No abstract

No abstract

In this article the debate in the literature on the role of internal and external forces in shaping the typological features of a language is evaluated in the light of the evidence from Iranian languages. In this study the Greenbergian word order correlations as presented in Dryer (1992) are adopted as the theoretical and statistical framework. On that basis the common typological parameters of the languages studied are identified and the variations in them are also specified. Then the potential and actual areas of convergence/interference of these languages as substrata with Modern Persian as the superstratum are discussed. Despite instances of convergence/interference, the findings reveal the strength of the parameters of variation at the *

The present paper examines the process of loanword syllable adaptation in tetrasyllabic words in Persian, within an Optimalitytheoretic framework. In Persian, consonant clusters are avoided in onset position. As a result, the loanwords borrowed from other languages which have complex onsets, when introduced into Persian, are adapted to fit the syllable structure of the target language. When placed word-initially, the onset cluster is generally resolved by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel. However, this vowel epenthesis occurs in a split pattern, as it does in many other languages. In this study, following Gouskova's (2001) proposal, we argue that this split pattern in loanword syllabic adaptation can best be explained to be an effect of the Syllable Contact Law (SCL). That is, when the two segments in the onset cluster have a rising sonority sequence, the cluster is broken up by the process of anaptyxis; while in sequences of falling sonority, the cluster is resolved through the process of prothesis. It is argued that, this pattern uniformly holds true at least as far as the dictionary-derived data in the present study are concerned. For the exceptional cases of /SN/ and /SL/ clustersnot attested in our data set, but still present and frequently referred to in the literature-we propose the addition of two positional faithfulness constraints of the DEP-V/X_Y family (Fleischhacker 2001) to our set of universal constraints to account for all the possible cases of loanword syllabic adaptation in Persian.

In this chapter, the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is introduced in the context of an eighty-year-old history of the establishment of the Academy in Iran. The chapter intends to describe the atmosphere which motivated the need for the emergence of this institution in Iran. It seems to be fair to claim that word selection, and more technically terminology, has been the central concern of the three Iranian academies of the Persian language. It also seems to be just to evaluate the contributions and activities of the first and the third academies in Iran more fruitful both quantitatively and qualitatively than the endeavours of the second Iranian academy. The experiences which Iran has gained in the last eight decades could be relied on to move forward from a stage of language reform activities towards a more comprehensive phase of developing a language policy for the country in future.

This paper analyses the case of hiatus resolution in the /e-i/ and /e-ɑ/ environments in tetrasyllabic words in Persian, within an Optimality-theoretic framework. Hiatus is avoided in Persian by the insertion of an epenthetic consonant which varies considerably depending on the morpho-phonemic environment in which hiatus occurs. It is argued that the insertion of [ɟ] as a hiatus-resolving consonant in Persian is historically driven. We follow Naderi and van Oostendorp (2011) in assuming that the hiatus-resolving [ɟ] is actually a latent segment at the end of bases ending in /e/-in some words as a relic from the Middle (Pahlavi) Persian and in others as a matter of analogy-surfacing only in certain morpho-phonemic contexts. We argue that the two hiatus-resolving consonants realised in an /e-i/ environment in Persian-i.e., the phonetically-driven [ʔ] and the historically-driven [ɟ]-are in complementary distribution depending on the grammatical class of the output word. Within an OT framework, we aimed to achieve a unified explanation and a set order of constraints active for hiatus resolution in the /e-i/ and /e-ɑ/ environments.

The Iranian languages spoken in Iran reveal a very intriguing typological peculiarity. They all strongly benefit from agreement as a typological parameter. In this paper, I will begin with Comrie (1978) in which he has proposed the five possible language types based on case-marking and verb-agreement and will address the * The data from the varieties of Kurdish spoken in Iran as well as Talyshi and Davani are taken from an extensive corpus which I have collected through a questionnaire that I have designed for my research on Modern Iranian languages and dialects. The audio-recorded materials collected this way, supplemented with the frequent follow up interviews and consultations with the same informants, have been used in my analysis of the data. I am grateful to my informants for their valuable information they shared with me and made this research possible. The data from other sources are directly quoted without any change in the transcriptions used by the authors. The author also wishes to express his sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers of the JUL for their valuable comments and recommendations. However, he should be held responsible for any remaining shortcomings.

The aim of this paper is to compare the approaches to Persian information structure in two functional theories: Systemic Functional Grammar & Role and Reference Grammar. By selecting 400 data from scientific and educational texts, stories and newspapers we have analyzed the relationship between information structure in one hand, and phonology, semantics, morphology and syntax in another hand based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar & VanValin’s Role and Reference Grammar. Also, advantages and disadvantages of the mentioned approaches in relation to information structure are investigated. After discussing what is meant by information distribution in each theory, we examine the classification of focus in each approach. Finally the obtained results of Persian data show that the relationship between information structure in one hand and phonology, semantics, morphology and syntax in another hand is not regular and rule-governed. Moreover, studies represent despite the different analytical methods and the shortcomings of each theory, the obtained outcomes in the framework of these two approaches have some in common because of similarity in functional nature of the both