No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Western Iranian Pronominal Clitics
Abstract
This article attempts to account for the derivation of pronominal clitics in contemporary Western Iranian languages. It argues against the common assumption (detailed in Section I) that all clitics derive from thegenitive/dative ones of Old Iranian and explores the alternative possibility that some clitics in Western Iranian languages may derive from the Old Ir. accusative forms, or may represent a general oblique form resulting from a coalescence of the Old Ir. gen./dat. and acc. clitics (Section II). A derivation from such a general oblique is specifically plausible for the plural clitics in those Western Ir. varieties (discussed in Section III) whose pl. clitics are not derived from the sg. ones. This implies a revision of a morphological isogloss which has posited a certain grouping of the Western Iranian languages on the basis of the distribution of two variants of the 3rd sg. clitic, and suggests a more complex picture (Section IV). Although they do not belong to the Western Iranian group, data from Avestan and Sogdian will be used to broaden the basis for comparison with contemporary Ir. languages.
... By Middle Iranian, these two sets merged into one set, allegedly of gen./dat. origin (see Korn 2009 (Bynon 1979); les pronoms suffixes and les pronoms enclitiques (Lecoq 2002); clitic pronouns and (personal) affixes (Samvelian 2007a(Samvelian , 2007b; pronominal clitics (Stilo 2004a;Haig 2008;Korn 2009) person-marking clitics (Nourzaei et al 2015); bound personal pronouns (Belelli 2016); les pronoms (en)clitiques (Jügel & Samvelian 2016). ...
... By Middle Iranian, these two sets merged into one set, allegedly of gen./dat. origin (see Korn 2009 (Bynon 1979); les pronoms suffixes and les pronoms enclitiques (Lecoq 2002); clitic pronouns and (personal) affixes (Samvelian 2007a(Samvelian , 2007b; pronominal clitics (Stilo 2004a;Haig 2008;Korn 2009) person-marking clitics (Nourzaei et al 2015); bound personal pronouns (Belelli 2016); les pronoms (en)clitiques (Jügel & Samvelian 2016). ...
... The clitic paradigms of modern WILs are assumed to be derived from Old Iranian forms and ultimately go back to Proto-Indo-European (Korn 2009). In Old Iranian period, clitic PMs were of two sets: gen./dat. ...
Pronominal clitics comprise one of the important traits of the majority of West Iranian languages. Nevertheless, while these person clitics have been the subject of virtually systematic studies in certain languages, e.g. Central Kurdish dialects, and Persian, they are hardly studied in the majority of languages where they are attested. More specifically, the existing scholarship has faintly dealt with the rise of procliticization, the development of person marking system, the placement of clitics, the cluster internal ordering of clitics, and the clitic-affix combinations. This study is an attempt to fill the lack of knowledge across the aspects mentioned. The development of proclitic attachment forms an integral part of the thesis. Originally enclitics in the second position in the sense of Wackernagel, a subset of West Iranian languages have developed proclitics. The hypothesis postulated in the thesis is that this evolution results from a change in the domain of cliticization, more precisely, the abandonment of the clause as the domain of cliticization. This shift in turn leads to the reanalysis of the clause-initial particles, hosts of the second position clitics, and their integration into the clitic paradigm. Having lost their host, the second position clitics change their attachment orientation and become incorporated into the element which follows them in the form of proclitics. Proclitic attachment is thus a secondary development from erstwhile second positioning of enclitics (Steele 1977; Wanner 1987). The person marking system points to the inverse development of subject indexing and object indexing in the past transitive constructions: in the former, the original ‘pronominal’ clitics have grammaticalized into markers of agreement, further pointing to the cross-linguistic tendency for subject agreement (Siewierska 1999; Haig 2018a). In the latter, the originally object agreement inflectional affixes on the verb are lending/have lent themselves to varying degrees of deinflectionalization (Norde 2009; Haig 2018a), hence deviating from the typological tendencies in associating inflectional affixes with the agreement relation (Siewierska 2004). Three domains are accountable for clitic placement across WILs: the clause, the verb phrase (VP), and the verb. A subgroup of VP-based clitic systems provides a rich source for the study of endoclitics: the endoclitics of the latter are the result of the interplay between second position requirement for clitics and the stress factor. V-based proclitic systems are characterised by ditropic attachment of clitics. The cluster internal ordering of clitics is determined by argument hierarchy (A > O > R > POS) across Iranian: the argument ranked higher in the hierarchy appears second in the cluster. This property brings Iranian languages close to Romance languages (Gerlach 2002). Finally, in some clitic-affix combinations, clitics interrupt morphological words, further overshadowing a categorical distinction between the categories of clitics and affixes on the one hand, and the concept of wordhood on the other (Haspelmath 2011).
... A paradigm of pronominal clitics are known to exist in all of the Western Iranian languages except in Sangesari (Central Plateau), Northern Kurdish (though see below on their existence in Northern Kurdish), Zazaki (Windfuhr 1975: 462), and Gilaki (Jügel and Samvelian 2016). ey are historically unstressed and derive from Old Iranian genitive/dative-and may be even accusative (see Korn 2009)-pronominal clitics. However at present they are used in various 'non-direct' or 'oblique' functions in all languages possessing them. ...
