Stress assignment in Kurdish is generally considered to be very simple and systematic. All the derivational affixes and most inflectional suffixes have affected the stress position and attract the lexical stress. Exceptional cases are some of the inflectional affixes and CLITICs that are called Prosodic Word Adjoiners (PWA). PWA and their hosts combine as host + CLITIC constituent to create CLITIC Group (CG). This paper proposes a unified analysis of CG in Kurdish as one of the constituents in Prosodic Phonology that divide the representation of speech into hierarchically arranged units. Phonological Processes analyzed to confirm CG are Stress Assignment Pattern, Vowel Deletion (VD), Consonant Insertion (CI) and Glide Weakening (GW). VD is applied in phonological word level, while CI is limited to CLITIC Group. GW is applied in both phonological word and CLITIC Group level, but it is banned in phonological phrase level.

The present research aims to investigate the effect of stress on Vafsi oblique CLITIC PAMs and accordingly determine their placement based on LFG analysis by using the prosody-syntax interface. Vafsi is one of the Iranian languages belonging to the Tati group of Iranian North-Western languages which is spoken only in four villages of Vafs, Chehreghan, Gurchan, and Fark in Markazi province. This research is library-based, but, in cases of need for more evidence, linguistic productions of the native middle and old-aged male residents of Chehreghan and Vafs are used. The theory in this research is bifurcated. First, the theory of CLITICs is introduced, and based on Zwicky & Pullum’ s (1983) criteria for discriminating CLITICs from affixes, 8 types of Vafsi CLITICs are classified. Vafsi distinguishes between direct and oblique case person-agreement markers (PAM) (Stilo. 2010). While the PAMs representing the direct case (set 1) are suffixal to the verb, the oblique PAMs (set 2) are usually enCLITIC. Based on the transformational generative grammar, the last type of Vafsi CLITICs, which is Vafsi oblique PAMs create challenges in determining CLITIChood, as they act as affixes in some placements but as enCLITICs in others. Hence, based on the transformational generative grammar, earlier studies (Stilo, 2004a. 2004b; 2010), have classified Vafsi oblique PAMs (set 2) into two categories of “ affixal form” and “ CLITIC form” . There are several criteria in determining the placement of CLITICs: syntactic factors, phonological/prosodic processes, a combination of syntactic-phonological/prosodic processes, and semantic/pragmatic factors. Therefore, the second part of the theory which is LFG will be used to determine Vafsi oblique PAMs CLITIChood condition. The direct case PAMs (set 1) are always suffixed to the verb. The verbal complex (VC) also hosts many different particles (for example negation, duration and punctual markers, and preverbs) which precede the verb itself. The CLITIC PAMs (set 2) usually appear directly preceding the VC and must never occur directly following the verb. Depending on whether the host ends in a consonant or a vowel, the CLITIC adjusts its form and either retains its vowel (refer to Stilo. 2010. pp. 53-57 for examples). The CLITIC is not limited to the preverbal position. Besides further positions in the clause, the CLITIC can also appear within the VC in VC-initial sentences. However, this position (and the CLITIC’ s ‘ form’ ) is constrained by the co-occurrence of other VC-related particles. Consider the following example of the 1Sg PAM CLITIC in combination with the punctual marker bæ ́ (b-before vowels) in a sentence with a non-initial VC ((1a)) and a sentence-initial VC ((1b)) (Stilo. 2010. p. 247). (1) a. á n=om [bæ ́-diæ ]vc b. [b-í m-diæ ]vc that=1S. OBL PUNCT-saw PUNCT-1S. OBL-saw I saw that. I saw. Another stressed particle preceding the verb, which shows the same pattern concerning the CLITIC (and cannot co-occur with the punctual marker) is the negative marker næ ́ . In contrast, if the CLITIC co-occurs with the unstressed duration marker æ r, the pattern changes ((2)) (Ibid). (2) a. an=om æ r-gó æ b. [im-æ r-gó æ ]vc that=1S. OBL DUR-want [1S. OBL-DUR-want]vc I want that. I want. Examples like (1b) and (2b) led to Stilo’ s conclusion that the CLITIC has an affixal counterpart. Note, however, that these combinations are the only ones where the CLITIC appears as an affix. In all other combinations (VC-external and VC-internal), the CLITIC retains its original form. An alternative explanation that goes without this bi-categorical analysis is the assumption that the CLITIC is sensitive to prosodic constraints in the sense that it has a ‘ stressed’ form (í m) and an ‘ unstressed’ form (om). Therefore, we can conclude that if the CLITIC is stranded in the sentence-initial position, it is placed after the first stressed element of the following VC. In (1b), this is the punctual marker bæ ́ , which is shortened to b-preceding vowel-initial material. The stress is then assigned to the CLITIC which assumes its ‘ stressed’ form í m. In (2b), stress is on the main verb, so the CLITIC should be placed following the whole verbal complex. However, as noted above, the CLITIC is banned from that position. It thus remains in its original position as the first item in an intonational phrase, again assuming its ‘ stressed’ form to compensate for the missing prosodic host on its left. It can thus be assumed that the PAM CLITICs originate in the position preceding the verbal complex which usually provides them with a prosodic host to their left in c-structure and p-structure. However, in sentences where the CLITIC is the sole element preceding the verbal complex, Vafsi seeks to repair this prosodic violation by a) prosodic inversion or b) adaption of the CLITIC to a ‘ stressed’ form, both assumed to take place in p-structure. In conclusion, it can be claimed that in this research, we showed that the oblique Vafsi PAMs do not have an affixal counterpart, since all instances and forms of the CLITICs can be justified regarding prosodic constraints. In cases where the prosodically deficient oblique enCLITIC is left without a suitable host, prosodic inversion aims to place the CLITIC accordingly. The so-called ‘ affixal form’ corresponds to the cases where the CLITIC is forced to carry stress itself and consequently assumes a ‘ full form’ . Therefore, the ‘ affixal forms’ in Stilo’ s classification are in fact CLITICs carrying stress. In the end, a complete formal analysis of the oblique pronoun CLITICs at the syntax-prosody interface in LFG is provided based on Bö gel (2015).

