The Study of Efficiency of the Minimalism and Optimality Approaches in Explaining Subject-Verb Agreements in Persian Language

The present research deals with the investigation of subject-intransitive verb agreement in Persian. The corpus of this research is consisted of spoken and written utterances. The data are analyzed based on Minimality and Optimality approaches which are both generative in nature، though they have fundamental differences. In this survey، the exception cases of agreement in traditional grammar are analyzed according to Chomsky''s recent Minimalist approach which is syntactic based and Optimal theory which is constraint based. In Minimality، subject-verb agreement involves a relationship between a probe and a local goal in order to determine the unvalued features. But in Optimality، the interaction of constraints determines the optimal candidate of agreement. The findings demonstrate that all the exception cases of agreement are explained based on Minimal approach; In honorific or polite use، the presence of the feature [+HON] causes plural agreement on verb; In subject-less verbs، the probe agrees with null PRO. Moreover، in optimality، the optimal candidate is determined based on extended animacy hierarchy. The results showed that minimal approach is much more efficient than optimality theory in explaining agreement.