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Part of
Advances in Iranian Linguistics II
Edited by Simin Karimi, Narges Nematollahi, Roya Kabiri and Jian Gang Ngui
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 361] 2023
► pp. 1–11

Introduction

| University of Arizona
| University of Arizona
| Applied AI ML Associate, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
| University of Arizona

The Iranian language family is the western branch of the Indo-Iranian language group which itself belongs to the Indo-European language family. As Windfuhr (2009) states, “with an estimated 150–200 million native speakers, the Iranian language family is one of the world’s major language families.” The exact number of languages in this family is unknown. However, it has been estimated to be around 86 (Eberhard et al. 2019). Although there is no definite agreement about the classification of these languages, they can be roughly divided into four major groups: Northwestern, Southwestern, Northeastern and Southeastern. These languages have several properties in common, but there are also major differences among them in terms of their sound systems, syntactic and morpho-syntactic structures. These variations provide a novel and ideal laboratory for various types of linguistic research.

Keywords: Iranian languages, Iranian linguistics, syntax, morpho-syntax, sound system, Ezafe constructions, complex predicates, differential object marking
Article outline
  • Iranian languages
  • Iranian linguistics
  • This volume
  • Acknowledgement
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.361.int
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