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Case and specificity: Persian ra revisited
... According to Dressler"s typological criteria for a language morphological system (Dressler, 2010), Persian morphological specifications are: a) Morphological richness: Noun morphological markers in Persian generally include case, the direct object (DO) marker ra (which is a controversial topic among linguists, Kalbasi, 2008;Karimi, 1996;Meshkato-Dini, 2008), and number, with a plural marker with two forms: /ha, /an (Meshkato-Dini, 2008). ...
... Blake (2001 defines case markers as signposts of how the nouns they deliver relate to the sentence head (verb) in the clause level. In Persian there is only one case marker, DO marker ra, and its exact morphological category is controversial (Karimi, 1996; for a list of different definitions of ra see Shokouhia & Kipkab, 2003), probably because its role is irregular and sparse (Foroodi-Nejad, 2011 p. 39). The irregularity refers to restricted use of ra merely with definite specific direct objects and sparseness signifies its uniqueness in the repertoire of case marking in Persian. ...
... The irregularity refers to restricted use of ra merely with definite specific direct objects and sparseness signifies its uniqueness in the repertoire of case marking in Persian. Although Karimi considers the Persian overt case marker ra as a (noun) suffix (Karimi, 1996), it was not found in the categorisation of different suffixes mentioned by other Iranian linguists (Kalbasi, 2008;Meshkato-Dini, 2008). As shown in table 1-1, ra is among grammatical morphemes or functional words and this is the main difference between the different linguists" views. ...
... Other specific features of Persian syntax that have received a great deal of attention from different linguistic frameworks include the ezāfe construction (Samiian 1983(Samiian , 1994Ghomeshi 1997a;Samvelian 2007Samvelian , 2008Larson & Yamakido 2008;Haig 2011;Karimi & Brame 2012;Kahnemuyipour 2014;Larson & Samiian 2020; among others), the postposition =rā (Lazard 1982(Lazard , 1994Karimi 1989Karimi , 1990Karimi , 1996Dabir-Moghaddam 1992;Ghomeshi 1997b;Ganjavi 2007; Jasbi 2020; Karimi & Smith 2020; among others), and complex predicates (Dabir-Moghaddam 1997; Karimi-Doostan 1997Megerdoomian 2001Megerdoomian , 2012Folli et al. 2005;Samvelian 2012;Samvelian & Faghiri 2013bFamily 2014; among others).⁴ Most of the publications on these topics have been written from the perspective of the generative tradition. ...
... 'Maryam saw a woman in the street. ' (Samvelian 2018: 244) Some scholars have therefore suggested that specificity, rather than definiteness, is responsible for =rā-flagging (Browne 1970;Karimi 1990Karimi , 1996Karimi , 2003among others). This viewpoint holds that all specific objects, whether definite or indefinite, must be =rā-flagged. ...
This thesis presents a detailed study of valency classes and alternation in Persian, a South Western Iranian language with more than 110 million speakers worldwide, mostly in Iran. It contributes to a better understanding and description of the Persian verbal system and thereby also to the development of cross-linguistic research on argument structure and valency alternations. For this purpose, a total of 94 verbs were analyzed and described for their valency coding frames and alternations, following the methodological steps developed by the Leipzig Questionnaire on valency classes (Malchukov & team 2015). These coding frames were then grouped into ten different valency classes based on the number and nature of their arguments. With respect to valency alternations, this thesis presents two types of coded alternations, namely the passive and the causative, and three types of uncoded alternations, namely =rā alternations, ezāfe alternations, and other prepositional alternations. In addition to the typological contribution this thesis presents, inspired by the other languages documented in the online database Valency Patterns Leipzig (ValPaL) (Hartmann et al. 2013), the list of predicates investigated in this thesis can be useful for language teaching, lexicography, or other database purposes, databases such as PersPred (Samvelian & Faghiri 2013a).
... It is said that specificity for NPs in object place in Persian is marked by the accusative marker rā ２２ (Peterson 1974, Karimi 1996, and Headberg, Görgulu and Mameni 2011. Karimi (1996) suggests that r is a functional head that checks a mixture of +specificity and "marked" case on a DP. ...
... It is said that specificity for NPs in object place in Persian is marked by the accusative marker rā ２２ (Peterson 1974, Karimi 1996, and Headberg, Görgulu and Mameni 2011. Karimi (1996) suggests that r is a functional head that checks a mixture of +specificity and "marked" case on a DP. ...
... More precisely, I do not want to say that certain lexical items (determiners and quantifiers) cannot encode specificity; in fact we know that several languages have determiners or quantifiers that are systematically associated with specific readings. What I want to suggest, contrary to and Karimi (1996), among others, is that functional categories external to DPs (i.e., agreement, case, focus, and so on, leaving aside tense and other deictic categories) -the categories responsible for word order phenomena and basic constructions in natural languages-do not encode specificity. Semantic and pragmatic notions like specificity, familiarity, rigid designation or discourse-linking do not seem to play any role in the computational system. ...
... See Torrego (1998) for Spanish a,Rapoport (1995) for Hebrew,Karimi (1990Karimi ( ), (1996Karimi ( ) and (1999 for Persian. ...
... The existence of two distinct structural positions for the direct object which correlate with overt case-marking and specificity readings on the NP have been observed for a number of languages (Mahajan 1990 for Hindi, Enç 1991 for Turkish, Butt 1995 for Urdu, Karimi 1996 andKahnemuyipour 2004 for Persian). Most of the analyses proposed to capture the relation between nominal specificity and the structural position of the object DP have made use of the Agr o P projection, which is assumed to be a functional node outside the vP domain responsible for case-checking with the direct object. ...
