Basic Features of Complex Predicates in Behdinani of Yazd

Abstract

AbstractReferring to novel concepts for which there are no simple equivalents, speakers of languages often resort to predicates with two or more components. This phenomenon is so widely used in some languages that in Persian, for instance, new simple predicates are hardly added to the lexicon and the commonly used simple predicates in spoken and writing Persian do not appear to exceed a few hundred. This study concentrates on different types of complex predicates in the Dari language spoken by the Zoroastrians (Behdinan) of Yazd (in central Iran) and different features of each type. It takes advantage of a number of published works on Behdinani language, as well as instances directly collected from native speakers of that language. This study particularly focuses on the influence of syntactic-semantic factors on the inflection of complex predicates; such factors include tense, main or modal status of the predicate, and transitivity of the predicate as a whole as well as its verbal component alone. The findings of this study further underline the need for an unfettered, interactional perspective to the study of language which can shed light and facilitate investigation into the interaction between factors and elements from different modules of grammar.Keywords: Complex Predicates, Noun Incorporation, Behdinani, Zoroastrians of Yazd, Interactional Approach IntroductionThe language of Zoroastrians (Behdinan variety) in Yazd has been categorized as one of the critically endangered Iranian languages by the United Nations. This makes it all more significant to record and shed light on the various aspects of this language. The present study focused on complex predicates in Behdinani language and investigated how noun incorporation was employed in utterance of an unlimited set of concepts. Furthermore, it examined the roles that semantic-syntactic factors played in determining the inflection of such predicates in Behdinani language. Tense and transitivity, as well as the thematic relations, were proven to have a definitive role in shaping the inflection of complex predicates in the language of Zoroastrians in Yazd. Materials and Methods This study drew upon Dabir-Moghaddam’s previous work (1997), which illustrated the productivity of noun incorporation as the major process in the formation of complex predicates in another Iranian language, namely Modern Persian. It also borrowed from Dabir-Moghaddam’s work (2013a), which had recorded samples of constituent order, agreement, case system, and ergativity, as well as their local variants from a typological perspective, among other things in different Iranian languages and studies.Mazdāpūr’s bilingual dictionary in three volumes (1995, 2006, and 2018) accounted for the bulk of the material used in this study, which also took advantage of data directly collected from a number of Yazdi speakers of Behdinani language, as well as other written sources, such as those of Ivanow (1932, 1935, 1938, and 1939), Kešāvarz (1993), Firuzbakhsh (1997), Surush Surushiān (1978), and Vahman and Asatrian (2002). Discussion of Results and ConclusionThe present study explored how noun incorporation next to combination fueled the highly productive phenomenon of producing complex predicates in Behdinani language.While differentiating between two types of subject-verb agreement systems, i.e., through suffixes and pronominal clitics, it highlighted how the former was employed in sentences with complex predicates, including the past tense stem (preterite) of an intransitive light verb, regardless of the transitivity of the verb phrase as a whole. In cases where the whole phrase was intransitive while there was a transitive light verb, proclitics assumed the role of marking agreement by directly attaching to the light verb as their syntactic host. However, if the whole complex predicate signified a transitive meaning, the proclitic tended to precede the non-verb component of the predicate as its host. Moreover, the transitive complex predicate displayed another distinctive feature in making use of the variant of the proclitics, which was the result of the merging the reduced clitic with the aspect marker vowel /e/ in the simple past tense. Another interesting feature of complex predicates in Behdinani was that transitive light verbs might display an agreement with the subject via suffixes as in intransitive verbs provided that the syntactic subject assumed the semantic role of the “experiencer”. This, however, was not without exceptions, but certain examples clearly made out the role of “agency” in whether clitics or suffixes had to be used for the purpose of marking the subject-verb agreement.Behdinani also featured the use of the modal verb “šustvun”, along with the light verb “kart(v)un”, to highlight the inability of the agent in performing an action, while the use of the modal verb alone might be interpreted as indicating inappropriateness of an action and signify a sense of prohibition.The findings of this study served as a further proof that the features of different modules of grammar, as the generative grammarians put it, were so tightly intertwined that separating these areas would only complicate and impede the study of language, especially languages like Persian and Behdinani, which did not easily yield to formalist theories. What this study suggests is an interface approach as a more efficient substitute, which opens the gate for consideration of semantic and pragmatic factors, as well as the information structure in tandem with the study of phonology, morphology, and syntax.

Keywords

• complex predicates
• noun incorporation
• behdinani
• zoroastrians of yazd
• interactional approach