Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Faeze Asadi
• Rahman Veisi Hasar

Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan

Abstract

This study investigates the phenomena of aspect and coercion in Persian through the lens of Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin & Foley, 1980; 1984) and Cortes-Rodriguez’s (2014) approach, focusing on the predicate level and the syntactic layers of nucleus, core, and clause. The research method is descriptive-analytical, and the data are collected through fieldwork from daily conversations, magazines, newspapers, and interviews with native Persian speakers. The study aims to identify aspectual categories of the verbs, determine the operators influencing coercion and aspectual shift, and present a hierarchy of these operators in shaping the final aspectual interpretation of the sentence based on the chosen theoretical framework. Findings demonstrate that coercion can occur at any level—nucleus, core, or clause—leading to changes in the verb class. First, the paper introduces examples of Persian verbs corresponding to various aspectual classes (states, activities, accomplishments, achievements, and semelfactives at the nucleus layer, and activity-accomplishment classes at the core layer). It then explicates the properties of each class using syntactic-semantic tests, such as the application of different grammatical operators and adverbial modifiers within sentences. The tests are employed to illustrate the aspectual nature of the verbs. Subsequently, the study examines the roles of various operators like perfective and imperfective grammatical aspect, perfect operator, directional prepositions, the referential nature of internal arguments, and different types of adverbs (durative, completive, frequency, delimitative, speed, and dynamic) in aspectual coercion. Next, we try to explain and identity the structural position of each operator within sentence layers. Lastly, the paper represents types of aspectual shifts resulting from the interaction of aspectual classes with sentence elements and operators through formalized formulas, determining the placement of each element within the nucleus, core, and clause layers. To structure and sequence elements across these layers, the paper proposes a linear hierarchy and syntactic projection model.

Keywords

• Role and Reference Grammar
• Coercion
• Aspectual Shift
• Lexical Aspect
• Verb Classifications
• Layered Structure
• Persian Language

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