Semantics and Processing of Weak and Strong Definites in Colloquial Persian: Evidence from an Offline Questionnaire

Abstract

The main goal of the present study was to investigate the semantics and processing of three (in)definite markers used in the colloquial Persian. It was proposed that colloquial Persian morphologically realizes two definite markers, the null marker 'Ø' and the suffix '-e'. It was further proposed that these correspond to so-called "weak" and "strong" definites, respectively; the presuppositions of strong definites need to be satisfied by an explicit antecedent but the presuppositions of weak definites do not (Schwarz, 2009, 2013). It was also proposed that 'ye…-i' is an indefinite marker. This proposal is supported by introspective judgments, as well as by quantitative data from an off-line questionnaire study (building on Burkhardt, 2006; Hirotani & Schumacher, 2011) that measured the naturalness of sentences that only varied in NPs marked with 'Ø', '-e,' 'ye…-i' in contexts which (i) an antecedent was available (Given contexts), (ii) an antecedent was unavailable but could be accommodated (Bridged contexts), and (iii) an antecedent was unavailable and accommodation was unlikely (New). As expected, there was an interaction between CONTEXT and MARKER and in particular the most natural text was the one in which '-e' was used in a Given context (this was the only condition that satisfied all relevant constraints). I would like to first thank my co-supervisors Dr. Masako Hirotani and Dr. Raj Singh for all of their support, guidance and encouragements from the initial to the final stages of working on my thesis project and writing the thesis. I'm indebted to Dr. Raj Singh who has always patiently put up with me and supported me in the number of ways. I'm indebted to him for the background I've built in cognitive linguistics, semantics, and specifically in (in)definites. Also, his generous financial support during my master's has greatly helped me focus on my research. He also generously provided the financial sponsorship for my experimental study. I also would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Masako Hirotani for giving me the opportunity of working in a high level experimental environment, for providing me with the Lab facilities, for all of her generous and invaluable trainings, advice, feedback, and tips in doing research. I also would like to thank my committee members Dr. Erik Anonby and Dr. Kumiko Murasugi for their support and help and their invaluable advice and feedback. I also would like to thank Dr. Ana Arregui for drawing my attention to the weak/strong realization of definites cross-linguistically, and for her generous and insightful guidance. Thanks also go to Maryam Hosseini for the inspiring discussions regarding Persian definites. I'm