Semantic Effects of Main Clause Verb On the Interpretation of the Subordinate Clause

This study aims at investigating semantic impacts of the verb of the main clause on the interpretation of the event expressed in the subordinate clause. In order to achieve the objective of the study, first, about 1000 compound sentences were collected from three novels by Mahmood (1365/1986&1380/2001) and Golshiri (1385/2006); second, only 400 sentences which fitted the purpose of the study were selected for analysis. According to the findings of the study not all main clauses can take any sort of clause types as subordinate clauses. In addition, the verb mood of the subordinate clause may be determined by the semantic features of the verb of the main clause. According to the data and its analysis, main clause verbs can be put into three categories based on their semantic features: a) those indicating certain actualization of the event expressed in the dependent clause, b) those which do not guarantee the actualization of the event expressed in the dependent clause though its actualization is possible, and c) those which do not permit the actualization of the event expressed in the dependent clause