... However, quantified indefinites in these languages may also carry a specific interpretation as shown for Eastern Armenian in Section 3.1. I suggest that, in these cases, the specific reading is obtained when the DP projection is headed by a null determiner (see Karimi 1996 and Ghomeshi 2001 for similar proposals positing a null determiner head in Persian). ...
This chapter examines the correlation between the noun phrase and the verb phrase by focusing on the morphological and semantic properties of Case and agreement in a number of languages including Finnish, Scots Gaelic, and Eastern Armenian. Drawing on unpublished work of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, it argues that nominal and verbal phrases constitute a fixed set of primitive elements having a root, a category feature, and functional features of aspect and reference. The former functional feature is associated with an interpretation denoting “boundedness” while the latter is associated with an interpretation concerning “instantiation.” The chapter also discusses functional projections in the determiner phrase, checking relations and structural case, subjects, and Case marking in Eastern Armenian and Finnish.
... Intervening Instrumentals (adapted from Tamrazian (1994): examples (69) and (71) • two object types occupy different structural positions (correlates with Turkish (Enç 1991), Persian (Karimi 1996), Hindi (Mahajan 1990), Urdu (Butt 1995), Dutch (Hoop 1992) data) • accusative object can occupy a position outside the verb phrase ...
... -specificity is obtained when D o is present in the nominal configuration (see Karimi 1996, Ghomeshi 2001 for proposals positing a null determiner head in specific quantified indefinites in Persian) ⇒ Presence of D o triggers movement to AgrP -specificity corresponds to Agreement: In Hindi, the specific direct object triggers overt agreement on the verb (Mahajan 1990). ...
... More precisely, I do not want to say that certain lexical items (determiners and quantifiers) cannot encode specificity; in fact we know that several languages have determiners or quantifiers that are systematically associated with specific readings. What I want to suggest, contrary to Delfitto and Corver (1998) and Karimi (1996), among others, is that functional categories external to DPs (i.e., agreement, case, focus, and so on, leaving aside tense and other deictic c ategories) -the categories responsible for word order phenomena and basic constructions in natural languages-do not encode specificity. Semantic and pragmatic notions like specificity, familiarity, rigid designation or discourse-linking do not seem to play any role in the computational system. ...
... See Torrego (1998) for Spanish a,Rapoport (1995) for Hebrew,Karimi (1990Karimi ( ), (1996Karimi ( ) and (1999 for Persian. 10 For a defense of this perspective, seeJäger (1995a),Leonetti (1998),Büring (2001). ...
we call Differential Object Marking (DOM)1. My aim in this paper will be that of determining what is the particular contribution of DOM to utterance interpretation in Spanish, and how specificity is related to it. I would like to begin by presenting some basic assumptions on the Semantics / Pragmatics interface and on the notion of specificity, to concentrate later on the analysis of the Spanish prepositional accusative. I intend to show that, although the correlation between the accusative marker and specificity is far from clear, basically because animacy -and not specificity- is the dominant trigger for DOM in Spanish, a number of facts still indicate that the prepositional accusative tends to be associated with specific readings, in a way which is not unrelated to wha t happens in scrambling and clitic doubling constructions. Far from deriving from some (+ specific) feature inherent in the meaning of a, such facts can be shown to be a consequence of a different basic semantic feature that should allow us to bring together most of the grammatical phenomena that are sensitive to specificity. Some closing remarks on specificity in grammatical structure will sum up the discussion. I will try to present the general hypothesis that when natural languages encode specificity, they do it inside DP structure only (basically by means of determiners), and not in other positions; as a consequence, other alleged specificity markers outside DP structure are actually modality indicators or information structure markers. In these cases, the markers simply force a specific reading in certain DPs without encoding specificity themselves. Clarifying this issue should allow us to have a more precise view of the role of specificity in grammatical systems. The basic assumptions are as follows:
... 12 Shokouhi and Kipka's (2003) findings about the use of the marker -râ in Persian fit in quite well, in my opinion, with my proposal about a: -râ appears predominantly with expressions referring to given, accessible or identifiable entities (i.e. topical expressions), it signals that referent tracking is to be undertaken, and it combines with both specific and generic DPs. 13 See Torrego (1998) for Spanish a, Rapoport (1995) for Hebrew, Karimi (1990Karimi ( ), (1996 and (1999) for Persian. ...
... More precisely, I do not want to say that certain lexical items (determiners and quantifiers) cannot encode specificity; in fact we know that several languages have determiners or quantifiers that are systematically associated with specific readings. What I want to suggest, contrary to Delfitto and Corver (1998) and Karimi (1996), among others, is that functional categories external to DPs (i.e., agreement, case, focus, and so on, leaving aside tense and other deictic categories) -the categories responsible for word order phenomena and basic constructions in natural languages-do not encode specificity. ...
The use of the preposition a with direct objects in Spanish is a well known instance of the general phenomenon of Differential Object Marking (DOM). In Spanish grammars the insertion of a is usually presented as dependent on two basic factors: animacy and referentiality/specificity. The correlation between the object marker and specificity is not systematic, basically because animacy �and not specificity� is the dominant trigger for DOM in Spanish, but a number of facts still indicate that the presence of a tends to be associated with specific readings. In order to account for these facts without positing any [+specific] feature in the linguistic meaning of a, I try to show that it contributes to utterance interpretation as an internal topic marker. This seems to be the simplest way to derive «specificity effects», and to account for the crosslinguistic similarities between DOM and other grammatical phenomena (topicalization, clitic doubling, scrambling
... The association of RA with temporal or spatial delimitation has an implication for the syntax of Persian. It's been reported in the literature that AAs receive an argument role, hence they legitimately serve as pseudo-direct objects for intransitive verbs (Ghomeshi, 1997;Karimi, 1990Karimi, , 1996Karimi & Smith, 2020;Lazard, 2001). ...
