Nameh Farhangestan
Year:2008 | Volume:3 | Issue:3 (GRAMMAR)|Papers Count:14

Noun Incorporation (NI), a productive word formation process in Persian, creates. complex verbs. The rule applies to the verb and one of its arguments, altering the valiancy of the verb. This paper discusses specifications, formation, types, category, and development of the NI verbs. Furthermore, some tests will be rendered to distinguish the NI verbs from other similar constructions. Complex verbs including NI and compound verbs can be arranged in a continuum indicating the prototypes at the two extremes.

The present paper, based on grammaticalization theory, deals with how the name of body parts in Persian have evolved into prepositions. The simplest definition of grammaticalization is the process in which a lexical item becomes a grammatical one or a grammatical item becomes more grammatical. This study shows how the name of body parts (lexical items: face, head, back, flank, waist, arm) have turned into prepositions (grammatical items).

This article describes Inflection in Persian. It is claimed that inflection in Persian has not received enough attention, maybe because typologically, modern Persian is not an inflectional language. In this article, after introducing the topic, and presenting some of the important analyses of western linguists, and some of the studies conducted by Persian researchers, Persian int1ectional features are introduced and classified, using a continuum model. The article emphasizes that analyzing and explaining Persian data with the total reliance on the models and theories of western linguists may lead to unsatisfactory results.

Modality is a syntactic-semantic category indicating the speaker's point of view towards what she/ he says. A language can mark the content of a sentence in accordance with the degree of the speaker's commitment to the truth of it or the kind of request he has for the action to be accomplished.Modal verbs, used in some languages including Persian, are one way of indicating modality. The Persian modal verbs are: bayestan, sodan and tavanestan, which are used to indicate the three main modalities, epistemic, deontic and dynamic, along with the two degrees of modality, obligation and possibility. The research shows that in Persian the only verb which is used. To indicate obligation in all the three types of modality is Bayesian. Possibility in all the three types is indicated by tavanestan and sodan.

In this article, the behavior of pronominal clinics in Middle and Modern Persian as well as the historical change in their placement in the clause/ sentence is studied. In Middle Persian, the clitics obey the second-position system, and they always appear as the second constituent of the clause/ sentence. In Classical Modern Persian this system is reserved, although there are some changes in the system, including disappearance of the phenomenon of discontinuous constituency and also skipping over some constituents when determining the second-position. But, in this language, we can observe the development of a verbal system for clinics too. In fact, clinics move from the second position towards the verb, and they are attracted to the verb or attached to a constituent adjacent to it. In Contemporary Modern Persian, the second-position system has disappeared completely, and all the clinics obey the verbal system.

The position of head in compound words has received considerable attention by many linguists in the past few decades. Williams (1981), for example, believes that in all compounds the head is the right-hand element and so considers it as a principle, Studies by other linguists (SElkiRk (1982), liEbER(1983), FAAb (1988) and TENHAckEN(1999» showed that there are languages in which the head is the left-hand member (e.g. French and Vietnamese). Accordingly, they regard the direction of the head as a parameter which should be set for every language. Lieber (1992), however, argues that the direction of the head could be neither a principle nor a parameter, since languages have been found which contain both right-headed and left-headed compounds. The present article tries to show that Morphology is affected by Syntax with respect to head position. It is argued that the non-uniformity observed in Persian Morphology (the existence of both head-initial and head-final non-verbal compounds) follows from the non-uniformity in Persian syntactic phrases (in some phrases the head precedes the dependent, in others it follows it).

As high school textbooks are studied by the students all over the country and since they have an effective role in education, it is essential to have the ideal ones. Persian high school textbooks are one of the series of these textbooks. These books deal with linguistic, grammatical, writing and other issues. This article intends to specify the problems and deficiencies in these books. Some of them are as follows:- There is not enough coordination between the introduction part and the main text body;- The explanations and examples are not sufficient;- There is lack of coordination among the Persian books at high school level;- The definitions of some basic issues are problematic;- A lot of shortcomings can be seen in the exercises.

In this paper, we show that Persian Grammar books and dictionaries do not agree on the lexical category of a considerable number of Persian lexical words such as ?anJam 'performing', hefz 'memorization', faramush 'forgetting' and vadar 'force'. These inconsistencies which cause both practical and theoretical negative consequences follow from the lack of understanding the real nature and main role of these words in modern Persian. Illustrating that these words have argument structure and predicative roles, we suggest that the words, based on their real usage and their predicative role, should be classified into two groups under the title of 'predicative nouns' and 'predicative adjectives'.

The problem of Persian orthography has long been a much-debated subject and various proposals have been put forth for its modification or change. Today by the increase in the number of educated people and the expansion of the writing realm as well as technological advances and the advent of computer and internet, the urgent need for establishing and presenting precise general rules for Persian orthography is felt more than ever.In order to present a picture of the activities carried out on the modification or change of the Persian orthography, especially the measures taken by the Academy of the Persian Language and Literature as the sole official executive organization, first a short history of Persian orthography (modification and change) will be presented. Then the achievements of the three Iranian Academies will be introduced and eventually the viewpoints of some experts on a few Persian grammatical morphemes will be presented supplemented with the author's suggestions.