Prepositional Phrases in Persian:A Functional Analysis

Prepositional phrases have a significant place in different syntactic theories. In Role and Reference Grammar these constituents are categorized into three classes namely Adjuncts, Argument markers and Argument-adjuncts. Adjuncts PPs offer semantic information for the sentence in which they occur. They are adverbial elements modifying the event or situation described by the predicate. Argument marking PPs mark an argument of the predicate. In this class the preposition itself does not contribute semantic information. Argument- adjunct PPs contain predicative adpositions that add to the meaning of the sentence. Also, they introduce one of the participants in the event. This paper examines different PPs in Persian based on the classification of RRG. It will be demonstrated that PPs in Persian do not always function as adjuncts, but they play as markers of arguments in ditransitive clauses or even as direct objects with some predicates. To conclude we will show that RRG accounts for prepositional phrases in Persian.