Internal and External Forces in Typology: Evidence from Iranian Languages

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 *

On Language Distribution in Ilam Province, Iran

“…According to the data gathered in this study, Luri is spoken in three areas of Ilam Province: (1) in the central areas of Malekshāhi region (Showhān rural township in Central district) and Mehrān region, where it is spoken in Mehrān city and the village of Changuleh; (2) in the southwestern half of Badreh region (Hendemini district) and nearby in the village of Hassangāvdāri in the Central district of Sirvān region; and (3) in a swath extending from the western part of the Central district of Dehlorān region into northwest Musiān district (also in Dehlorān region), Murmuri rural township (P. dehestān) in Kalāt district of Ābdānān region as well as in Ābdānān city, and the southwest half of Darreh Shahr region, including parts of Darreh Shahr city and outskirts up to Aramow rural township in Central district and to Mazhin district, which are adjacent to Luristan Province. Altogether, Luri speakers in Ilam Province number 60,000 people, or 10.7 percent of the province's population.…”

“…The Ethnologue, a collective publication in which the languages of the world are catalogued, lists 75 living languages for Iran; 1 and although this figure varies greatly among scholarly sources, there is no question of the country's profound linguistic diversity. 2 Despite this diversity-or perhaps because of it-the language situation in Iran is poorly and unevenly documented, with complete grammars and detailed maps existing for only a few languages, and some languages not yet documented at all. 3 In the present paper, we endeavor to provide an overview of the language situation in one area of Iran: Ilam Province.…”

Constraint cumulativity and gradience: Wh-scrambling in Persian

“…These unusual combinations are considered as ''disharmonic'' and unstable over time, as for example Hawkins (1979:647) states: ''The currently extremely disharmonic languages should not have been in a disharmonic state for a long period of time'' (for a critical discussion see also Krifka, 1985;Dryer, 1992). As regards Persian, this view implies a pressure towards loss of the verb-final property (or towards loss of head-initiality), as is also hypothesized by Dabir-Moghaddam (2006). The empirical results above are limited to the postposition of subjects.…”

Source(s) of syntactic cross-linguistic influence (CLI): The case of L3 acquisition of English possessives by Mazandarani–Persian bilinguals

“…In Mazandarani, a language spoken in the Caspian region, modifiers precede head nouns and are attached to them via reverse Ezafe particle (REZ). While Persian (EZ) has the possessor to its right, Mazandarani (REZ) has the possessor to its left (Dabir-Moghaddam, 2006; Larson, 2009).…”