, pp. 1–25. CASTL, Tromsø.
Available at
http://www.ub.uit.no/munin/nordlyd/.
Samiian, Vida. 1994. The Ezafe Construction: Some implications for the theory
of X-bar
Syntax. In Persian Studies in North America, edited by Mehdi Marashi, pp.
17–41. Iranbook,
Bethesda, Maryland.
Svenonius, Peter. 2006. The Emergence of Axial Parts. In Nordlyd: Tromsø
Working Papers
in Linguistics, 33.1 , edited by Peter Svenonius, pp. 50–77. CASTL, Tromsø.
Available at
http://www.ub.uit.no/munin/nordlyd/.
Terzi, Arhonto. 2006. The misleading status of Locative Prepositions. Ms.
Technological Educational
Institute of Patras.
Agnes Korn (Frankfurt) & Peter Öhl (Wuppertal)
The purpose of this paper is to explain the development of markers of subordination and clause mood in Persian. The focus will be on two particles: Modern Persian ke, which serves as a subordination marker of very wide range, and aya, which is used to mark interrogatives.
In Modern Standard Persian (MSP), ke is the general marker of subordination. It introduces subordinate clauses of all kinds: object, relative, and several kinds of adverbial clauses.
(1) šenidam ke u
xahad amad.
heard.1SG – SUB – s/he – will –
come
'I heard that s/he will come.'
2) kesi -ke to
dide -i emruz
raft.
someone-SUB – you – have -seen – today – went
'Someone you saw went away today.'
(3) a. nazdik ke amad u -ra
šenaxtam.
near – SUB – came –
s/he-FOC – recognised.1SG
'When s/he came near I recognised
her/him.'
b. raftam ke
an ketab-ra
bexaram.
went.1SG – SUB – DEM
– book -FOC – buy.1SG
'I went to buy the book.'
We suggest that, ke is not a complementiser, but a subordination marker with a very general general function. Since complementisers carry more features than the formal feature of syntactic subordination, they are more specific to certain clause types, like Engl. if.
(4) I don't know if he studies linguistics.
In MSP, however, there are embedded interrogatives where the subordination marker ke cooccurs with aya, a particle that is used to mark interrogative mood also in matrix clauses.
5) a. (man) nemidanam (ke)
(aya) (u) zabanšenasi
mixanad.
I –
NEGknow.1SG – (SUB –) (AYA –) s/he – linguistics – study.3SG
b. (aya) an pesar
zabanšenasi mixanad?
AYA – DEM – boy – linguistics
– study.3SG
'Does this boy study linguistics?'
From the point of view of generative syntax, this suggests that the two markers occupy two different functional positions in the syntactic tree, the lower one specific to features of clause mood. What we intend to explain is the way of how this system of subordination developed.
We discuss data from Middle and Early Modern Persian (EMP), showing that ke developed from a relative marker and aya is a grammaticalised form that developed from the predecessor of its cognate ya, a disjunctive marker in EMP and MSP.
6) goman mikonam
ya emruz ya
farda.
assumption – make.1SG – YA – today – YA – tomorrow
'I assume [s/he comes] (either) today or tomorrow.'
In order to model the structural reanalyses leading to the new constructions, we use a framework of moderate minimalist syntax. Some functional aspects of the grammaticalisation of these markers, however, are also explained in a functionalist framework. Thus, as a side effect, we can show that the rise of the construction in discussion is evidence for the cooperation of parametric and performance-based changes in processes of grammaticalisation.
References
Behzad, Faramarz & Soraya Divshali (1999). Sprachkurs Persisch: Eine Einführung in die
persische Sprache der Gegenwart. Bamberg: Edition Zypresse (2. Aufl.).
Lazard, Gilbert (1992). A Grammar of Contemporary Persian. Costa Mesa etc.: Mazda
Publishers.
Saera Kwak (Tehran University)
This paper studies the syntactic structures of negative sentences in Persian based on Minimalism.
