Precedence of Verb and its Rhetoric Purposes in the story "Rostam & Esfandiyar"

Present paper is to show the role of "precedence of verbs" in language expansion in the epic story of Rostam and Esfandiar. "Precedence of verbs" is one of semantic components whose rhetoric role in Persian literature has not been paid much attention. Based on "order" theory of ʿAbd al-Qāher Jorjāni,this research has been conducted through a library method. In order to achieve the goal, all verbs preceding the other components of the sentence in the story of "Rostam and Esfandiar" and their statistical frequency have been distinguished with regard to their verbal aspects, rhetoric purposes and the intonation of sentences. The author's statistical analysis indicates that the "precedence of verbs", along with the necessity of meter, is done to make the language and epical tone of the story outstanding and some reasons such as emphasizing on the verb in epic language, sequential precedence of verbs in some verses and assigning about half of the precedent verbs to the epic themes like boasting, warning and threatening, chastise and reproach and the promises of heroes can confirm that the precedence of verbs was effective to make the language of the story more epic and this is the reason Ferdowsi has used this rhetoric method.