Grammaticalization and degrammati(calizati)on in the development of the Iranian verb system

Vit Bubenik | Memorial University of NewfoundlandSt. John’s

The present article contributes to the current theoretical discussions regarding the issues of grammaticalization, degrammati(calizati)on and reanalysis as practiced by scholars working predominantly in West European, Greek and Slavic languages. It brings into discussion relatively under-represented data from the West Iranian languages by surveying fundamental morphological and syntactic changes observable in the development of the verb systems of Persian, Tajik, Kurdish and Balochi: (i) the realignment of the Old Persian possessive construction as the finite verb form in Middle Persian, (ii) the establishment of the analytic Perfect in Early New Persian, (iii) degrammati(calizati)on of the copula in the Perfect aspect in Kurdish and Balochi, (iv) grammaticalization of the adverb hamēw ‘always’ as the Imperfect marker in Early New Persian, (v) the formation of the modal future tense in New Persian, and (vi) the role of grammaticalization and degrammati(calizati)on in the renewal of the passive diathesis in Early New Persian.

Keywords: grammaticalization, degrammati(calizati)on, tense/aspect system, perfect, evidential, conjectural, passive diathesis

Published online: 18 June 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.345.08bub

References

Text (Middle Persian)

Bahrām, Kārnāme Farvahši

1378 Kārnāme Ardašīr Bābagān. Tehran: Entešārāt-e dānešgāh-e.

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