Syntax
Hassan Barzegar; Mahinnaz Mirdehghan Farashah; Gholamhossein Karimidoostan
Volume 13, Issue 2 , February 2022, , Pages 167-194
Abstract
The study of Lexical Aspect in Persian Complex Predicates has been a controversial topic in recent years. As far as telicity is concerned, there are two contrasting approaches in this field: one in which the “Preverbal elements”, including nouns, adjectives, and prepositional phrases, are ...
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The study of Lexical Aspect in Persian Complex Predicates has been a controversial topic in recent years. As far as telicity is concerned, there are two contrasting approaches in this field: one in which the “Preverbal elements”, including nouns, adjectives, and prepositional phrases, are considered to be determinant of telicity; and the other, in which “Light Verbs” are considered to be determinant. The present research is aimed to study the aspectual properties of Persian Denominal Complex predicates, and the role and contribution of its constituents in the aspectual properties of theses verbs. For this purpose, the First Phase Syntax is been used to divide the eventive nominal preverbs into two main classes, including process and achievement nouns. Evidences have been provided showing that telicity in eventive denominal CPrs is determined by the event structure of the nominal preverb. Therefore, CPrs which benefit from a process preverb are all atelic, due to the non-bounded nature of the nominal, while those with achievement nominals are all telic, due to the bounded event structure of their preverbal element. The result of this study illustrates that light verbs are neutral in determining the telicity of Persian Complex Predicates. Moreover, it shows that some CPrs with eventive nominals are atelic.
