Basic Features of Complex Predicates in Behdinani of Yazd

Referring to novel concepts for which there are no simple equivalents, speakers of languages often resort to predicates with two or more components. This phenomenon is so widely used in some languages that in Persian, for instance, new simple predicates are hardly added to the lexicon and the commonly used simple predicates in spoken and writing Persian do not appear to exceed a few hundred. This study concentrates on different types of complex predicates in the Dari language spoken by the Zoroastrians (Behdinan) of Yazd (in central Iran) and different features of each type. It takes advantage of a number of published works on Behdinani language, as well as instances directly collected from native speakers of that language. This study particularly focuses on the influence of syntactic-semantic factors on the inflection of complex predicates; such factors include tense, main or modal status of the predicate, and transitivity of the predicate as a whole as well as its verbal component alone. The findings of this study further underline the need for an unfettered, interactional perspective to the study of language which can shed light and facilitate investigation into the interaction between factors and elements from different modules of grammar.