Correspondence or contrast between compound infinitives and missing light verb counterparts: An explanation in the distributed morphology framework

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Article Type:
Research/Original Article (دارای رتبه معتبر)
Abstract:

The structural and semantic relationship between the compound infinitive and the corresponding simple counterpart missing light verb is one of the topics of interest in the field of grammar and syntax of the Persian language.  This issue is generally based on the assumption that the light verb in the corresponding pair is omitted. This article aims to investigate the syntactic structure of the two constructions so as to evaluate the assumption of the omission of the light verb. Furthermore, it seeks to determine and explain the derivation of the two structures and their probable distinctiveness or correspondence. To this end, the Distributed Morphology approach is employed as the theoretical and analytical approach.  As the roots has no category at the beginning phase of the derivation, the dual or multiple behavior of the lexical units can be explained well. The findings suggest that the syntactic structure missing light verb cannot consider a derived form of the compound infinitive by losing the light verb, but the two constructions are completely different in terms of syntactic derivation. The compound infinitive has followed the steps of derivation according to the suggested pattern and acquires all the nominal-verbal characteristics. This is while the constructions lacking light verbs are actually nominal and of course without verbal characteristics. In this regard, we tried to explain the level of transparency and productivity of these two structures and how to take away the usage limitations through the context.

Language:
Persian
Published:
Research in Linguistics, Volume:17 Issue: 1, 2025
Pages:
1 to 18
https://www.magiran.com/p2789948