Infinitive Features in Caspian Area Languages (Tâti, Tâleshi and Gilaki)

This paper extracted from a research project in the field of infinitives of 30 dialects of Gilaki, Tâti and Tâleshi, contains features of infinitives among these languages. In this research infinitives have been investigated in four main parts:performance of infinitives, construction of infinitives, constructive elements of infinitives and other related topics. The result of this research shows that the infinitives of Caspian dialects have a lot of inflectional similarities. In most of these dialects the infinitive is used in impersonal verbs, continuous past tense verbs, continuous present tense verbs, and negative verbs; it is also used as a noun group and a subordinate verb. Simple and prefixed infinitives are being forgotten, compound infinitives being used extensively. In the structure of the infinitives of this area, there are eight locations for different affixes, e.g. causative affix, passive affix, derivational affix, and past tense maker affix. In these dialects, as a result of grammaticalization, infinitives can even be used as prepositions.