In this article, we examine the semantics of RA in Persian, focusing on the aspectual notion of delimitation. Delimitation is a term commonly used in the study of aspect and information structure. We distinguish between two functions of RA: as a semantic operator that measures delimited events involving mereological theme and incremental path verbs, and as an information-structural marker where RA serves as frame-setting accusative adjuncts. We also explore the aspectuality of RA in correlation with a motion construction involving a TA-headed goal phrase within the scope of RA. The motion event with TA, representing the vector, is rendered bounded through the influence of RA, indicating the endpoint of the path. Using Croft’s (2012) two-phase dimensional model of aspect, we demonstrate that TA and RA are both associated with delimitation, but operate on different axes of boundedness – TA on the qualitative axis and RA on the temporal axis.
... The use of rā with indefinite DPs has been invoked as an argument that the Persian system is constrained by specificity (Windfuhr 1979;Karimi 1990Karimi , 1996Cagri 2007;Ghomeshi 1997). With indefinite DPs animacy interferes in object marking. ...
... A prototypical specific indefinite is generally assumed to have wide scope, a referential reading, and an existential presupposition. 11 Karimi (1996) suggests that a specific NP must be rā-marked if it occurs in the syntactic configuration, in (27) In contrast with this categoric view, other studies insist on the fact that a cluster of features or properties, and not a single binary feature (be it definiteness or specificity), is involved in DOM. Lazard (1982Lazard ( , 1994 claims that, apart from definiteness, the presence of =rā can be triggered by factors such as animacy (or humanness), the semantic "contentfullness" of the verb, the semantic "distance" between the verb and the object, the relative weight of the syntactic constituents, and finally the information structure. ...
This chapter is devoted to three specific features of Persian syntax, namely, the Ezafe construction, differential object marking with the enclitic râ, and complex predicates, which have received a great deal of attention for more than thirty years. Each of these phenomena involves language-specific challenging facts which need to be accurately described and accounted for. At the same time, each constitutes a topic of cross-linguistic investigation for which the Persian data can be of crucial interest. The chapter is divided into three sections. Each section provides an overview of empirical facts and the way various theoretical studies have tried to account for them. While it was impossible to do justice to all influential studies because of the impressive amount of work on each topic, the article is nevertheless intended to be as exhaustive as possible and to maintain the balance between different theoretical approaches.
... 6 The ezāfe (EZ) particle links the head noun to its modifiers. (Windfuhr 1979;Karimi 1990Karimi , 1996Cagri 2007;Ghomeshi 1997). Unmarked indefinite objects are interpreted as non-specific (12a) but the presence of rā forces a specific reading (12b): ...
This article investigates the implementation of animacy and referential stability in differential object marking (DOM) systems in two L2 learning contexts: L1 Persian – L2 Romanian and L1 Romanian-L2 Persian. The results of two acceptability judgment tasks indicate that adult L2 learners have access to semantic universals. The integration of animacy and of referential stability in DOM systems is not affected by L1 transfer in either of the two learning contexts. The comparison of the two semantic features in the interlanguage of intermediate L2 learners reveals an asymmetry: the role of animacy is target-like at a stage when full integration of referential stability into the system is delayed. We argue that there is a stage when L2 DOM systems are sensitive to referential stability. But the intricate relationship between types of referential stability and differential object marking are not part of the system yet. Our findings are in line with results reported in previous studies which showed that the L2 learning of DOM is delayed. But the delay is not caused by L1 transfer.
... It functions purely to license the presence of DPs. Furthermore, the semantic properties associated with accusative Case discussed in the literature (Karimi, 1996, Kiparsky, 1998, Kratzer, 2004, Megerdoomian, 2008 ) do not play a role in Chinese syntax, suggesting the absence of a distinct accusative Case.8 Before proceeding, we must give a brief explanation of Case in Iroquoian. ...
A number of researchers, notably Dayal (2011), have noted that the semantics of pseudo noun incorporation (PNI) is remarkably similar to that of noun incorporation (NI). The difference between PNI and NI lies in the morphosyntax such that NI involves a tighter morphological relation. The question arises as to what gives rise to the semantics of both PNI and NI if it is not in the morphosyntactic structure. We propose that the lack of differentiated Case gives rise to at least one semantic property of (P)NI, namely the availability of a wide range of thematic relations to semantically incorporated elements. We suggest further that this may be the defining property of semantic incorporation. We bolster this claim with evidence from Mandarin Chinese, which has Case, but crucially does not have morphologically differentiated case. We show that full DPs (with undifferentiated Case) have some of the same semantic properties as found in PNI and NI.
... Traditionally ra 11 was known as the accusative marker. A rich body of literature has explored the nature of ra (Karimi 1996, Ghomeshi 1996, Dabir Moghaddam 1992, among many others). Dabir ...
... This explains why the analysis of =rā as an accusative case-marker is common in the studies with the generative framework(Karimi 1996;Ghomeshi 1997; among others). ...
