Language Research

Abstract The inadequacy of previous definitions of the concepts of subordinate or dependent clauses, and coordinate or consistent clauses, along with terminological Inconsistency, and considering all sentences containing relative clauses, complement clauses, and adverbial clauses in their construction as complex sentence in Persian language on one hand, and neglecting the possibility of hierarchical nature of clause linkage on the other hand causes a lot of dispersion in the definition of clause linking and complex sentence  in previous research. In Persian language, in many cases, especially in speech, linkers (conjunctions) are not overt, which make the coordinate clauses and subordinate clauses alike on one hand and similar to independent clauses on the other hand. Conjunctions or linkers in clause linkage are also place of dispute, covering an inconsistent collection its items clearly different from each other. To address these issues, in a descriptive approach, a spoken corpus of 4500 minutes of various programs of different television and radio channels of National Media of Iran, in the period of Khordad 1400 to 1401 were examined. For data analysis in this research, no priori theoretical framework was used, but based on the collected data, with a prototypical and hierarchical approach, a model proposed for the study of clause linkage and complex sentence in Persian language. To achieve this goal, definition for different kind of clause linkage presented in the first place, then two concepts of “Clause connection” and “clause relation” were distinguished. And a triple distinction was established between intra-clausal linkage (within the same clause), inter-clausal linkage (between two clauses), and beyond-clause linkage. The concepts of coordination, dependency and subordination, then re-defined. The linkers utilizing in each linkage are also specified. Then by determining same parameters for describing both the coordinate and subordinate clauses, hierarchies in clause linkage and complex sentence continuum in spoken Persian presented.

Abstract The present article mainly aims to investigate the process through which relative clauses appear postverbally and distant from the noun they modify. To do so, relative clauses are first classified into two categories of Restrictive (RRC) and Non-restrictive Relative Clauses (NRRC). The article focuses only on the RRCs given the vastness of the research area. Adopting a non-movement analysis for postverbal RRCs within Minimalism, arguments coming from Quantifier Raising and Adjunct Merger are presented to support the hypothesis that RRCs are adjoined to a copy of the NP they modify after the latter adjoins to a functional projection in the left periphery to host the RRC. Furthermore, it is proposed that the head of the aforementioned fumctional projection may come from the lexicon with an optional strong D feature ([uD*]) that triggers the movement of the copy of the source NP. As such, assuming that we have verb movement in Persian and that complement clauses in this language move to their surface position within TP to check a clause type feature, the postverbal RRCs are predicted to follow complement clauses to give the right relative order of the two postverbal clauses, a prediction that is borne out. Finally, the restriction on the presence of only one RRC postverbally is scrutinized in addition to the compulsory postverbal appearance of RRCs in certain structures.