Constituent ordering constructions: Evidence from the Persian left-periphery

Persian owns a flexible syntax and is thought to be a free word order language. In this paper, employing a Role and Reference Grammar framework, we argue that constituent reordering in preposing and left-dislocation constructions of the Persian left-periphery is the result of the interface between information-discourse structure, on the one hand, and a certain syntactic position in the layered structure of the clause, on the other: topical, focused, and contrastive constituents are hosted respectively by the left-detached position, pre-core slot, and kontrast position. Bear in mind that each position requires a certain discourse condition to be met. We also show that non-canonical constituent orders at the Persian left-periphery are not merely a rearrangement of syntactic units for pragmatic reasons, they are in effect ‘constituent ordering constructions’ in line with the notion of construction as proposed and defined in the RRG theory.