In this paper, we address the issue of compositionality of Persian complex predicates. We argue against the “radical” or “fully” compositional views prevailing in the studies within the generative framework. We further show that any a priori compositional account of Persian complex predicates is doomed to failure, since the respective contribution of the verb and the preverbal element cannot be determined a priori and irrespective of
the other member. We claim, nevertheless, that a compositional account of these combinations is possible, provided compositionality is defined a posteriori as in idiomatically combining expressions. We then present a Construction‐based account that allows to account for the productivity of Persian complex predicates in a way which does justice to their compositionality without overlooking their idiomaticity.
... (2) Ali bir kitap aldı Ali one book bought 'Ali bought some book or other.' Similar data have been discussed by Mahajan (1990) for Hindi, Butt (1995) for Urdu and Karimi (1996) for Persian. Based on such examples, de Hoop (1992) distinguishes two types of case (strong vs. weak) which correspond to the semantic interpretation obtained on the object NP. ...
... 5 The enclitic -ra marks an object noun phrase for specificity and is conversationally pronounced as ro (and mostly o after consonants). For different analyses of -ra see, e.g., Dabir-Moghaddam (1992), Ghomeshi (1997b), and Karimi (1996Karimi ( , 2003. ...
This paper investigates the intonational properties of different types of interrogatives in Persian in the framework of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonation. The structures studied are different types of yes/no questions, WH-questions, tag questions, and echo questions. The results, which are based on a total of nearly 400 read utterances recorded in laboratory conditions, show that the Persian Accentual Phrase (AP) with the pitch accent (L+)H* is present in all question types. Yes/no questions, whose accentuation follows the same constraints as declaratives, are characterized by a high Intonational Phrase boundary tone (H%), and have a greater pitch excursion and more final lengthening on the last AP than declaratives. The inclusion of particles and words such as aya, m?ge, and hič in the question adds an AP but does not change the core intonation pattern. In (multiple) WH-questions, which have a falling intonation similar to declaratives, the (final) WH-word is the nuclear pitch accent, followed by the deaccentuation of the upcoming elements. Echo questions end high and the boundary tone of their final AP can be either high or low. Contrastive focus APs are higher and longer than ordinary APs and deaccent what follows, even if it includes a WH-word.
... 5 For further illustration see e.g. Enç 1991 andKarimi 1996. (17) Turkish: ...
The purpose of this paper is to examine the languages Turkish and Persian, which encode specificity morphologically, in order to establish that definiteness entails specificity in natural languages, rather than the two distinctions being cross-cutting categories as has been suggested by some researchers. We also provide evidence from both languages, which lack definite articles but have definite interpretations of nominal phrases in certain syntactic positions, that definiteness in a universal sense does not entail familiarity. We further show that Persian has a suffix that marks familiarity morphologically. After introducing the specificity issue in §1, we review the Givenness Hierarchy of Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski 1993 in §2, and demonstrate how it predicts that all definites are specific and that definites do not need to be familiar. In §3, we introduce specificity marking in Turkish and Persian, and show that definites in object position are always marked specific. In §4, we show that Persian has a familiarity marker, and illustrate how definites do not need to be familiar in Turkish and Persian and that examples of unfamiliar definite article phrases in English are translated into Persian without the familiarity marker. In §5, we discuss two puzzles involving apparent restrictions on specificity marking in Persian and Turkish. In §6, we briefly conclude.
... overt case verb adjacency requirement object position semantic interpretation definite object yes no VP-external specific bare indefinite no yes VP-internal nonspecific quantified indefinite yes no VP-external specific no yes VP-internal nonspecific The phenomenon of two distinct object positions has been argued before in the literature. Studies on various languages (Enç 1991 and Kural 1992 on Turkish, Mahajan 1990 on Hindi, Karimi 1996 on Persian, to name a few) have pointed to the existence of two object types with distinct case morphology. The data also show that the two object types occupy different positions in the phrase structure. ...
The existence of two distinct structural positions for the direct object has been argued for in languages such as Hindi, Turkish, Persian and Scottish Gaelic. In all of these approaches, the different structural positions give rise to distinct semantic interpretations. In this paper, I show that Eastern Armenian provides clear evidence for two object positions, displaying a strong correlation between case morphology, specificity, phrasal stress pattern and adjacency to the verb. 1 Case Morphology in Eastern Armenian Eastern Armenian (EArmenian) is a verb-final Indo-European language. The direct objects can be classified into four distinct categories based on NP type and case morphology as shown in the examples below. Sentence (1) contains a definite object, which consists of a noun carrying an overt accusative morpheme. If the object lacks overt case morphology, such as the one illustrated in (2), it is interpreted as an indefinite (a book/books). The presence or absence of accusative case, however, does not correspond to the definiteness of the NP as the examples containing quantified indefinite objects in (3) clearly suggest. Quantified indefinites consist of a numeral, an optional classifier and a noun, and may appear with or without overt case morphology.
... It can also appear more than once in a single clause. For various perspectives on this marker see Dabir-Moghaddam (1992), Karimi (1996), Ghomeshi (1997b), and references therein. that formal Persian has no overt marker of definiteness, though later in the paper a colloquial marker of definiteness will be discussed. ...
