Clitic Pronouns in Ghayeni Dialect

Clitics are linguistic units that have both some characteristics of words and some of the dependent morphemes. Therefore, identifying and examining them in different languages is one of the most interesting linguistic issues for linguists. Persian language is no exception to this rule. Thus, the aim of the present study is to determine and describe clitic pronouns in Ghayeni dialect based on Aikhenvald’s criteria (2003). The data have been collected by descriptive-analytical method, using different sources of Ghayeni dialect and recording free speech of 20 native dialects living in Ghayen and also the intuition of one of the authors. Clitic pronouns in this dialect include the object and subject clitics - (d)e, as well as third-person attached pronouns. The results indicate that object clitics refer only to the inanimate singular object and are added to the transitive verb in all persons and tenses when the object is not present. Subject clitics refer to the third person singular verb (mostly animate) and are added to the singular third person verb at all times when the subject is not present. In the case of agreement system, the conjunctive system prevails in this dialect only when it has a passive role in the sentence with the singular third person verb, (d)e-; In this case, it has the same marking as the intransitive verb and a different marking with the transitive verb. Here clitic personal pronouns only include third person pronouns. Clitic pronouns were validated according to Aikhenvald (2003).