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Some less typical Support Verb Constructions in Persian

Pollet SamvelianUniversité de Paris III –

Sorbonne Nouvelle

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Some general facts about PersianWriting and Morphology

• Indo-European language (spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tadjikistan)

• Writing :- Arabic characters. - « Short » vowels (/a/, /e/ and /o/) are not noted.(N.B. contrary to Arabic, these vowels cannot be reconstructed)

• Morphology :- Rather poor nominal inflection (no gender, no case) .- Quite rich verbal morphology (modal/adpectual prefixes, 2 different verbal stems, personal endings, incorporated auxiliaries).- Word formation : Composition rather than derivation.

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Some general facts about PersianSyntax

• Word order :

- SOV (verb final), though a great degree of freedoom for ordering constituents.

- The NP is head initial.

• Determination :

- No definite determiner.

- An indefinite determiner realized as an enclitic.

• No morphological case, but differential object marking (NP râ).

• A great number of verbal collocations, called ‘compound verbs’ in grammars.

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Verbal collocationsor Complex Predicates

• Possible combinations:N-V, Adj-V, Prep-V, Adv-V

• Generally analyzed as « support verb » or « light verb » constructions in recent studies:

The « predicative noun » (generally an abstract noun or a derverbal noun) provides the Argument Structure and the semantic restrictions on the arguments.

The verb is « bleached » and bears informartion about tense, aspect, ditathesis…

• Some of the most frequently used « support » verbs :kardan ‘to do’, dâdan ‘to give’, xordan ‘to ’, zadan ‘to hit’, andâxtan ‘to throw, to drop’, oftâdan ‘fall’, gereftan ‘to take’, âmadan ‘to come’, raftan ‘to go’.

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Examples of typical SVCswith zadan ‘to hit, to put’

• Zadan as a non-support verb:1) Omid aks râ be divâr zad

Omid picture DO to wall put‘Omid hanged the picture on the wall.’

2) Omid tup râ be divâr zadOmid ball DO to wall hit‘Omid threw the ball against the wall.’

• Zadan as a support verb:3) Omid faryâd zad

Omid scream hit‘Omid cried out.’

4) Omid be Maryam labxand zadOmid to Maryam smile hit‘Omid smiled to Maryam’

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Less evident caseswith zadan

• A concrete noun (not a predicative one) :mesvâk ‘tooth brush’ + zadan ‘to brush one’s teeth’šâne ‘comb’ + zadan ‘to comb one’s hairlif ‘face-cloth’ + zadan ‘to wash with a face-cloth’ jâru ‘broom’ + zadan ‘to sweep up’rang ‘painting’ + zadan ‘to paint’dast ‘hand’ + zadan ‘to touch’vâks ‘polish fot shoes’ + zadan ‘to polish’

• Arguments against SVC (or complex predicate formation) Concrete nouns (not predicative) The verb zadan conserves its valency :

Omid be mu-hâ-yaš šâne zadOmid to hair-pl-3.sg comb hit‘Omid combed his hair.’

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Less evident caseswith zadan

• Arguments for SVC (complex predicate formation)- Transitive construction formation:1) Omid divâr râ rang zad

Omid wall DO painting hit‘Omid painted the wall’

- Adverbial modifiers within the NP:2) Omid divâr râ [rang-e sari’-i] zad

Omid wall DO painting-EZ quick-indef hit‘Omid painted the wall quickly’

- Determination/quantification realized on the noun:

3) šâne-i be muhâ zad (Xâne-ye Edrisihâ, p. 41)comb-indef to hair-PL hit(Lit.) ‘(she) hit a comb to her hair’ / ‘She combed her hair’( She used a comb to comb her hair)

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Less evident caseswith zadan

• Another problem :

Omid divâr râ [rang-e surati] zad

Omid wall do painting-EZ pink hit

‘Omid painted the wall pink.’

Note that in this case the noun is modified as a concrete noun.

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Questions

• Which representation (annotation) for theses sequences ?

• Predicate or argument ?

• Two different representations depending whether a ‘concrete’ or an ‘abstract’ reading?