Unaccusative Constructions in the Bakhtyiyari Dialect of Masjed Soleyman

Unaccusative constructions are one place predicates and their single core argument, like a passive predicate, functions as un undergoer rather than actor. This study attempts to explore the characteristics of these constructions as well as their differences with passive predicates in Bakhtyari dialect of Masjed Soleiman. Unaccusative constructions are morphological in nature formed by the aid of two suffixes –eh in present and –est in past stems. Interestingly, these two suffixes are used to express passivization as well. Consequently, passive and unaccusative predicates are apparently similar in this dialect. However, one can distinguish these two constructions using two grammatical tests. The first is the fact that only in passive predicates can we add an agentive prepositional phrase to the sentence. The second diagnostic test to differentiate these two types of construction is that only in unaccusative predicates the adverb xos be xos (impulsively) can be used.