Following Pollock(1989) and others, I assume that there is a functional projection of negation, NegP headed by the negative marker against which Negative concord item hiè –phrase* checks its [neg] feature. This analysis follows Haegeman’s (1995) NEGcriterion, which suggests that the well-formedness condition of negative elements comes from the Spec-Head configuration between [neg] feature and NEG-operator. As is shown in (1), hièkas is merged in Spec-vP position as the subject and then moves to Spec-NegP to get its [neg] feature checked.
Multiple NCI constructions like (2) also checks their neg features in the same way. From the complex sentences involving an NCI, we can assume that Spec-Head relation can be respected either at the time of merge as in (3 c,d), or after the movement of the NCI operator as in (3b).
Furthermore, following Watanabe’s (2004) feature cancellation, I propose that the two [neg] features can cancel each other giving an affirmative interpretation as in (4).
Finally, the status of subjunctive marker be-, which seems to be in complementary distribution with the negative marker is revisited (5). However, It is shown that in all cases, the meaning of subjunctive is reflected in the verb with [subj] feature. There is a case where we can find the overt subjunctive form, and this is with the verb ‘budan’ as in (6). I posit Mood Projection under Neg Projection with subjunctive marker occupying the specifier of the MoodP, checking its [subj] feature against the [subj] feature on the verb after the latter moves to the Mood head.
* Its syntactic and semantic properties as a negative concord item is proposed in Kwak&Darzi (2006)
(1) [NEGP hiçkasi [NEG' na [vP ti [v' [VP mad
(2) hiçkas hijâ
na-raft -O
nobody nowhere neg-went-3sg
Nobody went anywhere.
(3) a. momken-e [CP ke [hikasi [NEGP na [vP ti [ v' [VP -]r-e
b. [ hiçkasi [NEGP momken ni [vP st [CP
ke [vP ti [ v'[VP be-r-e
c. hiçkas momken-e (ke) na-re
d. momken nist (ke) hiçkas be-re
(4) [NEGP [ne [TP mitunam ... [NEGP [na [TP ram[neg][negi]
(5) a. na-ro
/ bo-ro
neg-go(imp) / subj-go(imp)
Do not go. / Go.
b. bayad na-r -am / bayad be -r -am
must neg-go-1sg / must
subj-go-1sg
I must not go. / I must go.
(6) a. age ali xune na-bâshe ,
kelid ro be-het mi-dam
if Ali house
neg-be(subj,3sg), key Ra to-you DURgave(1sg)
If Ali is not at home,
I will give you the key.
b. momken-e un
ketâb-o na-dâšte bâšam.
Possible-be(3sg) that
book-Ra neg-had be(subj,1sg)
I may not have the book.
Pollet Samvelian (Sorbonne-Nouvelle – Paris III)
This paper presents a lexical account of the syntax of Sorani Kurdish prepositions within the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG).
Kurdish dialects have a rich class of prepositions and prepositional collocations with a complex syntactic behavior (Edmonds 1955, Mackenzie 1961). This situation results from severla factors. The first one involves the constitution of this class: the initial set of prepositions has been enriched with elements borrowed from other classes, such as substantives. The latter generally combine with primary prepositions (ex. 1) to form compound prepositions (ex. 2), though some of them have undergone a grammaticalization process and can function as prepositions by themselves. These “new” prepositions have nevertheless preserved a part of their nominal properties and differ with respect to their morpho-syntactic properties from primary prepositions. Furthermore, apart from prepositions, Kurdish dialects have also postpositions. The latter combine with primary prepositions, wich have a rather poor semantics, in order to express more precise semantic values (ex. 3).
The second point concerns the realization of the complement: some primary prepositions allow for a clitic (affixal) realization of their complement, while others do not (ex 4, 5). Furthermore, the alternation of the form of the complement generally gives rise to an allomorphic variation of the preposition itself. Primary prepositions are thus divided into two subclasses, simple vs. absolute prepositions (Table 1).
