Imperfectivizers in Persian: A cognitive approach

The present paper aims at investigating the static verbs and imperfectivizers in Persian from a cognitive perspective. To this purpose, verbs are classified according to the criteria of temporal bounded-ness and structural heterogeneity. As a result, imperfective predicates are considered as the verbs that are temporally unbounded, and structurally homogeneous. However, the perfective verbs are explained as heterogeneous and bounded predicates. Then, this study investigates three frequent Persian imperfectivizers, namely, progressive, habitual and tense. Also, it studies the semantic interaction of these operators with different lexical aspectual categories. The results show that these operators are applied mainly to imperfectivize and homogenize the perfective verbs. For instance, the progressive operator removes the external phases of a process, and additionally, it puts focus on the medial particles. But, the habitual operator removes both of external and internal phases of a perfective verb. In addition, when the progressive operator combines with accomplishment/activity, achievement, and semelfactive verbs, it motivates progressive, inceptive and iterative interpretations respectively.