This article proposes that plural marking on nouns in Persian is licensed only if those nouns are contained within D/QPs. This proposal accounts for why plural-marked nouns are construed as definite unless an overt marker of indefiniteness appears, and why plural marking does not cooccur with numerals unless the noun phrase is definite. It is also shown that the indefinite marker in Persian is quantitative rather than cardinal and is thus associated with higher functional structure within the noun phrase than in English. In English, on the other hand, number marking, the indefinite article, and the grammatical distinction between count and mass nouns, are all realized at the level of NumP. Differences in the interpretation of bare noun phrases in English and Persian are therefore explained by the claim that argument noun phrases must minimally be NumPs in English while Persian lacks this projection altogether.
... -Specific and nonspecific objects occupy different structural positions [~ Turkish (Enç 1991), Persian (Karimi 1996), Hindi (Mahajan 1990), Urdu (Butt 1995), Dutch (de Hoop 1992), etc.] ...
Special clitics appear in a position that is different from the one favored by their associated full forms (Zwicky 1977). Linguistic analyses have identified two main categories of special clitics: (a) second-position or Wackernagel clitics that must appear as the second element in a clause (as in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (henceforth, BCS), Czech, Cypriot, Pashto, and Tagalog); and (b) verb-adjacent clitics that take the verb as their host (as in Romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Catalan). The auxiliary verb in Eastern Armenian (henceforth, EA) is a clitic that carries tense and agreement features and appears on seemingly unrelated elements within the clause in focus-neutral sentences, as exemplified in (1), where italics indicate main clausal stress. The auxiliary is a special clitic by virtue of the fact that it can appear in varying positions that a full-form verb cannot occupy. However, it appears to defy classification in the major known categories of special clitics: The auxiliary remains low in the main clause in neutral contexts and does not occupy the second position in the sentence, as shown in (1c). In addition, it does not have to be adjacent to the main verb, as illustrated in (1d).
1.
a. On the verb
šun-ə vaz-um a
dog-nom run-prog be.3sg.pres
'The dog is running.'
b. On nonspecific object
ara-n girkha karth-um
Ara-nom book be.3sg.pres read-prog
'Ara is reading a book / Ara reads books.'
c. On manner adverb
es šun-ə araga vaz-um
this dog-nom fast be.3sg.pres run-prog
'This dog runs fast.'
d. On measure adverb
ara-n šat a girkh karth-um
Ara-nom very be.3sg.pres book read-prog
'Ara reads (books) a lot.'
The goal of this squib is to account for the puzzling positional distribution of the Armenian auxiliary clitic in the focus-neutral context. We propose that the auxiliary is a case of a second-position clitic in the vP domain, akin to the second-position phenomena observed across languages in the CP domain. In doing so, we draw heavily on the parallel between CP and vP in recent syntactic literature—in particular, their status as phases in the minimalist framework (e.g., Chomsky 2001).
The verbal auxiliary 'be' in EA is an enclitic that carries tense and agreement features. The auxiliary occurs in all the tenses of the indicative with the exception of the aorist, as shown in (2a–b) for the progressive, (2c–d) for the perfective, and (2e–f) for the future. (3) shows the absence of the auxiliary in the aorist.
2.
a. yes karth-um em
I read-prog be.1sg.pres
'I am reading / I read.'
b. yes karth-um ei
I read-prog be.1sg.past
'I was reading.'
c. yes karthach-el em
I read(aor)-perf be.1sg.pres
'I have read.'
d. yes karthach-el ei
I read(aor)-perf be.1sg.past
'I had read.'
e. yes karth.al-u em
I read.inf-fut be.1sg.pres
'I am going to read.'
f. yes karth.al-u ei
I read.inf-fut be.1sg.past
'I was going to read.'
3. yes karthach-i
I read(aor)-1sg
'I read.'
Tamrazian (1994) argues that the EA auxiliary is an enclitic since it does not carry stress and requires a host to precede it. This can be seen in the contrast between the behavior of the auxiliary and that of an attached agreement suffix. Word-level stress, which falls on the final syllable in EA, appears on the agreement suffix in (4a), whereas it falls on the last syllable of the word preceding the auxiliary in (4b). Moreover, the auxiliary does not undergo morphophonological alternations, whereas the agreement suffix for the 3rd singular form changes from a to i when stressed.
4.
a. yete yerkh-í
if sing-3sg.pres
'if he/she sings'
b. yerkh-úm a
sing...
... Well-known is the case of Turkish in which accusative case on direct objects marks them as specific and the same thing holds for embedded subjects with genitive case (see von Heusinger 2002, von Heusinger andKornfilt 2005, andKornfilt, to appear for detailed discussion). Other languages for which it has been argued that case marking indicates the specificity of a noun include Persian (e.g., Karimi 1996) and ...
... A similar pattern is found in Persian (Karimi 1996, Lyons 1999 (Lyons 1999:203) Similarly, in Hindi/Urdu, the accusative suffix -ko is obligatory on names, pronouns, and definite descriptions, as well as on all animates, while no Case marker 125 split-ergative language in which the Case on the subject is systematically related to its definiteness. 62 If the object is not marked with -ko, it can, under certain circumstances, trigger agreement on the verb, which could be taken as evidence that it is not Caseless. ...
... The situation is very similar in Persian (Windfuhr 1979, Lazard 1984, Bossong 1985, Karimi 1996. The following observation is from Ghomeshi (1997: 134): ...