... In some of the languages the pronominal clitics have grammaticalized into obligatory markers of agent, thus become exponents of 'agreement'. Given their pivotal role in the alignment of clausal arguments, the pronominal clitics have attracted a great deal of interest in the study of Iranian languages (see, among others, Haig 2008;Stilo 2008;Korn 2009;Shirtz 2016;Dabir-Moghaddam 2008Jügel and Samvelian 2016). e pronominal clitics are also found in most of Kurdish or 'Kurdic' varieties. ...
... In Anbarāni Talyshi ergative constructions, the logical subject (i.e. agent) is in oblique case 6 and marked by enclitic pronouns, while the object (patient) is in direct case: The placement of enclitic pronouns in Anbarāni displays great variety 10 , it can be attached to any component part of a sentence except the agent itself (if it is not 6 There are two cases in Anbarāni: oblique and direct. Singular nouns in the direct case do not take any markers, while nouns in the oblique case are marked with the suffix -ə. ...
... In Anbarāni Talyshi ergative constructions, the logical subject (i.e. agent) is in oblique case 6 and marked by enclitic pronouns, while the object (patient) is in direct case: The placement of enclitic pronouns in Anbarāni displays great variety 10 , it can be attached to any component part of a sentence except the agent itself (if it is not 6 There are two cases in Anbarāni: oblique and direct. Singular nouns in the direct case do not take any markers, while nouns in the oblique case are marked with the suffix -ə. ...
Enclitic pronouns are used in most of New West Iranian languages. They are mainly used for marking the possessor, as well as objects, besides, those Iranian languages and dialects, which show ergative patterns, make use of enclitic pronouns for marking the agent in ergative constructions. This paper deals with the enclitic pronouns and their functions in Anbarāni, one of the Northern Talyshi dialects, spoken in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Where it is possible the features of Anbarāni enclitics will be compared with some other West Iranian languages. Կցական դերանունները գործածվում են ժամանակակից արևմտաիրանական լեզուների մեծ մասում։ Դրանք հիմնականում կիրառվում են մատնանշելու համար հատկացուցչին, ինչպես նաև ուղիղ խնդիրը։ Բացի այդ՝ այն իրանական լեզուներում, որոնք ունեն էրգատիվ համակարգ, կցական դերանունները ցույց են տալիս էրգատիվ նախադասությունների ենթակայի դեմքն ու թիվը։ Այս հոդվածում քննարկվում են Իրանի Իսլամական Հանրապետության տարածքում խոսվող հյուսիսային թալիշերենի Անբարանի բարբառի կցական դերա-նուններն ու դրանց գործառույթները։
... In addition, the majority of West Iranian languages employ person clitics (or clitic pronouns). The latter are one of the most complex features of Iranian syntax, and have been subject to theoretical, typological, and diachronic studies (see Haig 2008Haig , 2018Jügel and Samvelian 2016;Korn 2009;Öpengin 2013;Samvelian 2007b, among others). ...
... The clitic pronouns of West Iranian are reflexes of accusative and genitive/ dative clitic paradigms in Old Iranian (cf. Korn 2009). The clitic status of these forms in modern languages comes principally from (i) a low degree of selection and freedom of host selection; (ii) morphological idiosyncrasies in combination with hosts (see Section 3.2 for relevant examples). ...
Person clitics show proclitic attachment in some West Iranian languages. Nevertheless, most of the literature has continued to focus on enclitics. This paper provides evidence that a good number of modern languages have developed proclitics, presumably from the middle Iranian period onward. Using synchronic data from modern languages gathered in the field, and contrasting it with the Middle Iranian period and current clausal second-position clitic systems, we develop some hypotheses regarding the rise of proclitics in modern languages. We argue that proclitic attachment has resulted from the reanalysis and/or the loss of clause-initial clitic hosting particles of the Middle Iranian period, and the actualization of the stray clitic as a proclitic on some host to the right. This trajectory from second position enclitics to proclitics, which is also attested in Old Romance and Uto-Aztecan, is argued to have been triggered by head attraction and rightward drift of clitics from clause-second position toward the verb in modern languages, giving rise to VP-based and Verb-based cliticization systems.
... The first set of historical developments under consideration begins with the clitic forms of non-subject pronouns, for which cognates are identifiable in Old Iranian and Old Indic (Korn 2009: Table 7). In the Old Iranian period (around the middle of the first millennium BC), these were mobile clitics, positionally conforming to Wackernagel's Law. ...
... Ostyak, Uralic (Dalrymple and Nikolaeva 2011), where only the number feature of the object is indexed (in a DOI system, rather than as obligatory agreement). In Balochi (Iranian, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan), the inherited system of object agreement suffixes now only reflects number (Korn 2009). Baker (2011) likewise discusses the tendency for subject agreement to be associated with person, while object agreement tends towards gender and number. ...
