نشریه پژوهشهای زبانشناسی (Dec 2021)
Past Participle in Persian: Containing Tense or Aspect?
Abstract
AbstractIn addition to grammatical and intrinsic aspects, aspectual readings may also arise from other factors like tense. Past Participles (PP) consist of the root of the verb and the suffix “-de/-te”. The suffix represents the anterior tense, which is the common semantic-grammatical core function found in all paradigms containing PP. Historical studies, on the other hand, show that PPs are originally made up of transitive verbs and their function has been to remove the subject from the argument structure of the verb and serve as the foreground of the object instead. They are well-known as “sefat maf’uli” (lit. accusative adjectives) and this arises from the fact that they participate in passive constructions and merely refer to the object of the underlying transitive verbs in some of their functions. The omission of the subject has made the transitive verbs similar to un-accusative ones in terms of their argument structure. For this reason, in addition to transitive verbs, PPs are derived from un-accusative verbs and analogically from the un-ergative ones. Removing the subject has another consequence too: The interaction of the anterior tense and subject omission has subsequently created an aspectual interpretation called “established stative”. There are two reasons why we consider this aspectual concept to be the fruit of the aforementioned features: First, when the underlying verb represents an event, creating an established stative interpretation requires the event to have taken place and secondly, in the absence of the subject, the actionality of the event decreases and subsequently makes the underlying verb (of any kind) stative because there is no actor left to do an action. In this way, the impossibility of deriving PPs from the verbs with the intrinsic aspects of “permanent inherent state” and “point state” can also be explained.Keywords: Participle, Past Participle (PP), Aspect, Tense, Anterior Tense, Established Stative Aspect Introduction Although no independent research has been done on the aspectual and temporal implications of the PPs, some evidence can be used to find out the ideas in this regard. For example, it can be inferred that some consider PPs to bear past tense and in the same vein, such chains as “rafte?ast/bašad” (“has gone”) are considered as the past tense despite the fact that the auxiliaries are inflected in the present tense. However, by considering the tense of the auxiliary verb on the one hand and the morpheme“-te,/de” as the marker of perfect aspect on the other hand, others call these paradigms perfect and subjunctive perfect, respectively. Although neither of these two perspectives is preferred in the overview, it at least reinforces the need to consider the simultaneous role of both the PP and the semantic/grammatical content of the auxiliary verb. It is the case that the contribution of the intrinsic aspect of underlying verbs to PPs has not been considered, too. The authors believe that it is possible to achieve a more comprehensive view by paying attention to the common role of PPs in all their functions and the intrinsic aspect of the underlying verbs PPs are derived from. With these prefaces, the present article addressed the following questions:1- What are the temporal or aspectual functions of the PPs in Persian regardless of the intrinsic aspect of their underlying verbs?2- What are the effects of the intrinsic aspect of the underlying verb on the temporal and aspectual outcomes of PPs?3- How do we infer that objective/accusative reading from the PPs consists of transitive underlying verbs? Materials and MethodsTo answer the aforementioned questions, we discussed various topics from the historical background of the PPs in Persian to their status in terms of tense, aspect, and intrinsic aspect of the underlying verb and their interaction. In accordance with each discussion, we also referred to previous studies and views in these regards. Discussion of Results and ConclusionsAccording to Wegner (2019), the PP is obtained through the process of derivation from the verb with the function of deverbal adjective; however, through grammaticalization, it has been inserted into various verbal paradigms as a predicate, albeit by preserving its derivational features. It should be noted that in many Indo-European languages, including Persian, both functions are still active. Certainly, some of the characteristics of adjectival ancestors are still preserved in their predicate functions, but the effects arising from grammaticalization have made some believe that PPs represent the past tense, while others recognize them as the constructions bearing a perfect or perfective aspect. The complexity of the argument is doubled when we know that some consider the “perfect/perfective” aspect as a temporal one, not an aspectual concept (cf. Taleghani, 2008; Eslami, 2019).Considering the dual division of grammatical aspect into perfective and imperfective aspects with continuous and habitual subsets, it is obvious that perfect structures may sometimes be inperfective and sometimes perfective depending on the case. In other words, these constructions can be either accompanied by the prefix “mi-“ as an imperfective marker (i.e., “have been PP”) or represented without “mi-“ (i.e., “have PP”). Thus, what makes this construction distinct from imperfect paradigms, such as the simple past, is not a grammatical aspect.Examining the intrinsic aspect of the underlying predicates of PPs in Persian also confirmed that PPs are made for all other predicates, except for “permanent inherent states” and “point states”. It is thus logical to take for granted that different verbs, including any intrinsic aspects, during derivation to PPs accept a single secondary derivational aspect that allows them to bear the same functions. Of course, this does not mean removing the effect of the intrinsic aspect of the underlying verbs; otherwise, there would be no restrictions on the two above-mentioned subsets. This secondary derivational aspect is derived from the morpheme “-te/-de”, the main function of which is to represent the anterior tense. Its secondary and subsidiary responsibility is to represent a kind of aspect, namely “established stative”. Anterior tense indicates the precedence of the R(eference) point over the E(vent) point. It can in turn bring about the basis for creating the established stative aspect. Definitely, the established stative aspect returns the intrinsic aspect of the underlying verb (of any kinds) to the stative one and since the underlying predicate represents an event, its establishment is a vital necessity to obtain the stative reading from PP as the consequence of the occurrence of the event. In other words, the occurrence of the event precedes its following state as the result. Thus, the omissions of the subject from the argument structure and the anterior tense together give rise to the secondary aspect, i.e., established stative.This concept explains all the aspectual implications of the paradigms known as “present perfect” like experiential reading, resultative interpretation, recency (recent past), and so on. In addition, it justifies the constraint on deriving PPs from the predicates of “permanent inherent states” and “point states”. Established stative means the stateness arisen from the occurrence of an event and it is certainly in conflict with an eternal and pre-existing state. Point states also fade as soon as they occur and it is impossible to speak of the continuation of the situation resulting from them.Examining the effect of the intrinsic aspect of the underlying verbs on the derivational secondary aspect of PPs as established stative and their interaction also allowed us to explain the concept of “perfectness”, which had been mistakenly considered a kind of grammatical aspect by some others. In fact, the perfectness of the event is only arisen as the semantic implication of the PPs when, due to the intrinsic aspect of the underlying verb, the state resulting from the occurrence of the event is simple, explicit, and obvious.
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