The Structure of Gapping in the Old Persian and Zoroastrian Middle Persian Languages

In this research the structure of gapping in the Old Persian and Zoroastrian Middle Persian Languages is studied based on the symmetric merge and multi-dominance approach. For doing so, at first the structure of gapping and its properties are described and then this structure in the linguistic samples of Old and Middle Persian Languages are analyzed based on the results of Citko (2011b and 2012). Based on the results of this research, the properties of gapping structure found in the samples of Old Persian Language are different from the standard notion of gapping in a way that in the samples of Old Persian Language we have scrambling in a NP and the deleted construction is a part of embedded NP. In the Zoroastrian Middle Persian language, evidences found in the gapping structure such as existence of the same tense, voice of the verb and lexical verbs in the conjuncts are the solid bases for the symmetric merge of the T, little v, and lexical verb heads in this structure.