نشریه پژوهش های زبان شناسی
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 2، بهار و تابستان 1389)

The present paper compares and contrasts two split CP hypotheses with regard to topicalization in Persian. While the two hypotheses posit a focus phrase (FocP) and a topic phrase (TopP) as two functional projections that serve as the landing sites for scrambled constituents, there are two major differences between the two proposals. First, though Karimi (2002) takes the Spec of TopP as the landing site for what she calls shifted topics, she takes Spect of TP as an A ́-position in which background topics may land. However, this position is the familiar subject position for Haegeman and Gueron (1999). Second, while there are two topic projections between TP and CP in Haegeman and Gueron’s proposal; one above FocP and a recursive one between TP and FocP, there is only one TopP in Karimi’s (2005) proposal. We provide evidence from scrambled non-specific constituents in constructions involving a focussed phrase and the agreement relation between the scrambled constituent and the verb to support Haegeman and Gueron's view of the split CP hypothesis.

This paper explores passivization in Persian, the most important intraclausal process in simple sentences. Based on Role and Reference Grammar formulation for passivization, it is demonstrated that Persian has two distinct types of passive constructions.The first type involves both Privileged Syntactic Argument Modulation and Argument Modulation called basic passive in this analysis. The second type which involves just argument modulation is labeled as impersonal passive. This construction occurs as a subjectless sentence with a 3rd person plural agreement marker on the verb. However, this paper argues the assumption proposed by some scholars that there is a detransitivized passive type in Persian. Providing significant pieces of evidence, it shows that the detransitivized counterparts of transitive sentences cannot be regarded as passive, as this process is a lexical phenomenon in nature and a verb class alternation.

Vowel reduction that occurs in spontaneous speech is a process in which unstable vowels undergo qualitative changes in unstressed syllables. This process may be either due to the effect of the addition of one or more affixes to the stem that attracts the stress, or the result of the tendencies of vowels towards each other without being affected by affixation. We call the first process, phonemic vowel reduction and the second one, phonetic vowel reduction. Sonority-driven approach of Crosswhite (2000) and, centripetal and centrifugal approaches of Harris (2005) serve as the theoretical frameworks for our analysis of vowel reduction in the colloquial Persian. Acoustic analysis of our data lead us to conclude that Persian vowel reduction obeys a hybrid approach because the unstable vowels /a,e,o/ change not only into one another but also into the stable vowels /ɑ, u, i /.

This article addresses the phonetic interpretations of glottal consonants across various phonological positions through an experimental approach. The first section of the article reviews theories suggested concerning the phonemic status of the glottal stop in Persian over the past few decates. The second section provides experiments conducted by the author to evaluate the accuracy of existing theories and suggestions in relation with the phonological behaviour of glottal consonants in different phonetic contexts.

In traditional phonology, the feature of [voiced] is one of the main descriptive aspects of sounds in classifying the underlying opposition, and the feature of [aspirated] is not contrastive because it is predictable. On the basis of Laryngeal Phonology, [voiced] is not contrastive for all classes of phonemes in all languages of the world. Contrast lies in the stability of the phonetic cues for marked segments as opposed to the unmarked ones. Because of the instability of voicing in initial position of (stressed) syllables in the obstruents of some languages, it cannot be considered as a contrastive feature. Under this view, aspiration is contrastive because it is stable in those positions of the syllables. This paper aims at describing Persian phonemes in the framework of Laryngeal Phonology, proposed by Idsardi and Avery (2001). The results show that the laryngeal contrast in Persian obstruents, like English, is of the Ø -GW type, i.e., one which marks obstruent consonants with the laryngeal dimension of [glottal width], completed with [spread] gesture. On the basis of the evidence provided, it is claimed that Persian is an aspiration language and voicing is contextually determined rather than contrastive. On the contrary, voicing is contrastive for sonorant consonants and underlyingly determined which finally completed with [glottal tension] dimension.

The study of personal names is a rich area for philosophical, anthropological, sociological as well as linguistic studies. In this respect while sociologists and philosophers deal with social and philosophical aspects of naming, linguists are concerned with semantic, phonological and morphological structures of names. The study of the frequency of syllable structures of boys’ and girls’ names, particularly in comparison with other words, can clarify the importance of onamastics in linguistic studies. The study investigates the frequency of syllable structures and patterns of personal names in Iran. To do so, out of a sample of 11567 names admitted in entrance university exam, 740 names in two groups each of which 350 have been investigated. The study indicates that the syllable structures of Persian, CV, CVC, CVCC, have been distributed unequally in personal names. It has been shown that girl names are usually ended in CV rather than the other two syllable structures, while boy names usually end in CVC. The study also shows that the syllable patterns used in personal names are significantly different in boys’ and girls’ names.

New Persian encompasses a long period of time which starts with the Arab invasion of Iran and introduction of Islam to this country. This period stretches to the present time. During this period many aspects of this language have been subject to change. The emphasis of this article is on the inflectional system of verbs. Here based on the evidence provided from prose texts, it is argued that some verbal affixes have either disappeared from the inventory of inflectional affixes, or their use have been constrained; at the same time no new inflectional affix has been added to verbs. On the other hand, one can witness the development of a new auxiliary through the process of grammaticalization. At least as far as verb morphology is concerned, all these support the idea that Persian Language has had the tendency of becoming more and more analytic.