Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• abdolhossein heydari

Department of English Language Teaching, Farhangian University, P. O. Box 14665-889, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study Persian effect on the relative clause construction of Azerbaijani. The data have been collected from the different contexts of Azerbaijani speakers’ speech in Ardabil province. At first the data were classified in two groups: head final relative clauses and head initial relative clauses. Then they were analyzed according to views common in language contact phenomenon including Heine (2006). So this research is descriptive-analytic. Azerbaijani allows the nouns with different grammatical functions (subject, direct object, indirect object, object of postposition, genitive, object of comparison) to be relativized like other languages in the world. In addition to head final relative clauses (common in Turkish languages), most of the data have been produced according to Persian relative clause structure (head initial pattern) by borrowing Persian “Ke” morpheme. Previous Azerbaijani language researchers have considered head initial relative clause as a borrowed structure from Persian to Azerbaijani. But the findings of this research show that head initial relative clause structure is an Azerbaijani native structure used in the special context limitedly without the appearance of Persian “Ke” morpheme. Persian and Azerbaijani can be considered as model and replica languages respectively in the language contact situation. Azerbaijani speakers use a strategy such as the extending strategy to increase the frequency of head initial relative clause structure matching that of Persian by borrowing Persian “Ke” morpheme, as Heine (2006) has showed the use of this strategy in the contact situation of some languages. Azerbaijani speakers choose among two alternative structures (head final and head initial relative clause structures), the one corresponding to Persian relative clause structure. Azerbaijani speakers’ extended use of head initial relative clauses is as a result of Azerbaijani convergence with Persian that is a common phenomenon due to the language contact occurring in multilingual societies.

Key words: Persian, Azerbaijani, language contact, pre-head relative clause, and post-head relative clause

Keywords

• Persian
• Azerbaijani
• language contact
• pre-head relative clause
• and post-head relative clause

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