Persian Deadjectival Nominals: An Exoskeletal Approach

Nominalized words are complex nominals, which have their own particular derivational structure. These nominals can be derived from different parts of speech. Correspondingly, a deadjectival nominal is a nominal that is derived from an adjective; Although deadjectival nominals and nominalization, in general, have been cases of the most important issues of syntax and morphology in theoretical linguistics, less attention has been paid in the literature to deadjectival nominals (Roy, 2010; Alexiadou & Martin, 2012; Borer, 2013; Arch & Marin, 2015). On the other hand, a large number of works on nominalizations is concerned with deverbal nominals (Chomsky 1970; Grimshaw 1990; Picallo 1991; Marantz 1997; Alexiadou 2001; Borer 2013, among many others).With reference to Persian deadjectival nominals no attention has been paid to these nominals; therefore, the present study is an attempt to provide a descriptive syntactic analysis of Persian deadjectival nominals based on the Exoskeletal framework as developed in Borer (2013). Borer’s (2013) theoretical framework gives a complete account of nominalization with a detailed syntactic explanation of the underlying syntactic structure of deadjectival nominals; consequently, this approach is opted as the theoretical framework of the present study due to the following reasons: first, the model in which all word formation takes place in syntax is premier to the models sticking to a supreme lexicon; second, since all categories are syntactic and functional, the redundancy between lexical and functional categories is omitted. Borer (2005, 2013) hypothesizes that words do not have any specific lexical category and their exact category is dependent on their syntactic context they occur. Regarding nominalization process, Borer (2013) argues that derivational suffixes merge with their roots in the syntax rather than morphology, that is to say, there is a particular syntactic mechanism that underlies the formation of nominals. Also, she, following Roy (2010), divides deadjectival nominals into two groups: Stative deadjectival nominals and Quality deadjectival nominals. She claims both types of deadjectival nominals have argument structure. However, Stative deadjectival nominals have different syntactic structure from Quality deadjectival nominals. Borer (2013) asserts, although Stative deadjectival nominals contain complete predicative structure with overt external argument and Degree phrase[1], Quality deadjectival nominals never have a complete predicative structure; also, the external argument in these nominals are covert (pro) and the occurrence of Degree phrase in their structure is not necessary. As aforementioned, in the present study, we try to analyze the underlying syntactic structure of Persian deadjectival nominals adopting Borer’s (2013) Exoskeletal framework. The range of data under analysis is restricted to a single language i.e., Persian. The data were taken from Derivational suffixes in Modern Persian (Kashani, 1992), The Derivational Structure of Word in Modern Persian (Kalbassi, 2008) and Dictionary of prefixes and suffixes in Persian (Farshidvard, 2007). It is worth noting that Persian deadjectival nominals are characterized by the presence of derivational suffixes. The categorial suffixes in Persian deadjectival nominals are: /-ӕk/ in /zӕrd-ӕk/ ‘carrot’; /-ɑ/ in/rowʃӕn-ɑ/ ‘light’; /-eʃ/ in /nӕrm-eʃ/ ‘leniency’; /-kɑr/ in /sefid-kɑr/ ‘coppersmith’;/-gӕri/ in /vӕhʃi-gӕri/ ‘brutality’; /-nɑ/ in /tӕng-nɑ/ ‘restriction’; /-e/ in /zӕrd-e/ ‘yolk’; /-jӕt/ in /hӕsɑsi-jӕt/; ‘allergy’; /-i/ in /ʧɑq-i/ ‘obesity’ (all data were taken from Kashani (1992/1993), Farshidvard (2007) and Kalbassi (2008)). The results of the present study show that the structures of Persian suffixal deadjectival nominals are coincident with Borer’s Exoskeletal framework (i.e Persian has both Stative deadjectival nominals and Quantity deadjectival nominals). The deadjectival nominal /vӕhʃi-gӕri/ ‘brutality’ is an instance of Persian Stative deadjectival nominals which can appear in /vӕhʃigӕri-e ӕli/ ‘Ali’s brutality’, in the derivation of which CN[A][2] needs to scope over the predicate structure that entails Degree phrase. In other words, the Stative deadjectival nominal /vӕhʃi-gӕri/ is derived from merging the derivational suffix /-gӕri/ with the extended projection of the adjective. In the structure of this Stative deadjectival nominal, first the adjective /vӕhʃi/ moves to Degree phrase to achieve its predicative case. Then it moves to become the complement of the extended projection of the adjective CN [A] to merge with the categorial suffix /-gӕri/; at this point, the derivation of the Stative deadjectival nominal /vӕhʃi-gӕri/ will be completed. Also in the derivation of this structure, the determiner phrase /ӕli/ which is in the specifier of Stative phrase raises to the extended projection of nominal(EXSN) to get the genitive case. In Persian the realization of genitive marker (ezafe) is post-nominal. On the other hand, in the Persian Quality-deadjectival nominals like/ʧɑqi/ ‘obesity’ which is obtained from /?ӕli-j-e ʧɑq/ ‘obese of Ali’ the adjective / ʧɑq / moves to the extended projection of nominal [EXSN] then it raises to state phrase to achieve its predicative case. Then it moves to become the complement of the extended projection of the adjective CN [A] to merge with the categorial suffix /-i/. At this point, the derivation of the Quality deadjectival nominal /ʧɑqi / will be completed. Similarly, in the derivation of this structure, the external argument pro which places in the specifier of Stative phrase raises to the extended projection of nominal(EXSN) to get the genitive case. It is worth mentioning that Quality deadjectival nominals (e.g. /mӕhdud-i-jӕt/ ‘restriction’), have Stative deadjectival nominal counterparts which have complete predicative structure with an overt external argument. In addition, Quality deadjectival nominals denote the mass abstract entities. Moreover, the research results indicate, although Borer(2013) didn’t introduced Result deadjectival nominals in her model, Persian has a kind of Result deadjectival nominals which does not have an argument structure. Result deadjectival nominals, (like: /sӕbz-e/ ‘grass’) only have the attributive structure and represent the count concrete entities. [1] Borer (2013) believes that presence of Degree phrase is necessary in the derivation of Stative deadjectival nominals [2] C-functor which projects the nominal and takes adjective