This paper presents an attempt to investigate the origins of ergativity in Iranian languages, drawing upon diachronic and synchronic analyses. In so doing, I will trace the development of the ergative structure back to Old and Middle Persian where, it is argued, the roots of ergativity lie. I will specifically show that the ergative pattern as currently obtained in the grammatical structure of some Iranian languages has evolved from a periphrastic past participle construction, the analogue of which is attested in Old Persian. It will further be argued that the predecessor past participle construction imparted a resultative construal in Old Persian and, subsequently, in the transition to Middle Persian, has assumed a simple past reading. The bottom-line of the analysis will be represented as a proposal regarding the nature of the ergative verb, to the effect that an ergative verb, as opposed to a regular (non-ergative) transitive verb, is semantically transitive, but syntactically intransitive.Keywords ergative structure; resultatives; past participle; Old Persian; Iranian languages IzvlečekČlanek poskuša z diahrono in sinhrono analizo prikazati izvor ergativnosti v iranskih jezikih. Avtor sledi razvoju ergativne strukture vse od stare in srednje perzijščine, kamor naj bi segale korenine ergativnosti, in pokaže, da se je ergativni vzorec, ki je prisoten v slovničnih strukturah nekaterih iranskih jezikov, razvil iz perifrastičnega preteklega deležnika, katerega vzporednice so najdene v stari perzijščini. Avtor trdi, da je predhodni pretekli deležnik vodil do nastanka rezultativov v stari perzijščini in je posledično ob prehodu v srednjo perzijščino privedel do enostavnega preteklika. V zadnjem delu analize avtor predstavi naravo ergativnih glagolov in predlaga, da so ergativni glagoli, v nasprotju z običajnimi (ne-ergativnimi) prehodnimi glagoli, semantično prehodni, a skladenjsko neprehodni.Ključne besede ergativna struktura; rezultativnost; pretekli deležnik; Stara perzijščina; Iranski jeziki * I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer of ALA for insightful comments and helpful suggestions.Thanks are also due to Mojtaba Monshizadeh of Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, for sharing with me his ideas and insights concerning some of the issues raised in an earlier draft of the paper.24 Yadgar KARIMI
In this paper, I explore the Defective Intervention effects in the past transitive structures in two dialects of Kurdish, where variation is found in how agreement shows up on the verb. In the Northern dialect, in the presence of a Dative subject, the verb displays full agreement with the Nominative object (in person and number), whereas, in the Central dialect, in the same context, the default third person singular agreement obtains. It will be shown that the Defective Intervention as proposed in Chomsky (2000) and assumed in much subsequent work in the Minimalist Program is not adequate to explain the varied pattern of agreement attested in Kurdish past transitive structures. Drawing on the structural differences in the past transitive constructions in the two dialects, I will introduce a modification into the current formulation of Defective Intervention to the effect that in Dative-Nominative structures, agreement with the Nominative DP is blocked by the intervention of a φ-complete head that licenses the Dative DP and not by the intervention of the Dative DP itself. This approach to Defective Intervention predicts that in structures where the Dative DP is licensed by a φ-incomplete head, the Defective Intervention effects will not arise.
This paper is an attempt to develop an analysis of ergativity syntax, focusing on the past transitive structures in Kurdish where ergativity manifests itself. Adducing evidence from a diverse array of structures that share formal characteristics with the past transitive structure in Kurdish, I will argue that ergativity emerges in transitive structures where (a) the transitive verb, subcategorizing for a complement DP, is defective in terms of accusative case assignment (i.e. unaccusative) and (b) the external argument, i.e. the subject DP, is licensed as the specifier of a high applicative head that takes vP as its complement. Thus analyzed, ergativity is construed as a natural computational corollary deriving from the interaction of independently motivated operations of the narrow syntax.
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