1. Introduction Nichols's (1986) typological parameterization of languages as head versus dependent marking opened a horizon in language typology and linguistic research. Dependentmarking languages are those which morphologically encode dependency between verb and its argument(s) by grammatical markings on the latter. In head-marking languages, on the other hand, the dependency is displayed via bound forms hosted by the verb. This parameterization is not categorical however, as some languages utilize both strategies to encode grammatical relations, which is referred to as double marking or locus. Persian exhibits head-and dependent-marking features at the clause level, situating itself then within the category of double-marking languages. In close connection with this, Persian allows the possibility of co-occurrence between a ra-marked direct object and a cross-referencing bound form, which is tentatively called CLITIC doubling. The study sought to argue that the co-occurrence of a ra-marked object and a co-referential CLITIC can be representative of two information-structurally distinct structures. One is referred to as CLITIC doubled-object construction and the other as left-dislocated object construction. Diachronically, it is assumed that the latter sets the stage for the appearance of the former, and the two constructions co-exist in modern Persian. . .

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.

Phase Theory has been proposed as the latest achievement of the minimalist program to optimize syntactic computation of language. The purpose of this paper is to study and analyze of Ardalani Kurdish data and to what extent phase theory is useful in explaning the CLITIC hosts in Ardalani Kurdish. we showed that the explanation of CLITIC agreement in Ardalani would follow the principle of phase impenetrability condition. Data collection was based on field methods, library and the use of researcher language intuition. We also showed through a descriptive – analytical method based on theoretical framework of Citko (2014), the derivation of the phase of transitive single object phrases in Ardalani. The CLITIC hosts are limited to the complement of VP core in the first phase. Therefore, the elements that are in this range can be a good host for the matching word closure. Therefore the direct object and the non-passive component of the compound verb would be the best choice for the CLITIC. The CLITIC can also choose object-dependent adjectives and adverbs as hosts, provided that these elements are limited to the first phase. In this case, the CLITIC systematically selects these elements as the host. We also, by examining of the construction of adverbs, showed that there is restriction on the selection of adverbs and they are locally restricted. Whenever they are in the complement of the first phase, CLITIC will select them, but when they are outside the first phase, they can not be selected as hosts, and if selected, the sentence will be crashed. Finally, we concluded that phase theory is capable of explaining the CLITIC hosts in Ardalani...

