Cover not available
Part of
Historical Linguistics 2017: Selected papers from the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, San Antonio, Texas, 31 July – 4 August 2017
Edited by Bridget Drinka
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 350] 2020
► pp. 273–292

The rise of the analytic Perfect aspect in the West Iranian languages

This paper focuses on the long-term grammaticalization of tense/aspect systems in the West Iranian languages, beginning with Old Iranian (Section 1). In Middle Persian (Section 2) the Aorist and the reduplicative Perfect of Old Persian were replaced by a new system of analytic constructions. The fundamental mechanism in the rise of the innovative Preterit (perfective) and Perfect categories was the process of grammaticalization, reducing the auxiliary ‘be’ into suffixes of the innovative Preterit. In Early New Persian (Section 3) an unambiguous Perfect was recreated by attaching personal suffixes to the Perfect stem. In the second part of the paper (Section 4) we turn to the elaboration of the evidential (‘non-witnessed’) subsystem in New Persian through grammaticalization and possible Turkic influence. A typological parallel in the southernmost Slavic languages (Section 5) is provided.
Keywords: Middle and New Persian, Kurdish, Tajik, (analytic) Perfect, copula, grammaticalization, degrammaticalization, inferential and conjectural mode
Article outline
  • 1.Old Iranian Tense /Aspect/Mood system
    • 2.The rise of analytic aspectual formations during the Middle Persian period
  • 3.New Iranian
    • 3.1Early New Persian
      • 3.1.1Canonical ‘be-Perfect’
      • 3.1.2Dialectal / ‘Nishapuri’ Perfect kard-ast-am ‘I have done’
    • 3.2The analytic Perfect in -Vg in Kurdish, Balochi and ‘conjectural’ mode in Tajik
    • 3.3New Persian
    • 3.4Sequencing of morphemes expressing tense and person/number
  • 4.Evidential (‘non-witnessed’) subsystem
  • 5.Typological parallels
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Note
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 9 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.350.13bub
References (34)
References
Ahmadi Givi, H. (2005). Dastur e Zabān e Fārsi: Fe’l. [The grammar of the Persian language] Tehrān: Našr e Qatreh.Google Scholar
Andersen, H. (1987). From auxiliary to desinence. In M. Harris & P. Ramat (Eds.), Historical development of auxiliaries, (pp. 21–52). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006). Grammation, regrammation, and degrammation: tense loss in Russian. Diachronica 23, 231–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010). From morphologization to demorphologization. In: S. Luraghi & V. Bubenik (Eds.) The Continuum Companion to Historical Linguistics, (pp. 117–146). London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bahar, M. (1942/1994) (6th ed.) Sabkšenāsi. Tārix e Tatavvor e Nasr e Fārsi (3 vols) [Stylistics: The history of the evolution of Persian prose texts] Tehrān: Amir Kabir.Google Scholar
Estaji, A. & Bubenik, V. (2007). On the development of the tense/aspect system in Early and New Persian. Diachronica 24, 31–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gołąb, Z. (1960). The influence of Turkish upon the Macedonian Slavonic dialects. Folia Orentalia 1, 26–45.Google Scholar
Haig, G. (2008). Alignment change in Iranian languages: A Construction Grammar approach. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, A. & Campbell, L. (1995). Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johanson, L. (2010). Turkic language contacts. In: R. Hickey (Ed.), The handbook of language contact, (pp. 652–672). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jahani, C. & Korn, A. (2009). Balochi. In: G. Windfuhr (Ed.) The Iranian languages, (pp. 634–692). London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kalbasi, I. (1995). Tafāvothā ye vojuh e fe’li dar Fārsi ye Tājiki va Fārsi ye Irān [The differences in aspects of verbs in Iranian Persian and Tajiki Persian] Majaleye Dāneškaye adabiyāt o ʔolum e ensāni dānešgāh e Tabriz. No. 153 & 154, 155–170.Google Scholar
(2004). Gozašte ye naqli dar lahjehā va guyešhā ye Irān [The Perfect in dialects and languages of Iran] Guyeš šenāsi, No. 2, 66–89.Google Scholar
Kent, R. (1953). Old Persian. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Khanlari, P. (1986). Tārix e Zabān e Fārsi. [History of the Persian Language] Tehrān: Našr e No.Google Scholar
Kononov, A. N. (1960). Grammatika sovremennogo uzbekskogo literaturnogo jazyka. [The grammar of Contemporary Literary Uzbek]. Moscow/Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.Google Scholar
Kuryłowicz, J. (1947). La nature des procès dits analogiques. Acta Linguistica 5, 17–24.Google Scholar
Lazard, G. (1963). La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane. Paris: Klincksieck [Etudes linguistiques, 2].Google Scholar
(1987). Le judeo-persan ancien entre le pehlevi et le persan. In Transition periods in Iranian history. Paris: Association pour l’Avancement des Etudes Iraniennes Leuven: Peeters, XI, 263 [Studia Iranica, Cahier 6].Google Scholar
(1989). Le persan. In R. Schmitt (Ed.) Compendium linguarum orientalium. (pp. 263–293). Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Lenepveu-Hotz, A. (2012). Etude diachronique du système verbal person (Xe-XVIe siècles): d’un équilibre à l’autre? Paris: Ecole pratique des hautes études.Google Scholar
McCarus, E. (2009). Kurdish. In G. Windfuhr (Ed.) The Iranian languages. (pp. 587–633). London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mokri, M. (2003). Grammaire et lexique comparés des dialects kurdes. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Paul, L. 2008. Remarks on the evolution of the New Persian system of past tenses. In: Sh. Shaked & A. Netzer (Eds.) Irano-Judaica VI, studies relating to Jewish contacts with Persian culture throughout the ages, (pp. 185–195). Jérusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute.Google Scholar
(2013). A grammar of Early Judaeo-Persian. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Rokhzadi, A. (2000). The phonetics and the grammar of Kurdish. Tehran: Tarfand.Google Scholar
Sadeghi, A. & Arjang, Gh. (1979). Dastur e Zabān e Fārsi [The grammar of the Persian language]. Tehran: Sāzmān e āmuzeš va parvareš.Google Scholar
Skjärvø, P. (2009). Middle West Iranian. In: G. Windfuhr (Ed.), The Iranian languages. (pp. 196–278). London / New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Soleymani, A. & Haghbin, F. (2015). Tense and aspect in the Bālāgerive dialect of Lori. Journal of Lingual Inquests, 20, 245–262. Tehran: Tarbiat Modarres University.Google Scholar
Taheri, E. (2006). The verb in Bakhtiari, Nāme ye Farhangestān, 2, 86–108. Tehrān: Farhangestān e Zabān.Google Scholar
Utas, B. (2000). Traces of evidentiality in Classical New Persian. In L. Johanson & B. Utas (Eds.) Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian and neighbouring languages. New York: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Windfuhr, G. (1982). The verbal category of inference in Persian. Acta Iranica 22, 263–287.Google Scholar
Windfuhr, G. & Perry, J. (2009). Persian. In: G. Windfuhr (Ed.) The Iranian languages, (pp. 416–544). London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ziamajidi, L. (2019) A diachronic study of grammatical aspect in Persian. Tehran: Alzahra University (unpublished PhD dissertation).Google Scholar