Finally, depending upon the preposition, the clitic complement is not necessarily attached to the preposition and can be realized at distance, preceding or following the preposition. However, the non-local realization is subject to strict constraints and is limited to two cases: the clitic is either attached to the verb (ex. 7) or to the right edge of the constituent immediately preceding the preposition (ex. 6). The first type of attachment occurs only with transitive verbs in the past tenses. The significant fact is that, contrary to what would be expected, the complement of the preposition is not realized as a clitic in this case, but as a verbal personal ending (ex. 8a,b). Thus, in the past transitive construction, the complement of an absolute preposition displays two different forms depending on whether it is attached to the preposition or to the verb. In the latter case, it has the same shape as a verbal argument (i.e. direct object).
In order to account for these properties, this paper suggests a classification of Sorani Kurdish prepositions on the basis of two major dimensions of variation, NOMINALITY (nominal vs. Non-nominal) and ARGUMENT-REALIZATION (affixal vs. non-affixal). The lexical entries are systematically organized in an inheritance hierarcy with respect to these two dimesnions (Tseng 2005). The clitic realization of the complement is argued to be an instance of affixation (Crysmann 1997, 2000), and a lexicalist account is outlined for all cases of nonlocal realizations of the clitic, either in terms of argument composition (Abeillé et al. 1998, Hinrichs &Nakazawa 1994, Miller & Sag 1997) or in terms of constraints on the linearization of domain objects (Kathol 2000).
(1) La pârîs dost-akân dît
in Paris friend-DEF.PL meet.PAS
‘She/he met her/his friends in Paris’
(2) kitêb-aka la sar
mêz-a
book-DEF.SG at head table-COP.3.SG
‘The book is on the table’
(3) la cêgâ-ka=m=dâ
at bed -def.sg=1.sg.=PP
‘in my bed’
(4) min ba Narmîn / to da-lê-m
(I) to Narmin / you AM-say.PRES-1.SG1
‘I am telling to Narmin / you’
(5) pê=t / *to
da-lê-m2
to=2.SG/ you AM -say.PRES-1.SG
‘I am telling to you’
(6) har wusa-yak=î pê
a -lê -m
only word-INDEF.SG=3.SG to AM-say.PRES-1.SG
'I am telling only one word to him’
(7) êwa awa=tân3 pê zor wut=im
you this=2.PL to often say.PAS=1.SG
‘You have often told me this’
(8) a. rojbâš=yân lê kird-în4
good-morning =3.PL to do.PAS-1.PL
‘They wished us good
morning’
b. * rozjbâš=yân lê kird=mân
good-morning =3.PL to do.PAS=1.PL
Table (1) : Simple and absolute prepositions
Simple form Absolute form
ba pê
‘to,
with
bê -
‘without
bo (bo)
‘for’
-a
-ê
‘to, towards’
la lê
‘of, at, to’
lagal (lagal)
‘with’
tâ / hatâ
- ‘until’
- tê
‘to’
References
Abeillé, A. Godard, D. and Sag, I. A. 1998. Two Kinds of Composition in French Complex Predicates. In Synatx
and Semantics, Volume 30. Complex Predicates in Nonderivational Syntax, 1-41. New York: Academic
Press.
Crysmann, B. 1997. Cliticization in European Portuguese using parallel morpho-syntactic constraints. In
Proceedings of LFG97 Conference, eds. M. Butt and T. Holloway King. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Crysmann, B. 2000. On the Placement and Morphology of Udi Subject Agreement, paper presented at 7th
International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Berkeley, July 21-23.
Edmonds, C. J. 1955. Prepositions and Personal Affixes in Southern Kurdish. BSOAS XVII/3, 490-502:490-502.
Hinrichs, E. and Nakazawa. T. 1994. Linearizing AUXs in German Verbal Complexes. In J. Nerbonne and K.
Netter and C. J. Pollard (eds.), German in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. 11–37.
Kathol, A. 2000. Linear Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mackenzie, D.N. 1961. Kurdish Dialect Studies. London: Oxford University Press.
