Information-structural and Syntactic Templates of the Direct Object in Persian

Direct objects are encoded via specific grammatical tools in Persian. Using random data mostly from colloquial Persian (and written Persian in case of need), the author first intend to introduce these tools. Employing the Layered Structure of the Clause and Focus Structure as defined in Role and Reference Grammar, the author proceeds to formally represent the tools via syntactic templates that contain information-structural properties of the direct object. We learn that the hypothesis regarding the direct object being a secondary topic marker in the spirit of ra-marking (Dabir-Moghaddam, 2006) needs to be discarded. Information-structurally, not only is the direct object qualified to be part of the pragmatic presupposition, hence serving as the topic of the sentence, it is also licensed to constitute a narrow focus by itself or to participate in predicate and sentence focus structures. This originates from the fact that -ra in Persian signals the identifiability of the object’s referent in the interlocutors’ discourse universe. It is also proposed that the bi-fold classification of a narrow focus into in-situ information focus and ex-situ contrastive focus does not only apply to the narrow focus in the spirit of Persian data. A predicate focus can be contrastive when a ra-marked object residing at the Pre-Core Slot is disjoined from the transitive predicate by an intervening subject. In actuality, this discontinuous predicate focus structure is ‘construed’ as a contrastive narrow focus.