The Syntactic Representation of D.O. and I.O. in the Delvāri Dialect

Unlike Standard Persian, the Delvāri Dialect, one of the dialects of the Bushehr Province, lacks the D.O. marker rā. D.O. is known by means of word order; that is, by its position relative to the verb. D.O. occurs before the verb. Moreover, sentential D.O. appears after the verb. However, I.O. occurs after the preposition si (meaning “to; for”). In unmarked sentences, I.O. comes after D.O. and before the verb. If D.O. position is occupied by a clitic personal pronoun (in marked sentences), this pronoun will attach either to the end of the past tense verb stem or to the preposition si. This si, here, functions as a D.O. marker. So, si is a bifunctional marker; it is primarily, the marker of I.O., and in marked past tense sentences, the marker of D.O. This fact inhibits si to occur as both D.O. and I.O. marker simultaneously and causes some sort of ambiguity in the case of ditransitive sentences.