Miller, P. H. and Sag, I. A. 1997. French Clitic Movement without Clitics or Movement. Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 15:573-639.
Tseng, J. 2005. Directionality and Complementation of Dutch Adpositions, in Adpositions of Movement, H.
Cuyckens, W; de Mulder and T. Mortelmans (eds.), 167-194.
Susana Bejar (University of Toronto) & Arsalan Kahnemuyipour (Syracuse University)
In this talk we examine the pattern of agreement in Persian specificational copular sentences with pronominal arguments (e.g. 'This is me'). Agreement in these cases is sometimes with the first NP (hereafter NP1), and sometimes with the second NP (hereafter NP2). This agreement pattern contrasts markedly with the straightforward subject agreement in Persian non-copular sentences. We provide a formal account for the uncharacteristic agreement of the copular expressions. In doing so, we address the question of why this pattern is, on the one hand, restricted to the copular cases in Persian and, on the other hand, absent from copular sentences in other subject-agreement languages such as English.
The straightforward pattern of subject agreement in core transitive/intransitive clauses can be seen in (1). The form of the verb covaries with the phi-features of the subject. In this respect, Persian is consistent with other nominative-accusative languages (e.g. English): agreement correlates with nominative case assignment. This correlation underlies the dominant assumption that nominative-case assignment and agreement are reflexes of a single syntactic relation, which in the framework of Chomsky 2000, 2001 is the establishment of an Agree relation with T.
The agreement pattern in the copular paradigm shown in (2) is markedly different. Here the form of the copula covaries with phi-features of NP2, and is apparently insensitive to the NP in subject position (NP1). In this respect Persian departs from other nominative-accusative languages in which the pattern of agreement in copular sentences is no different from that in core transitive/intransitive sentences (3).
Moreover, a fuller paradigm for Persian copula agreement shows that the agreement controller in fact varies, and is sometimes NP1, as seen in (4). A clear generalization emerges when one abstracts away from number agreement and considers just the person agreement facts summarized in (5): agreement is always with NP1 unless NP1 is 3rd person, in which case it is with NP2. [This clear-cut picture is complicated somewhat when number is taken into consideration; an issue we will address in the talk.]
This sensitivity to person can be modeled as a natural consequence of the probe-goal mechanics in a system along the lines proposed in Bejar 2003 or Bejar & Rezac 2004 where the phi bundle of an agreement probe can be richer or poorer, the degree of specification being a language-specific choice. A minimally articulated phi probe will successfully agree with an NP of any person specification, but more richly articulated phi probes will only successfully agree with 1st or 2nd person NPs. The person-sensitivity of Persian copular agreement is consistent with a richer specification of the phi-bundle. The effect of competition between arguments arises when multiple NPs share a single agreement domain, thus ruling out multiple agreement.
We argue that in the Persian copular construction, NP1 is the preferred controller in this domain (by locality), thus NP2 can only control agreement when NP1 fails to do so (these are the cases when NP1 is 3rd person). The case pattern in the copular construction is NOM-NOM, which suggests that the unique locus of agreement is in the domain of Infl/T. We propose that the difference between the agreement pattern in copular and non-copular sentences in Persian follows from a difference in the number of agreement domains involved in each case: in the noncopular sentences, we are dealing with two agreement domains, and 'competition' between arguments never arises, thus the subject is always the controller. Similarly, the absence of NP2 agreement in English copular sentences follows if in these languages copular sentences, like noncopular ones, involve two agreement domains. This is supported by the fact that in English, unlike Persian, the case of NP2 is accusative (cf. Maling & Sprouse 1995, Schutze 2001).
To conclude, our talk provides a formal analysis of some novel agreement facts in Persian and explores its implications for a cross-linguistic typology of copular agreement (cf. Corbett 1988, den Dikken 2006, Moro 2006) and our general understanding of agreement systems.
(1) a. (man) ye ketaab xarid -am
I
a book bought-1.sg.
'I bought a book.'
b. Ali o Maryam man-o
na -did -an
Ali and Maryam I -acc.
neg.-saw -3.pl.