Jaklin 2005. The case of the direct object in Turkish: Se-mantics, syntax and morphology. Turkic Languages 9, 3-44. In this paper, we investigate the interaction between semantic parameters and morpho-logical constraints in determining the distribution of the accusative case marker-(y)I in Turkish. This marker is often discussed as an instance of differentiated object marking (DOM). The account of accusative marking based on a functional interpretation of DOM assumes that the case suffix marks a direct object if it is too similar to an archetypical subject. Other approaches to accusative marking in Turkish have been based on the ob-servation that the accusative marker is closely related to the direct object's specificity as such, rather than to the similarity of the direct object to a typical subject—and there is ge-neral agreement that typical subjects are specific. These approaches predict that specific subjects are also overtly case-marked; this is confirmed by the data. Enç (1991) explains specificity in terms of partitivity and argues that the accusative case marker indicates a partitive construction (or at least an implied partitive relation), and thus marks a specific direct object. In this paper we show that the conditions for the distribution of this case marker are quite complex and cannot be explained within the functional view of DOM. In particular, we argue that the suffix indicates specificity under certain morpho-syntactic conditions, rather than indicating just a contrast to the subject. This view is vindicated by the assignment of (genitive) case to the embedded subject that is determined by very similar morpho-syntactic and semantic conditions: the embedded subject receives genitive case if it is specific and no genitive case if it is non-specific. Furthermore we show that Enç's definition of specificity in terms of partitivity must be modified for semantic as well as morphological reasons. We develop a more flexible notion of specificity in terms of referentially anchored indefinite NPs. We give additional evidence, based on the detailed analysis of the morphological conditions for partitives, which shows that partitives are not necessarily specific. In conclusion, we show that the accusative case marker can indicate the referential property of the direct object (such as specificity) in clearly defined morphological environments in a reliable fashion; in other contexts, it is not a reliable indicator of properties like specificity.
... Following a common practice in generative grammar since Abney (1987) and Szabolcsi (1987), the DP analysis has been applied to Persian. Consequently, all determiners, be they affixes or full fledged words, have been uniformly analysed as projecting heads and it has become quite uncontroversial to posit a null definite determiner, which alternates with the indefinite –i, both heading a DP (see among others Ghomeshi 1997, Karimi 1996). The same goes for personal affixes with a possessor interpretation, which have been assumed to occur in the same position that the possessor NP, generally the [Spec, DP] position. ...
... Well-known is the case of Turkish in which accusative case on direct objects marks them as specific and the same thing holds for embedded subjects with genitive case (see von Heusinger 2002, von Heusinger andKornfilt 2005, andKornfilt, to appear for detailed discussion). Other languages for which it has been argued that case marking indicates the specificity of a noun include Persian (e.g., Karimi 1996) and ...
Many authors have argued that there exists a relation between case morphology, on the one hand, and semantic interpretation, on the other. A recurrent pattern is that the presence of overt case corresponds with a strong interpretation, i.e., definite, specific, whereas the absence of case corresponds with a weak interpretation, i.e., indefinite, non-specific. In this paper we argue on the basis of differential object marking (DOM) data that such an across-the-board correlation between semantic interpretation and case morphology often cannot be maintained as the association between a certain case and a certain interpretation can be counteracted by the requirement of this case to occur due to the animacy of a noun. The fact that animacy takes priority over definiteness and/or specificity in DOM systems can be explained by the fact that animacy, but not definiteness/specificity, is an inherent feature of nouns, a feature which cannot be changed.
... As a matter of fact, they are one and the same phenomenon. The parallelism comes to fore looking at the aspect of specificity in the analysis of OM (Browne, 1970; Karimi, 1990 Karimi, , 1996 Karimi, , 2003). " This phenomenon, which Pesetsky calls D-linking (discourse linking), is exactly the phenomenon characterized here as specificity " (Enç, 1991: 7). ...
This paper presents an analysis of wh-scrambling in Persian based on gradient judgment data. The experimental approach allows a more precise and reliable analysis of syntactic phenomena, in order to highlight nuanced differences in markedness. Data on simple, complex, and multiple wh-questions as well as long NP-scrambling is presented that were collected during fieldwork in Tehran, and using a gradient acceptability judgment test. The analysis provides a view on wh-scrambling where focus properties play an important role. The nuanced yet systematic differences within the range of well-formed constructions are captured with the concept of preference constraint. Their effects cumulate (in terms of violations costs). Finally, it is shown that the notion of gradience does not blur the qualitative distinction of grammatical vs. ungrammatical. Only grammatical and marginal, though not ungrammatical constructions are sensitive to preference constraints.
... 11 The enclitic -ra marks an object NP for specificity and is conversationally pronounced ro (and mostly o after consonants). For different analyses of -ra see e.g., Dabir-Moghaddam (1992), Karimi (1996Karimi ( , 2003, and Ghomeshi (1997b). 12 Note however that the relation between information structure and pitch accents is more complicated than this. ...
The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it introduces an under-documented construction in Persian and investigates its intonational, semantic, pragmatic, syntactic, and information structure properties. A construction is seen here as a non-compositional form-meaning pairing, in line with Construction Grammar/ the Constructionist approach (e.g., Goldberg 1995, 2006). Second, it is in itself an argument in favour of the existence of intonational constructions where the tune determines the meaning (e.g., Liberman & Sag 1974; Marandin 2006). This construction, which has a specific and rather fixed intonation pattern, states the reason or cause of something, usually set in contrast to other possible reasons. The construction has its nuclear pitch accent on the first noun phrase followed by deaccentuation to the end of the utterance and it gets its reason-conveying meaning from this very intonation pattern, regardless of the words used in it.
... The enclitic -ra marks an object NP for specificity and is conversationally pronounced as ro (and mostly o after consonants). For different analyses of -ra see, e.g.,Dabir-Moghaddam (1992),Karimi (1996Karimi ( , 2003, andGhomeshi (1997b). ...
