Chapter 4. Middle Persian Ezafe
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Vida Samiian
Abstract
This chapter describes one phase of the historical development of the “Ezafe” morpheme, a significant feature of Western Iranian languages. Ezafe is argued to have arisen in Middle Persian (MP) by a reanalysis of the Old Persian relative pronoun ‘haya’ due to a preponderance of copula-less clauses. It is shown that the distribution of Ezafe in MP resembles that in its modern descendants, but differing in three key respects: (i) MP Ezafe is an independent morpheme, and not a clitic; (ii) it appears to form a constituent with its following phrase; and (iii) it patterns like a preposition in various respects. This distribution, coupled with its emergence in the period when the Old Persian case system was disappearing and core functional prepositions were coming into the language, strongly suggests that Ezafe had the status of a genitive preposition in MP comparable to English ‘of’. We conclude with some interesting questions for further research raised by these results.
Abstract
This chapter describes one phase of the historical development of the “Ezafe” morpheme, a significant feature of Western Iranian languages. Ezafe is argued to have arisen in Middle Persian (MP) by a reanalysis of the Old Persian relative pronoun ‘haya’ due to a preponderance of copula-less clauses. It is shown that the distribution of Ezafe in MP resembles that in its modern descendants, but differing in three key respects: (i) MP Ezafe is an independent morpheme, and not a clitic; (ii) it appears to form a constituent with its following phrase; and (iii) it patterns like a preposition in various respects. This distribution, coupled with its emergence in the period when the Old Persian case system was disappearing and core functional prepositions were coming into the language, strongly suggests that Ezafe had the status of a genitive preposition in MP comparable to English ‘of’. We conclude with some interesting questions for further research raised by these results.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Anaphoric potential of pseudo-incorporated bare objects in Persian 12
- Chapter 2. Persian quantifiers and their scope 44
- Chapter 3. Why-stripping in Persian 81
- Chapter 4. Middle Persian Ezafe 100
- Chapter 5. Ezafe and the article 130
- Chapter 6. Ezafe as a linking feature within DP 154
- Chapter 7. Mood selection in complement clauses in Persian 180
- Chapter 8. Three types of verb stem levelling in Tat 210
- Chapter 9. A null stem analysis of Persian copular verbs 231
- Chapter 10. Semi-anticausatives 263
- Chapter 11. The nature and licensing of hi:tʃ elements in Persian 282
- Language index 307
- Name index 309
- Subject index 313
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Anaphoric potential of pseudo-incorporated bare objects in Persian 12
- Chapter 2. Persian quantifiers and their scope 44
- Chapter 3. Why-stripping in Persian 81
- Chapter 4. Middle Persian Ezafe 100
- Chapter 5. Ezafe and the article 130
- Chapter 6. Ezafe as a linking feature within DP 154
- Chapter 7. Mood selection in complement clauses in Persian 180
- Chapter 8. Three types of verb stem levelling in Tat 210
- Chapter 9. A null stem analysis of Persian copular verbs 231
- Chapter 10. Semi-anticausatives 263
- Chapter 11. The nature and licensing of hi:tʃ elements in Persian 282
- Language index 307
- Name index 309
- Subject index 313
