Separability of light verb constructions in Persian

.  Persian Light Verb Constructions (LVCs), consisting of a light verb and a preverb, fall into two groups: separable and inseparable. The nominal preverbs in the former, unlike those in the latter, can function as direct object DP argument, can be modified by an adjective, and can be relativized, scrambled and focused on by Wh-interrogatives. In this paper, it is argued that the (in)separability of LVCs cannot necessarily be an indication of the fact that LVCs are formed at two levels of representation. It is shown that (in)separability of LVCs follows from the semantic and morphosyntactic properties of preverbs and light verbs in the language.

[1]  Miriam Butt.  The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu , 1995 .

[2]  Tim Stowell,et al.  Raising in Irish and the Projection Principle , 1989 .

[3]  Shigeru Miyagawa.  Light verbs and the ergative hypothesis , 1989 .

[4]  Raffaella Folli,et al.  Determinants of Event Types on Persian Complex Predicates , 2005 .

[5]  Guiseppe Longobardi,et al.  Reference and Proper Names: A Theory of N-movement in Syntax and , 1994 .

[6]  Sara Thomas Rosen,et al.  Argument structure and complex predicates , 1990 .

[7]  Barbara H. Partee,et al.  Syntactic categories and semantic type , 1992 .

[8]  J. Grimshaw,et al.  Light verbs and 'th'-marking , 1988 .

[9]  Sun-woong Kim.  A Study on the Light Verb Construction in English and Korean , 1994 .

[10]  T. Mohanan.  Argument structure in Hindi , 1994 .

[11]  M. Diesing.  Light verbs and the syntax of aspect in Yiddish , 1997 .

[12]  Liliane Haegeman,et al.  Introduction to Government and Binding Theory , 1991 .

[13]  Monhammad-Mehdi Vahedi-Langrudi.  The syntax, semantics and argument structure of complex predicates in modern Farsi. , 1996 .

[14]  William Croft,et al.  Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective , 2001 .

[15]  Steven Abney,et al.  The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect , 1972 .

[16]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Minimalist Program , 1992 .

[17]  Noam Chomsky.  Derivation by phase , 1999 .

[18]  M. Diesing.  Aspect in Yiddish: The Semantics of an Inflectional Head , 2000 .

[19]  N. Evans,et al.  Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes , 2005 .

[20]  Timothy Shopen,et al.  Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Parts-of-speech systems , 2007 .

[21]  Karine Megerdoomian.  Event Structure and Complex Predicates in Persian , 2001, Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique.

[22]  Gholamhossein Karimi-Doostan.  Light verbs and structural case , 2005 .