Ditransitive Verbs in Persian: Interaction between Syntax and Discourse

In this paper, the constructions of ditransitive verbs are examined in Persian. This study based on Construction Grammar (Goldberg: in press) views differently on this type of verbs. One of the objectives in this paper is to explain the internal properties of ditransitive constructions and determine their different types. The purpose is to display the distinctions of ditransitive constructions in order to demonstrate the interaction between syntax and discourse. Besides their syntactic differences, pragmatic ones will be mentioned too. This can be achieved by choosing a formal-functional approach. The Persian data analysis shows the effect of information structure and its interaction with patient and theme. Therefore, the contextual factors are considered as important as the syntactic ones. Information structure exerts a noticeable effect on the distribution of nominal arguments as well as on their scope properties among the Persian sentences. Thus these constructions not only indicate formal distinctions but also informative ones. Consequently, comprehensive and multi-dimensional interpretation, which is the basic goal in this study will be attained by relying on syntactic- pragmatic explanations.