The present study investigates how the Persian CLITIC Left Dislocation construction (CLLD) is derived within the framework of minimalist program. In CLLD an element of a sentence is located at the beginning of the clause instead of being in its canonical position and its main position in the sentence is necessarily occupied by a resumptive CLITIC. In studying such construction in different languages, researchers always try to answer the question whether the initial position is the result of movement or it is base-generated. Chomsky (1977) and Cinque (1990) are among the linguists who believe that initial position in CLLD is base-generated. On the other hand, Lopez (2009) and Dobrovie-Sorin (1990) try to show that this position is derived by movement. Lee (2016) believes that this disagreement is because of the hybrid characteristics of CLLD. As an example, sensitivity to strong islands shows that movement takes place in this construction,but insensitivity to weak islands or not showing weak cross over (WCO) effect can challenge the movement approach to CLLD. Rizzi (1997) believes that only constructions which derived by quantificational Aʹ-movement show WCO effect,so Lee (2016) considers CLLD as the result of non-quantificational Aʹ-movement,so insensitivity to weak islands can’t challenge the movement idea of CLLD derivation. In this research we study the syntactic features of Persian CLLD to investigate whether the initial position of this structure is base-generated or it’s the result of movement. And if it is the result of movement, what kind of movement is involved.

Phase Theory has been proposed as the latest achievement of the minimalist program to optimize syntactic computation of language. Chomsky believes that the derivation of linguistic constructions follows one-phase performance to reduce the memory computing burden. At the end of each phase, part of the syntactic structure already formed undergoes the transfer to the phonological and semantic componant, with the result that the relevant part of the structure is inaccessible to further syntactic operations formed in that stage of derivation. Many linguists believe that syntactic operations of Merge and Agreement follow the phase impenetrability condition. Since pronominal CLITICs systems have often been extensively adapted to the Agreement system throughout history, studying the Agreement operation in a language requires studying the CLITIC hosts. In this paper, by examinig the Ardalani Kurdish language data and describing and theoretically analyzing the CLITIC hosts, we will show that the explanation of CLITIC agreement in Ardalani kurdish is related to the principle of phase impenetrability condition.

The present study aimed at investigating CLITIC doubling in Kalhori Kurdish. The implications of CLITIC doubling for Kurdish syntax were also investigated. In other words, it was attempted to find whether CLITIC doubling is a common feature of this language variety or it leads to some syntactic operations including (left or right) dislocation of NP arguments. Another implication of this study is to shed light on the distinction made between (inflectional) affix and CLITIC. The present study was a descriptive-analytic one in which many arguments were presented to deal with the nature of the relationship between CLITIC doubling and syntactic structure in Kalhori Kurdish. Theoretically, the present study was mainly based on the Spenser and Luis (2012). Observation, interview and field work were employed to collect the required data. The results indicated that CLITIC doubling is not a preferred process in Kalhori Kurdish. Instead, Kurdish speakers prefer to dislocate (to right or left) the relevant NP in the sentence to prevent both CLITIC and its related NP simultaneously.

The attempt in this article is to study the CLITIC pronouns in some Persian dialects of Razavi and southern Khorasan as there are many language verities in Khorasani dialects. CLITICs have been used in the Persian Language from the very far past, that is, Ancient period, up to now. Passing of time have undergone changes in the functions and frequency of these CLITICs in Persian and its dialects. Since language changes of the dialects do not necessarily adhere to intra- and inter-lingual conditions of the changes in standard language, reviewing these changes can illuminate significant records about the process of creating these changes. It’s a descriptive-analytic research. The data of this research is taken either from the theses and articles or via the speech users of these dialects. The results showed while in some Persian dialects of Khorasan (such as Raqqe &Tabasi), the function of CLITIC pronouns is more diverse and frequent than standard Persian, in some other ones (Taybadi & Khafi), these CLITICs are not used or (in some like Sadeh) are not frequent or (like Kakhki) are in a different position comparing to standard Persian. Data analysis also showed that the factors like animacy and definiteness can affect the presence or absence of some CLITIC pronouns in some of these dialects (like Raqqe, Tabasi, Kakhki and sadeh).

The present study aims at studying the pronominal CLITICs of the Khollari dialect, one of the dialects of Fars province. In the dialect, pronominal CLITICs have different types and distribution from those in the Standard variety. The study is a descriptive-analytic one, done through interviewing native speakers. The writer has tried to investigate the attested types, distribution, and hosts of the CLITICs. The results of the study show that the pronominal CLITICs in this dialect are used as subject, direct object, indirect object and object of adposition and are attached to different elements. In the course of evolution of CLITIC system in Persian, CLITICs in this dialect predominantly follow pre-verbal CLITIC System. The main use of CLITICs and the important difference of the dialect with the Standard Persian is their function as the subject marker of the past transitive verbs, always located before the verb.