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Recursive structures, structures whose representation is produced by the repeated application of a syntactic rule, have been observed and investigated extensively in languages. By means of an experiment, the present study investigates the acquisition of recursive locatives in Persian-speaking children and provides new evidence on the subject of children's learning path, which lends its support to theoretical insights about the representation of this structure in the mind. Different languages do not uniformly deem recursive structures well-formed. Furthermore, in languages that consider the same recursive structure well-formed, it is possible for the acquisition age of this same structure to be different in children speaking different languages. Experiments report differences in the age that English and Japanese speakers acquire recursive locatives. In these studies, early acquisition of locative structures that employ identical prepositions is observed, as well as early acquisition in the language that marks the recursive structure by an overt functional element, namely, Japanese. Explaining these observations, Nakato and Roeper (2021) propose a three-step path in the acquisition of recursion: 1. Search for overt morphological elements 2. Search for overt lexical elements 3. The ability to interpret recursive structures without the presence of identical overt elements. In the recursive structure of the locatives of Persian, similar to Japanese and contrary to English, we witness an overt functional element: Ezafe. The presence of Ezafe in this structure qualifies as the first stage of the proposed acquisition path, and therefore it is predicted that the acquisition of recursive locatives in Persian will occur early. This article takes advantage of the presence of the overt element in Persian recursive locatives and by designing and implementing an experiment in accordance with the previous experiments, investigates the acquisition of locative recursion among Persian-speaking children and by means of the collected data examines the proposed acquisition path above.

Based on clinical observations, it has been determined that damage to the right hemisphere may cause some communication disorders. These non-aphasic communication disorders lead to impairments in the pragmatic, prosodic, lexical-semantic and discourse aspects of language that affect social participation. In right hemisphere damaged patients (RHD), discourse may be affected at both the perceptual and expressive levels. Right hemisphere damage can affect language-related skills. The present study aimed to investigate discourse disorder in adults with right hemisphere brain damage through the processing of relative clauses. The research is descriptive-analytical and quantitative. The statistical population included 10 healthy adults and 10 Persian-speaking adults with right hemisphere damage, who were selected in a convenience sampling way. The research tests included screening tests and tests for measuring the processing speed of relative constructions, which were done through DMDX software. Data analysis was done by the statistical methods such as variance analysis, independent t-test of two independent groups, and paired sample t-test. In subject relative constructions, the difference in processing speed of categories, relative clauses and relative sentences between the two experimental and control groups was not significant (P>0.05); However, in the object relative constructions, this difference in processing speed between the two experimental and control groups was significant (P<0.05). In subject and object constructions preceded by an initial context, the difference in processing speed of categories, clauses and sentences between the two experimental and control groups was significant (P<0.05). In the experimental group, the difference in processing speed of subject and object relative clauses and sentences with and without an initial context was significant (P<0.05). The research findings provide evidence for the negative effect of right hemisphere brain damage on discourse skills. Likewise, people with right hemisphere brain damage have more difficulty in processing complex language constructions referential items such as relative constructions compared to healthy peers.

