auxiliaries

Based upon diachronic-cognitive linguists, language structure is the product of our interaction with the world around us. The way we build discourse and develop linguistic categories can immediately be derived from the way we experience our environment and use that experience in specific communication. Thanks to recent works on the evolution of grammatical categories e.g auxiliaries, we now have a sizable knowledge of the main patterns of grammaticalization which allows for fairly reliable linguistic reconstructions and hypotheses on genetic evolution through main cognitive processes e.g semantic bleeching. Following the doctorines of cognitive semantics, the present proposal bears an attempt to discover and define which aspects of meaning of a lexical source are lost and which are preserved through grammaticalization. Analyzing a specific grammaticalized product, namely the auxiliary verb xâstan, the future marker, through the lexical xâstan ‘to want’ in Persian, we will suggest that the evolution of the target grammatical meaning, the future, through grammaticalization process occurs applying semantic bleaching by way of which the entire idiosyncratic semantic features are vanished but the image-schematic structure. This must mean that an image-schema is abstracted from the earlier lexical sense since it would be potentially much more immanent and pervasive than the fully fleshed-out lexical meaning.

Auxiliation is a subfield of grammaticalization which deals with the way the complex lexical verb structures, in some contexts, develope into auxiliary grammatical structures over time. Most auxiliaries in New Persian (Farsi) were used just as lexical verbs in Old or Middle Persian and converted into auxiliaries through grammaticalization.
The present study deals with the process of auxiliation of three auxiliaries including "astidan", "bashidan" and "budan" (meaning "to be") which are used in Present Prepect, Past Subjunctive and Past Perfect structures in New Persian respectively; the question arises here is “whether the usage of "astidan", "bashidan" and "budan" as auxiliaries in these structures goes back to the Old Persian or has been the outcome of grammaticalization”? This paper tries to answer this question by scrutinizing instances of the aforementioned grammatical structures in Old and Middle Persian.
According to existing evidence, the grammatical functions of these verbs as axiliray verbs in mentioned structures (Present Prepect, Past Subjunctive and Past Perfect) are due to the process of auxiliation in Middle Persian or Dari (early New Persian). The auxiliaries "astidan", "bashidan", "budan" don`t have a common root; the roots of mentioned auxiliaries are and <baw-/- bav> meaning "to be" in Old Persian. Although in New Persian "ast" and "bash" are the present and imperative forms of "budan" respectively, "astidan" stems from while "budan" and "bashidan" stem from .
The various forms of "astidan" which are used as lexical and linking verb as well as Present Prepect auxiliary in New Persian, didn't have auxiliary function in Middle or Old Persian. Although the auxiliation of this verb goes back to Middle Persian, its usage as Present Perfect auxiliary has been peculiar to New Persian or Dari. Infact "istadan" was substituded for "astidan" as Present Perfect axiliary in late Middle Persian or early Dari. "Bashidan" is used in various forms as lexical and linking verb as well as Past Subjunctive auxiliary in New Persian. But the auxiliary function of this verb has been the product of auxiliation in Dari."Bashidan" had no usage in Old Persian and there has been found just one imperative form of it,"bash", as lexical and linking verb in Midde Persian. The auxiliary usage of "bashidan" in Past Subjunctive structure has been peculiar to New Persian or Dari.
Past Subjunctive structures in Middle Persian texts had been formed by using "astidan" as auxiliary. Before being used as Present Perfect auxiliary in Dari, "astidan" was used as Past Subjunctive auxiliary in Middle Persian. Then "Bashidan" was substituded for "astidan" in Past Subjunctive structures in Dari.
"Budan" not only is used as lexical and linking verb in various forms in New Persian, but also as an auxiliary verb in Past Perfect structures. The late function didn`t exist in Old Persian and "budan" was just a lexical and linking verb. The auxiliary "budan" is a grammatialized verb which was formed through auxiliation process in Middle Persian. Following a revolution in the manner of expressing the aspect of verb in Middle Persian,"budan" was used to express Perfect Aspect in Past Perfect structures.
As mentioned, the auxiliaries "astidan", "bashidan" and "budan" as infinitives in New Persian stemmed from two different roots each of which passed through certain grammaticalization processes from Old Persian to Middle and New Persian, especially with regard to auxiliation. "Bashidan" went through this process later than two other auxiliaries and its auxiliary usage has been peculiar to Dari.
"Astidan", "bashidan" and "budan" have been used as auxiliaries in grammatical structures of Present Prepect, Past Subjunctive and Past Perfect through reanalysis of predicative structures; they have lost their lexical category and meaning through "decategorialization" and "desemantization" process while their functions as lexical and linking verbs have been preserved. The later phenomenon is called "divergence" and is one of the grammaticalization principals which is common among many Indo-European languages. It is worth mentioning that conversion of existential verbs into auxiliaries in Present/Past Perfect structures have also been a very common tendency in grammaticalization process in many languages.
According to Lehman (2002: 29) the existential "be" in English have gone through such auxiliation process.
There have also been numerous evidences in different languages indicating linking verbs used as auxiliaries in structures with one Past Participle, such as Present Prepect, Past Subjunctive and Past Perfect structures.
What we called resultative structure in this article seems very much like predicative structure in Persian. According to Bybee (1994:69) evolution of resultative structures in to perfect structures can be an instance of "semantic generalization".

Auxiliation is a subfield of the more familiar field of grammaticalization in world languages and deals with the way in which complex lexical verb structures develop over time into auxiliary grammatical structures in some of their usages. Most auxiliaries in New Persian were used just as lexical verbs in Old or Middle Persian and converted into auxiliaries through grammaticalization. The present study deals with the process of auxiliation of "shodan" in passive structure in Persian. This paper by providing instances of the passive structures in Old and Middle Persian provides an answer to the question of whether the usage of "shodan" as an auxiliary in passive structure goes back to the Old Persian or has been the outcome of grammaticalization. According to the existing evidences, the grammatical function of "shodan" in New Persian has been acquired through auxiliation during Dari (early New Persian) in the process of the evolution of passive structure from stative passive in Old and Middle Persian to dynamic passive in Dari. From typological view point, comparing the evolution of passive structure in Persian with similar processes in some other languages makes it clear that such an evolution has been due to a common tendency in languages towards dynamic passive in order to disambiguate passive structures.