A Role and Reference Grammar’s Account of Causation in Persian

Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) provides a workable mechanism, namely “interclausal relations hierarchy”, for the analysis of complex constructions. It is used as a general rule for interlinguistic studies. This hierarchy consists of "semantic continuum" and "syntactic continuum" and is based on iconicity, which means that constructions with high semantic correlations are expressed in the form of stronger syntactic relations and vice versa. In this hierarchy, causative constructions are also included, which were the focus of the present study. In this research, causative constructions were divided into 3 types: causative [type 1] or direct causatives, causative [type 2] or indirect causatives, and jussives. We first examined their syntactic semantic forms and interactions in causative constructions. The juncture-nexus relations and semantic hierarchy were discussed in the syntactic and semantic dimensions, respectively. The findings indicated that the direct causatives were in nuclear co-subordination relations, while the indirect causatives and jussives were in core co-subordination relations. We also proposed a constructional scheme for direct causation in Persian. The interaction of the two levels of syntax and semantics in causative constructions was also explained in the form of linking algorithms. Finally, it was found that Persian language acts in a way that it confirms the "interclausal relation hierarchy" and thus, its explanatory adequacy could be corroborated.