* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Persian
Ukrainian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Modern Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup
Macedonian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Malay grammar wikipedia , lookup
English clause syntax wikipedia , lookup
Old English grammar wikipedia , lookup
Udmurt grammar wikipedia , lookup
Compound (linguistics) wikipedia , lookup
French grammar wikipedia , lookup
Modern Hebrew grammar wikipedia , lookup
Swedish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Portuguese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Spanish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Lexical semantics wikipedia , lookup
Georgian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Chinese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Zulu grammar wikipedia , lookup
Kannada grammar wikipedia , lookup
Navajo grammar wikipedia , lookup
Determiner phrase wikipedia , lookup
Vietnamese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Old Irish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Arabic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Latin syntax wikipedia , lookup
Esperanto grammar wikipedia , lookup
Ancient Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup
Serbo-Croatian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Scottish Gaelic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Polish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Some less typical Support Verb Constructions in Persian Pollet Samvelian Université de Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle 1 Some general facts about Persian Writing and Morphology • Indo-European language (spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tadjikistan) • Writing : - Arabic characters. - « Short » vowels (/a/, /e/ and /o/) are not noted. (N.B. contrary to Arabic, these vowels cannot be reconstructed) • Morphology : - Rather poor nominal inflection (no gender, no case) . - Quite rich verbal morphology (modal/adpectual prefixes, 2 different verbal stems, personal endings, incorporated auxiliaries). - Word formation : Composition rather than derivation. 2 Some general facts about Persian Syntax • Word order : - SOV (verb final), though a great degree of freedoom for ordering constituents. - The NP is head initial. • Determination : - No definite determiner. - An indefinite determiner realized as an enclitic. • No morphological case, but differential object marking (NP râ). • A great number of verbal collocations, called ‘compound verbs’ in grammars. 3 Verbal collocations or Complex Predicates • Possible combinations: N-V, Adj-V, Prep-V, Adv-V • Generally analyzed as « support verb » or « light verb » constructions in recent studies: The « predicative noun » (generally an abstract noun or a derverbal noun) provides the Argument Structure and the semantic restrictions on the arguments. The verb is « bleached » and bears informartion about tense, aspect, ditathesis… • Some of the most frequently used « support » verbs : kardan ‘to do’, dâdan ‘to give’, xordan ‘to ’, zadan ‘to hit’, andâxtan ‘to throw, to drop’, oftâdan ‘fall’, gereftan ‘to take’, âmadan ‘to come’, raftan ‘to go’. 4 Examples of typical SVCs with zadan ‘to hit, to put’ • 1) 2) • 3) 4) Zadan as a non-support verb: Omid aks râ be divâr Omid picture DO to wall ‘Omid hanged the picture on the wall.’ Omid tup râ be divâr Omid ball DO to wall ‘Omid threw the ball against the wall.’ Zadan as a support verb: Omid faryâd zad Omid scream hit ‘Omid cried out.’ Omid be Maryam labxand Omid to Maryam smile ‘Omid smiled to Maryam’ zad put zad hit zad hit 5 Less evident cases with zadan • A concrete noun (not a predicative one) : mesvâk ‘tooth brush’ + zadan ‘to brush one’s teeth’ šâne ‘comb’ + zadan ‘to comb one’s hair lif ‘face-cloth’ + zadan ‘to wash with a face-cloth’ jâru ‘broom’ + zadan ‘to sweep up’ rang ‘painting’ + zadan ‘to paint’ dast ‘hand’ + zadan ‘to touch’ vâks ‘polish fot shoes’ + zadan ‘to polish’ • Arguments against SVC (or complex predicate formation) Concrete nouns (not predicative) The verb zadan conserves its valency : Omid be mu-hâ-yaš šâne zad Omid to hair-pl-3.sg comb hit ‘Omid combed his hair.’ 6 Less evident cases with zadan • - Arguments for SVC (complex predicate formation) Transitive construction formation: 1) Omid divâr râ Omid wall DO ‘Omid painted the wall’ - rang zad painting hit Adverbial modifiers within the NP: 2) Omid divâr râ [rang-e sari’-i] zad Omid wall DO painting-EZ quick-indef hit ‘Omid painted the wall quickly’ - Determination/quantification realized on the noun: 3) šâne-i be muhâ zad (Xâne-ye Edrisihâ, p. 41) comb-indef to hair-PL hit (Lit.) ‘(she) hit a comb to her hair’ / ‘She combed her hair’ ( She used a comb to comb her hair) 7 Less evident cases with zadan • Another problem : Omid divâr râ Omid wall do ‘Omid painted the wall pink.’ [rang-e painting-EZ surati] pink zad hit Note that in this case the noun is modified as a concrete noun. 8 Questions • Which representation (annotation) for theses sequences ? • Predicate or argument ? • Two different representations depending whether a ‘concrete’ or an ‘abstract’ reading? 9