While the grammaticalization of person agreement is a widely-cited and apparently uncontroversial topos of grammaticalization theory, the striking differences in the outcome of subject pronoun, and object pronoun grammaticalization, remain unexplained, and the relevant literature continues to assume a unified grammaticalization pathway. This paper argues that the grammaticalization of object pronouns is fundamentally different to that of subject pronouns. More specifically, although object pronouns may be rapid early grammaticalizers, often losing prosodic independence and cliticizing to a verbal head, they do not advance further to reach the stage of obligatory agreement markers typical of subject agreement. Typically, object markers remain at the stage of Differential Object Indexing, where their realization is conditioned by a bundle of semantic and pragmatic factors exhibiting close parallels to those operative in Differential Object Marking. Evidence from language typology, and from the diachrony of person markers across two millennia of Iranian languages, is adduced to back up these claims. Thus the widely-assumed grammaticalization cline for the grammaticalization of agreement needs to be reconsidered; for object agreement, there is evidently an attractor state, that of Differential Object Indexing, beyond which object agreement seldom proceeds. Finally, explanations grounded in discourse data are proposed, which also account for why obligatory object agreement in the category of person is so rare, while gender and number agreement for objects is far less constrained.
... These person forms are the two sets of verbal affix person markers, which derive from historical verb agreement suffixes and are used only with verb stems; a set of clitic person markers which derive from historical pronominal clitics of West Iranian (cf. Korn 2009) and can occur with hosts from diverse word categories; and finally, a set of copular person forms, which have most probably evolved from the contraction of the present tense stem of the verb for 'to be' with verb agreement suffixes, whence their close formal similarity. ...
Current Issues in Kurdish Linguistics contains ten contributions which span the field of Kurdish linguistics, both in terms of geography and in terms of the range of topics. Along with several works on Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) and Sorani (Central Kurdish), two chapters shed light on the lesser-known Southern Kurdish language area. Other studies are comparative, and treat the Kurdish language area in its entirety. The linguistic approaches of the authors are a mix of formal and typological perspectives, and cover topics ranging from geographical distribution and variation to phonology, morphosyntax, discourse structure, historical morphology, and sociolinguistics. The present volume is the first of its kind in bringing together contributions from a relatively large number of linguists, working in a diverse range of frameworks and on different aspects and varieties of Kurdish. As such, it attests to the increasing breadth and sophistication now evident in Kurdish linguistics, and is a worthy launch for the new series Bamberg Studies in Kurdish Linguistics (BSKL).
The study of the language of religious minorities in Iran is particularly important for understanding the historical development and typology of Iranian languages. Historical and linguistic evidence substantiates the idea that Zoroastrians and Jews in cities in central and western Iran preserved their former vernacular language, whereas the majority of the population replaced it with Persian in the New Iranian period. This paper focuses on the language of Jews in Hamadan and has two main objectives: first, it examines numerous distinctive features of Judeo-Hamadani; second, it reviews and updates recent research to clarify the language origins, using data from new materials recorded during fieldwork in Hamadan from October 2018 to August 2019, and in Yazd in 2017.
The aim of the present article is to describe the morphosyntactic properties of Iranian Coastal Balochi as spoken by the Afro-Balochi community. The Afro-Baloch have completely switched to Balochi and there are no traces of African languages in their speech. In comparison with other Balochi dialects of Iran on the one hand and Coastal Balochi dialects of Pakistan on the other, Coastal Balochi as spoken in Iran shows archaic characteristics, particularly in its case system, in the demonstrative pronouns and in the alignment features. This particularly applies to the speech of the Afro-Baloch, who due to persisting social segregation have limited access to education and media.
The aim of the present paper is to describe the morphosyntactic properties of Iranian Coastal Balochi as spoken by the Afro-Balochi community. The Afro-Baloch have completely switched to Balochi and there are no traces of African languages in their speech. However, in comparison with other Balochi dialects of Iran on the one hand, and with Coastal Balochi dialects of Pakistan on other, Afro-Balochi shows archaic characteristics, particularly in its case system, in the demonstrative pronouns and in the alignment features. This might be due to the persisting social segregation of the Afro-Baloch and their limited access to education and media, resulting in reduced contact with the languages and dialects outside of their community.
This article studies the nominal system and noun phrase of Bashkardi, a language of the Iranian family spoken in Southern Iran in the region of Bashakerd. Bashkardi is a very little studied language, and is in particular need of being documented because it is a minority language endangered by heavy influence from Persian. The article is based on recordings made by Ilya Gershevitch in 1956. In discussing the Bashkardi nominal system, I compare it to that of geographically or historically neighbouring languages such as Balochi, spoken nearby in the province (and also in the form of the Koroshi dialect spoken in Fars province to the west). From a historical perspective, Middle Persian and Parthian, the only two Western Iranian languages attested from Middle Iranian times, are adduced to elucidate the development of the Bashkardi nominal system. I argue that the nominal system of Bashkardi agrees with Persian and other Western Ir. languages in having lost the distinction between direct and oblique case (preserved in Kurmanji, Balochi, etc.), but that a trace of the oblique case might be present in the possessive marker -ī. Like Middle Persian, Bashkardi employs adpositions to mark syntactic relations, but none of these is used in a systematic way as of yet. Transactions of the Philological Society
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.