نشریه پژوهشهای زبانشناسی (Dec 2021)
Pseudo-Complex Clauses in Persian and Their Constructing Strategies
Abstract
Abstract Morphologically, syntactically and semantically, adverbs can be defined and classified in different ways, adverbs modify propositions and semantically convey various concepts. structurally these concepts might be expressed via adverbial phrases, noun phrases, prepositional phrases, and adverbial clauses. In Persian, noun phrases or prepositional phrases, in most cases, perform this adverbial function. These phrases can have various dependants , including “clauses” starting with nominal or prepositional heads, such as “vaqt.ike” (the time that/when), “jā.ike” (the place that/where), “be mahz.e in ke” (in the instant that/as soon as), “darhāl.ike” (in the state that/whereas), "be xāter.e in ke" (for the reason that/because), “hamchenānke” (the same that/as), and “be goone.ike” (in the manner that). These phrases are usually regarded as “complex conjunctions”, “complex coordinators”, or "complex subordinators” in the grammar books and many other resources. Accordingly, relative or complement clauses inside noun phrases and prepositional phrases are considered to be adverb clauses. However, they are structurally part of noun phrases or prepositional phrases with an adverbial function. Therefore, such a construction cannot be regarded as a complex sentence. Anyway, we call them “strategies of constructing pseudo-complex clauses” for distinguishing between these cases and relativization in the subject and object. In this descriptive research, the adverbial concepts were classified into 19 groups (10 main groups and 9 subgroups). It seemed that there was also a direct relation between the overt expressions of “ke” (that) and the possibility of clause dislocation. Moreover, as the various examples showed, an “infinitive” in Persian could be a “deranked verb” though it is a noun without morphosyntactic properties of a verb. The research data were extracted from 3000 minutes of various television and radio programs of the Iranian National Media in the period of June 2021 to February 2022 with a focus on adverb clauses. Keywords: Adverbial Phrase, Noun Phrase, Prepositional Phrase, Relative Clause, Complex Clause, Deictic Complement Introduction Most of the previous researches on complex sentences recognized 3 types of subordinate constructions: 1) relative clause constructions modifying subject or object of the main clause); 2) complement clause constructions as arguments of verbs; and 3) adverbial clauses modifying the verb or the whole clause. We believed that only Type 3 could be regarded as a complex clause (hypotactic clause) and the two others were just expansions in arguments of one clause and were thus different from Type 3. There are some other constructions considered as adverbial clauses in the Iranian previous studies; for instance: vaqt.ike bārun biād, del-am mixād bā ham berim birun qadam bezanim. (When it rains, I desire to go out with you and walk.) In this example, "vaqt" is a noun phrase, which describes the "time"; "-i" indicates that the noun "vaqt" is not specified; "ke" is a relativizer that introduces the relative clause “it rains” as its dependant. However, the grammar books and most of the previous researches considered these cases as conjunctions (complex coordinators or subordinators) by separating the relative or complement clauses. Some other cases included: "vaqt.ike" (the time that/when), "jā.ike" (the place that/where), "be mahz.e in ke" (in the instant that/as soon as), "dar hāl.ike" (in the state that/whereas), "be xāter.e in ke" (with the reason that/because), “hamchenānke" (the same that/as), and "be goone.ike" (in the manner that). These are actually noun phrases or prepositional phrases with adverbial function which have a clause dependant (relative or complement). It should be taken in to consideration that in Persian, besides adverbs functioning as adverbs, noun phrases and prepositional phrases and clauses can also function as adverbs with their own dependants including clauses. . Anyhow, since theses phrases accompanied with their dependantsو semantically describe an event and because we needed to distinguish them from relativization in verb arguments (i.e., Type 1), we called them “strategies of constructing pseudo-complex clauses” or “pseudo-subordination”. Materials & Methods The research data were extracted from 3000 minutes of various television and radio programs of the Iranian National Media in the period of June 2021 to February 2022 with a focus on the mentioned constructions, in which the noun phrases and prepositional phrases had clause dependants. The translated programs, as well as non-standard and written Persian, were excluded. Some examples were among standard Persian conversations. Since in previous researches, those constructions called pseudo-complexes in this paper, were studied under the subject of conjunctions and complex sentences, in this research based on our data and in a descriptive approach, we propose a new classification for adverbials that satisfy our data We classified these concepts into 19 groups (10 main groups and 9 subgroups). In our classification, we took into consideration those precise semantic distinctions ignored in the previous studies on the one hand and paid attention to constructional differences on the other hand. For instance, we respectively arranged the temporal and spatial concepts into 5 and 4 groups, which differed from each other in their possibilities of clause dislocation and overt expressions of "ke". Therefore, our model took into account not only the semantic distinctions, but also their relations with the syntactic behaviors of the various phrases that functioned as adverbs. Discussion of Results & Conclusions In this research, we showed that some cases studied under the subject of conjunctions and complex sentences in the previous researches are actually noun phrases or prepositional phrases. They were accompanied with their clausal dependants (relative clauses or complement clauses) functioning as adverbs. We called them pseudo-complex clauses. The two strategies of constructing pseudo-complex clauses were considered as follows: Head noun in the noun phrase or prepositional phrase with an adverbial function + "ke"” as the relativizer + relative clause Prepositional phrase with an adverbial function + deixis + "ke" as a complementizer + deictic complement clause In Persian, some adverbial concepts and relations can be expressed through both complex clauses and pseudo-complex clauses. The speakers choose them for pragmatic reasons. This research showed that it was possible to express an adverbial function in the form of an event with a finite verb (a dynamic process) by using the clausal dependants of noun phrases or prepositional phrases; otherwise, it would be like a static image. clause dislocation are also possible in pseudo-complex constructions. Dislocation is not possible in all kind of these constructions because of semantic reasons, but the crucial point was that the relativizer or complementizer was expressed overtly when dislocation happened. Therefore, it was concluded that in non-emphatic utterances, there was a direct relation between the overt expressions of "ke" (that) and the possibility of clause dislocation, i.e., there was a possibility of clause dislocation whenever "ke" was tended to be expressed overtly and when there was a tendency to omit "ke", this possibility was deliminated or demolished. Moreover, as the various examples revealed, an "infinitive" in Persian could be used as a “deranked verb”.
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