Learning and teaching must have an effective relation, but of course, there is a gap between these two fields of study. That’s because of two points of view: study of learning and acquisition on the one hand and teaching and curriculum design on the other hand. However, in recent years, much attention has been paid to the nature of second language learning, because understanding the nature of the second language learning will help us to adapt our syllabus and curriculum design in accordance with the learning system and make logical connections between learning and teachings. To this end, this study scrutinized the sequence of acquisition of two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive. So, 493 texts from a corpus of Persian learners’ written texts were analyzed. Then, the relative clauses were tagged and according to the level of language learners, they were divided into six categories. After the restrictive and non-restrictive clauses were distinguished, the acquisition of these clauses was examined. The results showed that Persian Learners, regardless of gender, nationality, method of previous teaching and age, learned restrictive relative clauses sooner than non-restrictive ones. Even after learning, they tended to use restrictive clauses more often. The implication of this study is that it is better to teach restrictive clauses sooner to accord with the learners’ sequences of learning. Extended abstract</strong> Learning and education must have an effective relation. Of course, there is a gap between these two fields of study. That’s because of two points of view: study of learning and acquisition on one hand, and teaching and curriculum design, on the other hand. However, in recent years, much attention has been paid to the nature of second language learning/acquisition because understanding the nature of the second language learning will help us to adapt our syllabus and curriculum design in accordance with the learning system. Previous studies (e.g. Fries, 1945; Lado, 1957; James, 1998) during the past decades have shown the importance of first language in acquisition of second language, but the recent studies (e.g. Selinker, 1972; Nemser, 1971; Corder, 1971) indicated that although the role of the first language in learning/acquisition of second/foreign language cannot be ignored, language learners with different first languages, follow the Universal Grammar (UG) and learners’ inter-languages are somehow similar. So, second language learners follow a sequence and order in their acquisition. Thus, in this study, sequence and order of acquisition of two types of relative clauses were scrutinized. Relative clauses can be divided into two types: restrictive and non-restrictive. A restrictive clause is a “clause which functions as an adjective to identify the word it modifies. It is essential for the intended meaning and it is not offset with commas”. On the other hand, “A nonrestrictive modifying clause (or non-essential clause) is an adjective clause that adds extra or nonessential information to a sentence. The meaning of the sentence would not change if the clauses were to be omitted and also they are usually set off by commas”. Knowing that which kind of relative clauses were learned sooner and more accurately by the students could help us to understand how and when Persian language (here relative clauses) is learned. So we can utilize these findings in our teaching, and designing our syllabi and curriculum. The question of this study is “What is the acquisition sequence of Persian relative clauses?’. We supposed that, non-Iranian Persian language learners, learn restrictive relative clauses sooner than non-restrictive clauses and they use this type of relative clause more often than non-restrictive one. The reason behind this hypothesis is that this kind of relative clauses are syntactically easier because there is no movement or extra structure on their derivation. In order to test this hypothesis, 493 Persian learner’s written texts were analyzed. The learners were from various countries such as Austria, Argentina, Spain, Australia, Afghanistan, Slovakia, Slovenia, Algeria, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Italy, Azerbaijan, Argentina, Germany, USA, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Pakistan, Portugal, Tajikistan, Taiwan, Turkey, Tunisia, Czech, China, Russia, Romania, Syria, Switzerland, Serbia, Iraq, France, Kyrgyzstan, Croatia, Colombia, Georgia, Lebanon, Poland, Hungary, Egypt and India. Therefore, the first language of learners is not influential factor in this study. The data were collected from two exams (placement test and progress test which is conducted by Sa’di Foundation in 2015 & 2016) and the learners had to use at least 120 words in their writings. After that, the data were gathered and tagged as a restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses. According to the level of language learners, they were divided into six groups; beginner, elementary, low intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate, advanced, and proficient. The results showed that regardless of gender, nationality, method of previous teaching and age, in general, the higher level students use restrictive relative clauses in their language more accurately. And the emergence of non-restrictive relative clause occurs later and less than the other type even in advanced and proficient levels. Thus, we can conclude that the Persian language learners will learn restrictive relative clauses sooner than non-restrictive ones. The interesting point of this study is that even after learning non-restrictive relative clauses, the Persian language learners tend to use restrictive clauses more often. Perhaps this happens because of the economy principle (the least effort) of language which was introduced for the first time by Zipf (1949). The aim of this principle is the maximum effect with the least input. So, as non-restrictive relative clauses have extra information, language learners prefer not to use it as long as they can. On the other hand, they tend to use restrictive relative clause because of the meaning that it determines. Since one of the most important issues in second/foreign language learning/acquisition is native-like competence, we can conclude that it is better to teach restrictive clauses before non-restrictive relative clauses to incorporate education and sequences of learning/acquisition for effective teaching and learning.

After studying 50 languages, Keenan and Comrie (1977) introduced the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Theory. This theory claims that in order to form relative clauses, languages follow a universal hierarchy. Based on this, language learning researchers introduced a hypothesis using which the learning difficulty of the relative clause in the second language can be predicted. This article attempts to determine the learning order of relative clauses in Persian as a second/foreign language through a study of the interlanguage of non-Iranian Persian learners. To this end, after examining 493 written texts from the non-Iranian Persian learner's corpus of Sadi Foundation, sentences with relative clauses were labeled. Then, the relative clauses were sorted into 6 levels of basic, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced, and upper-advanced, based on the student's levels, and all samples were classified based on the relative clause heads. An analysis of the data collected from the 361 relative clauses demonstrated that the learning of the Subject and Object relative clauses exactly follows Keenan and Comrie's Accessibility Hierarchy, while other relative clauses indicate evidence of non-compliance with this hierarchy.

This paper sets to explore the extraposition of relative clauses in Persian based on Discourse Grammar (DG). In this phenomenon, the relative clause moves from the adjacency of Head Noun and is positioned at the end of the sentence leading to discontinuous construction. DG organizes linguistic elements into two domains according to their prosodic, syntactic and semantic behaviors, namely Sentence Grammar (SG) and Thetical Grammar (TG). Given that TGs are not governed by the structural requirements of SG, they, as properties of thetical elements, tend to be positionally mobile. By analyzing different instances of relative clauses in Persian, this paper then shows that the phenomenon of extraposition is a common property of relative clauses. In short, the mobility of nonrestrictive relatives results from being belonged to the thetical domain, while the mobility of restrictive relatives as elements of having been transferred from TG to SG domain by grammaticalization, is described as the persistence of the property of earlier form in the new construction.