%0 Journal Article %T Passive Structure in Persian: A Minimalist Approach %J Language Research %I University Tehran %Z 1026-2288 %A Anoushe, Mazdak %D 2015 %\ 05/22/2015 %V 6 %N 1 %P 1-20 %! Passive Structure in Persian: A Minimalist Approach %K Head Movement %K Verbal Passive %K Adjectival Passive %R 10.22059/jolr.2015.56604 %X Whether or not there is a verbal passive construction in Persian has been ‎highly controversial. Traditional grammarians and most linguists have ‎argued that there is a structural passive construction in Persian, similar to ‎that observed in English. Within the framework of the Minimalist ‎Program, but more in the spirit of Emonds’s (2006) division of analytic ‎passives into verbal and adjectival, it will be argued that the Persian ‎so-called verbal passive construction is just an instance of adjectival ‎passive, or indeed, unaccusative CPr with a past participle serving as ‎its NV element. In line with what holds for verb movement in simplex ‎and complex predicates, it will be discussed in detail that Modern ‎Persian lacks verbal passive constructions and hence passive ‎projections, and in contrast to the grammatical verb budan ‘to be’ ‎which can be used either as a light verb in complex predicates or as a ‎perfect auxiliary in present/past perfect tenses, the grammatical verb ‎šodan ‘to become’, which is traditionally considered as a passive ‎auxiliary, is indeed a light verb hosted by an NV element. According ‎to this line of analysis, in Persian adjectival passives, the head [A-en] is ‎present in both LF and PF and the past participle is obligatorily ‎interpreted as an adjective. %U https://jolr.ut.ac.ir/article_56604_7e7d0fc921030d97760ff73900ae0831.pdf