*Describes the interactional function of ‘e’-marked definite nominals in Persian interactions.
*Argues for the epistemic bases of the e-marked reference formulations.
*Argues for the relational function of the e-marked reference formulations.
This paper uses a novel argument based on nominalization to argue for a low structural position for negation in Persian. This proposal is advanced in two stages. First, the paper investigates nominalization in Persian to identify the height at which nominal structure is introduced. Using evidence from the distribution of various kinds of syntactic objects in the context of nominalization, it will be argued that nominalization occurs at the level of VoiceP (or just above it) in Persian. Next, the paper uses the findings about nominalization to provide an argument for a low position of sentential negation in the language. It will be shown that negation in Persian in included in the nominalized structure and, hence, negation has to be low. This proposal is weighed against previous accounts in the literature, which have taken negation to be high in the language.
This volume brings together selected papers from the first North American Conference in Iranian Linguistics, which was organized by the linguistics department at Stony Brook University. Papers were selected to illustrate the range of frameworks, diverse areas of research and how the boundaries of linguistic analysis of Iranian languages have expanded over the years. The contributions collected in this volume address advancing research and complex methodological explorations in a broad range of topics in Persian syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, typology and classification, as well as historical linguistics. Some of the papers also investigate less-studied and endangered Iranian languages such as Tat, Gilaki and Mazandarani, Sorani and Kurmanji Kurdish, and Zazaki. The volume will be of value to scholars in theoretical frameworks as well as those with typological and diachronic perspectives, and in particular to those working in Iranian linguistics.
The present study aims at testing two dominant hypotheses regarding the development of inflections and other functional categories, namely the Structure-Building Model, and the Continuity Hypothesis within the generative theory. According to the first view, functional categories are entirely absent in children's early grammars, which contain only projections of lexical categories, most importantly ‘nouns’ and ‘verbs’. This hypothesis holds that utterances produced by children are actually small clauses or verb phrases, and functional categories such as copula, determiners, and genitive are not acquired during the single-word or early multiword stages, but are implemented in the course of further acquisition, at around age two or later. The proponents of the second, i.e., the 'Continuity Hypothesis,' on the other hand, argue that functional categories are in fact present in children's early syntax. These two hypotheses will be tested here against empirical data in English and Persian. Thus, longitudinal data will be provided on the acquisition of a few morphemes in the two languages acquired by the participant of the present study (i.e., English and Persian) including determiners, plural marker, genitive, and copula. The significance of the present study lies in the fact that it provides data on two typologically different languages in bilingual first language acquisition and thereby making a contribution to the field.
Keywords: Bilingual first-language acquisition, morphology, Persian, English
This paper investigates the positional distribution of an auxiliary clitic in Eastern Armenian in informationally marked sentences. The paper builds on previous work on the distribution of the auxiliary in focus-neutral contexts (Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian 2011), where its placement was analyzed as second position within the lower phase domain (or vP), thereby extending the inventory of known second-position phenomena from the clause to the smaller verbal domain. To account for the distribution of the auxiliary in sentences with focused constituents, it is proposed here that the relevant phase in this context is the Focus Phrase, with the auxiliary appearing in the expected second position. This falls into place under a dynamic view of phasehood that defines the phase as the highest projection of a lexical category and takes low focus to be part of the verbal domain and its corresponding phase (Bošković 2014). These proposals rely highly on the parallelism between clausal and verbal domains both in terms of their status as phases as well as their structural makeup. To the extent that these proposals succeed in accounting for the facts we discuss, they provide further evidence for the dynamic conception of phases as well as the CP–vP parallelism.
Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/synt.12129
The present paper presents findings on the learning of the differential object marker ra in Persian as L2 by speakers of L1 Romanian. In both Persian and Romanian differential object marking is constrained by specificity, but it is only in Romanian that the animacy feature plays an important role as well. The results of a grammaticality judgment task with a group of adult L2 learners show that there is no L1 transfer of the animacy constraint and that the L2 learning process is guided by the underlying semantic feature of the specificity scale: referential stability. More generally, our results provide evidence in favour of direct access to universal semantic features in L2 learning.
This paper examines conceptualizations of temperature in contemporary Persian, from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics. Several expressions in which temperature terms are used reflect
cultural metaphors
where temperature is used as a source domain for conceptual mapping to the domain of emotion. The paper also examines particular cultural (folk) categorizations of food, fruit, and human nature pertaining to the concept of ‘temperature’ in Persian, and traces back the root of these categorizations to Iranian Traditional Medicine. Temperature terms are also used to describe and categorize things such as color and smell. Overall, the observations made in this paper support the view that conceptualizations of temperature provide an interface for the interaction between sensory and bodily experiences, human conceptual faculties, and cultural conceptualizations.
Persian complex DPs exhibit structural peculiarities with respect to the placement of the object marker for specific DPs and the position of embedded CPs. This article discusses these peculiarities as well as the internal structure of Persian complex DPs and the distribution of clitic pronouns in this language. It is argued that a base generation approach accounts more adequately for Persian and other languages that exhibit the following properties: lack of a wh-relative pronoun, presence of an invariant relative complementizer, and alternation between a gap and a pronoun representing the relativized head. Regarding the postverbal position of the embedded CP, it is argued that extraposition and VP-remnant face theoretical and empirical problems, while V-raising and XP movement, as instances of scrambling triggered by focus in this language, provide an adequate explanation for Persian data.