'Ali and Maryam didn't
see me.'
c. (man) to -ro
dust daar-am
I
you(sg.)-acc. like have-1.sg.
'I love you.'
d. naama-sh hamin
ruz-aa mi -res -e
letter -his/her
these day-pl. dur.-arrive-3.sg.
'His/Her letter will
arrive one of these days.'
(2) a. in man-am d. in maa-(y)im
this I -be.1.sg.
this we -be.1.pl.
'This is me.' 'This
is us.'
b. in to-(y)i
e. in shomaa-(y)in
this you(sg.)-be.2.sg.
this you(pl.)-be.2.pl.
'This is you.' 'This
is you(pl.).'
c. in un -e
f. in unaa-n
this him/her-be.3.sg. this
they-be.3.pl.
'This is him/her.' 'This is
them.'
(3) a. This is me. d. This
is us.
b. This is you(sg.). e. This is you(pl.).
c. This is him/her. f. This is them.
(4) a. man in -am d. to in-(y)i
I this-be.1.sg.
you this-be.2.sg.
'I am this (one).' 'You are
this (one).'
b. man to -am
e. to man-i
I
you(sg.)-be.1.sg. you I -be.2.sg.
'I am you.' 'You are
me.'
c. man Arsalan-am f. to
Susana-(y)i
I Arsalan-be.1.sg.
you Susana-be.2.sg.
'I am Arsalan.' 'You
are Susana.'
5) NP2>
NP1v 1 2 3
1 (NP1) NP1 NP1
2 NP1 (NP1) NP1
3 NP2 NP2 (NP2)
References
Bejar, S. 2003. Phi-Syntax: A theory of agreement. PhD dissertation. University of Toronto.
Bejar, Susana and Milan Rezac. 2004/2006. Cyclic Agree. lingBuzz/000079.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Step by step: Essays on Minimalist syntax in honor
of Howard Lasnik, ed. Roger Martin, David Michaels, and Juan Uriagereka, 89-156. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Ken Hale: A life in language, ed. Michael Kenstowicz, 1-52. MIT
Press.
Corbett, G. 1988. Agreement: A partial specification based on Slavonic data. In M. Barlow & C.A. Ferguson, eds.
Agreement in Natural Language. Stanford: CSLI.
den Dikken, M. 2006. Specificational Copular Sentences and Pseudoclefts. In M. Everaert and H. van Riemsdijk, eds.
The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. Volume IV, 292-409.
Maling, J. and R. Sprouse. 1995. Structural case, specifier-head relations, and the case of predicate DPs. In H. Haider,
S. Olsen and S. Vikner, eds. Studies in comparative Germanic syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Moro, A. 2006. Copular Sentences. In M. Everaert and H. van Riemsdijk, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Syntax.
Volume II, 1-23.
Schutze, C. 2001. On the nature of default case. Syntax 4.3: 205-238.
Gh. Karimi-Doostan (University of Kurdistan)
In this paper, we try to show that although most of the listed words in Persian fall under the universally known lexical categories such as N, V, Adj., Adv., and P, there are a considerable number of listed words in the language which do not fall under these categories and the lack of specific lexical category in these words affects their syntactic and morphological roles in the grammar. Persian has only about 100 simple verbs and most of its Complex Predicates (CPs) contain a light verb (LV) and a predicative element in which the verbal elements lack argument structure and the non-verbal (NVs) elements seem to be responsible for the thematic force of the clauses (Vahedi-Langroudi (1996); Karimi-Doostan (2005); among others). The lexical category of NV elements in the CPs seems rather interesting. Some of the NVs are adverbs, adjectives, prepositions or nouns but some of them seem to lack specific lexical category and will be called Verbal Nouns (VNs) in this work. The adverbs and adjectives can be used in superlative and comparative forms and they can be modified by intensifier adverbs like 'very'. The nouns can be pluralized and selected by D, demonstrative adjectives and prepositions and they can function as subject and object. However, VNs do not have any of the properties of adverbs, adjectives and nouns referred to here. VNs are different from prepositions and simple verbs too. Prepositions can directly select DPs, but VNs cannot. Simple verbs may co-occur with verbal inflectional items, but VNs may not.
