Comparing Syntactic Structure and Linear Order of Persian Verbal Inflectional Categories within the Framework of Distributed Morphology

Abstract

The present descriptive-analytic article is aimed to study and compare the syntactic structure and linear order of Persian verbal inflectional categories within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle & Marantz, 1993). First we suppose the syntactic hierarchical position of functional categories and clause syntactic structure of Persian to be what Taleghani (2008) proposes. Then based on the post syntactic operations such as, “lowering” and “local dislocation” and what Embick (2015) proposes for linearization of constituents within the framework of DM, syntactic and linear position of verbal compounds in present, past and future tenses are compared. Finally, any mismatches between the two structures are explained through the two post syntactic operations. Research findings showed that “negation morpheme”, compared to other morphemes, mismatches much more in the syntactic and linear structures and requires more explanations in post syntactic component. It is concluded that this morpheme at post-syntactic component, lowers and prefixes mostly to vp and in some cases to aspect and auxiliary morphemes.

Keywords

• distributed morphology
• post syntactic movement
• syntactic position
• functional category