This article describes Differential Object Marking (DOM) in three Romance languages: Romanian, Spanish and Sardinian. Our goal is to examine the variation regarding this phenomenon in these three languages. Following Laca (1995), Dobrovie-Sorin (1997, 2002), Bleam (2004, 2005), Cornilescu & Dobrovie-Sorin (2007), we shall take a closer look to a generalization which may explain its occurrence. This generalization correlates DOM with the denotation of the noun and it is exclusively negative. More precisely, we will show that in Romance DOM is excluded with direct objects denoting properties.
In Farsi, when an NP contains adjectival modifiers, the-i suffix may appear on the head noun or on the last adjective. The facts are further complicated by the phenomenon of ezafe in which non-final elements of an NP are marked with a suffix-ye/-e, if they do not bear the-i suffix.
This article focuses on Persian linguistics with the emphasis on grammar and word formation in the twentieth century. After presenting a brief overview of the history of the study of grammar in Iran, I discuss the recent trends in linguistics from diachronic to synchronic aspects. In Persian diachronic linguistics, we will see that most works focus on the reading, and deciphering of the old texts. In synchronic studies, there are three main stages: 1) traditional linguistics, 2) structural linguistics, and 3) generative or formal linguistics. I show how each one of these stages affects Persian linguistics in the twentieth century. Finally, I conclude the article by looking at the current state of Persian linguistics and the future prospects for the field.
This paper discusses the status of the Ezafe particle -(y)e in Persian and provides an affixal analysis of the Ezafe, formalized within Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The Ezafe, a feature of certain Western Iranian languages, is realized as an enclitic and links the head noun to its modifiers and to the possessor NP. The latter follow the head and are linked to one another by the Ezafe. On the basis of crucial empirical facts that have never been discussed in previous studies, I argue that the Ezafe is best regarded as an affix attaching to nominal heads (nouns, adjectives and some prepositions), as well as to nominal intermediate projections, and marking them as expecting a modifier or a direct nominal complement. Viewed as such, the Ezafe construction is an instance of the head-marked pattern of morphological marking of grammatical relations. This analysis differs from all previous accounts of the Ezafe (i.e. as case-marker, syntactic or phonological linker) and entails that the Ezafe, which originated in the Old Iranian relative particle -hya, has undergone a process of reanalysis-grammaticalization, to end up as a part of nominal morphology.
In this paper we present an overview of light verb constructions in Zazaki. We show that light arguments, which contribute the meaning in light verb structures, can either behave as objects, or as incorporated elements. The incorporated or object status is not optional, however, but set for once and all for each light argument. In this respect, Zazaki light verbs diverge from their Japanese counterparts, where incorporation or syntactic objecthood is largely optional. In addition, we also discuss some examples that apparently pose a difficulty for our analysis.
Modern Persian conjugation makes use of five periphrastic constructions with typologically divergent properties. This makes the Persian conjugation system an ideal testing ground for theories of inflectional periphrasis, since different types of periphrasis can be compared within the frame of a single grammatical system. We present contrasting analyses of the five constructions within the general framework of a lexicalist constraint-based grammatical architecture (Pollard & Sag 1994) embedding an inferential and realizational view of inflectional morphology (Stump 2001). We argue that the perfect periphrase can only be accounted for by assuming that the periphrase literally fills a cell in the inflectional paradigm, and provide a formal account drawing on using valence for exponence. On the other hand, other periphrastic constructions are best handled by using standard tools of either morphology or syntax. The overall conclusion is that not all constructions that qualify as periphrastic inflection from the point of view of typology should receive the same type of analysis in an explicit formal grammar.
The nature of preverbal nominals and their relation to the verb have been the focus of much debate in languages with a productive complex predication process. For Persian, certain analyses have argued that the bare nominals in complex predicate constructions are distinct from bare objects, while others have treated the two types of bare nominals uniformly. This paper argues that the two categories of preverbal nouns cannot receive the same analysis since they display distinct syntactic and semantic behavior: the preverbal nominals, unlike the bare object nouns, cannot be questioned, are modified differently, have different interpretations, give rise to distinct case-assignment contexts, and can co-occur with a non-specific object. The distinct properties of the two nominal categories are captured by positing distinct structural positions for these nouns. Non-specific bare nouns are internal arguments of the thematic verb, while the nominal element of the complex predicate construction is part of the verbal domain with which it combines through a process of conflation, as defined in Hale and Keyser (2002), to form a single predicate.
Modern Hebrew differentiates between definite and indefinite objects, using a prepositional object marker only in front of definites. This article explores the hypothesis that lack of an object marker when the object is indefinite follows from lack of abstract Case on indefinite objects. It is shown that indefinites in Hebrew are allowed in various other positions in which Case seems to be unavailable and in which definites are not allowed, a fact that receives a straightforward account under the proposed hypothesis that indefinites do not require Case. The possibility of having Caseless indefinites is then argued to follow from lack of a DP projection in Hebrew indefinites. The second part of this article aims to show that an analysis of indefinites in Hebrew as lacking a DP projection is indeed possible and can be motivated on independent grounds. This involves a reexamination of the arguments that have motivated the influential N-to-D analysis of Semitic noun phrases. I claim that most previous work on Semitic nominals is in fact compatible with an analysis in which nouns do not raise as high as the D position, and that the hypothesis that indefinites in Hebrew are not full DPs has some explanatory advantages over the view that all construct state nominals in Hebrew are DPs.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. Includes bibliographical references.
Analyse des constructions du type lan egin, irri egin, min egin, ... .
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