The Ezafe particle -(y/?)e appears between a noun and its complements, between a noun and a possessor, between a noun and a modifier, and between an adjective/adverb and its complements. The constructs linked by the Ezafe particle are known as 'Ezafe constructions'. VNs fall into two groups with respect to Ezafe. Some of them like those in (1) may appear in Ezafe construction (3) but others like those in (2) may not appear in Ezafe constructions (4).
faraamush kardan (forgetting to do) "to forget"
mahsub kardan (taking into account to do) "to take into account"
haali kardan (understood to do) "to cause to understand"
moraxas kardan (releasing to do) "to let to leave, to release)
vaadaar kardan (persuading to do) "to persuade"
kansel kardan (cancel to do) "to cancel"
gom kardan (loosing to do) "to loose"
3) ?anja:m -e ka:r
tavasot-e Ali
performing-Ezafe work by -Ezafe
Ali
"performing the work by Ali"
4) * faraamush-e ketaab tavasote Ali
forgetting -Ez book by
Ali
"forgetting the book by Ali"
So, as far as Ezafe is concerned the VNs in (1) behave like nouns, adjective, and adverbs, while those in (2) do not. Regardless of this difference, all VNs are independent and listed words (lexemes) that can be separated from LVs by the Negation Particle, the imperfective morpheme mi as in (5), modals and auxiliaries such as ba:yad 'should, must', future auxiliary xa:stan 'will' and progressive auxiliary da:štan 'to have', as well as clitic pronouns like -eš 'it' as in (6b-d).
(5) a. Ali gerye ne -mi -konad.
Ali cry Neg.
Impf-DO
' Ali does not cry.'
(6) a. Ali gerye da:rad mi - konad.
Ali cry Prog.Aux.
Impf-DO
'Ali is crying.'
b. be ra:dyo guš xa:had kard.
to radio ear
Fu.Aux. DO
'(He) will listen to radio.'
c. guš-eš ba:yad mi -kardi.
ear -it should
Impf.-DO-Past did
'You should have listened to it.'
Contra the view that nominalization is the spell out of a category neutral root projection in a DP context (Marantz, 1997; Harley and Noyer, 1998; and consequent works), we show that, as in Marantz 2000, VNs as category neutral words can be the input to nominalization and other morphological rules, as well as syntactic rules when they are categorized as n, a, or v. Also, based on the data in (1-2), we show that a nominalized structure contains a VP (Abney, 1987; Fu, et al, 2001; Bodomo, 2004) not a vP (Alexiadou, 2001). We also demonstrate that VNs cannot function as subjects, objects or verbs predicating clauses due to the fact that they lack specific lexical category. In addition, contra Croft (2000) we show that words, not constructions, are primitive elements.
References
Abney, S. (1987) The English Noun Phrases in its nominal aspect. MIT. PhD Dissertation.
Alexiadou, A. (2001) Functional structures in nominals. Amsterdam: Benjamin.
Bodomo, A. (2004) The syntax of the nominalized complex verbal predicates in Dagaare. Studia linguictica 58: 1-22.
Croft, W. (2000) Parts of speech as language universals and as language-particular categories. In Vogel and Comrie (eds) Approaches to the typology of word classes. Walter de Gruyter.
Fu, J. et al (2001) The VP within Process Nominals. NLLT, 19: 549-582.
Harley, H. and Noyer (1998) Mixed nominalization, short verb movement and object shift in English. NELS, 28.
Karimi-Doostan, Gh. (2005) Light Verbs and Structural Case. Lingua, 115: 1737-1756.
Marantz, Alec 2000. "Words." WCCFL presentation, Los Angeles.
Vahedi-Langroudi, (1996) Syntax and semantics of Complex predicates in Persian. PhD Dissertation. Ottawa University.