A Minimalist Approach to the Syntactic Position of the Q-Particle ‘aya’ in Persian

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Ph.D. of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

Abstract

The present paper aims to determine the position of the Q-particle ‘aya’ in Persian within the Minimalist framework (e.g. Chomsky, 1995, 2001). To this end, first, evidence is provided against the idea that the Q-particle ‘aya’ is in the head of the Complementizer Phrase (CP) (Lotfi, 2000; 2003). Then, the paper employs some pieces of evidence including the different distributional behavior of ‘aya’ compared to the mood markers, their co-occurrence in the sentence, the hierarchical position of the negation marker as well as the interaction of the modality and mood to argue against the hypothesis that assigns ‘aya’ to the Mood Phrase (MoodP) (Raghibdoust, 1993). Following that, it is proposed that ‘aya’ is placed, by external merge, in the head of the Interrogative Phrase (IntP), aiming to check and value the unvalued [Q] feature on this head, satisfy the requirements of the linear order of Persian, and derive the interrogative interpretation of the clause.
 

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References

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نادری، محبوبه و علی درزی (1393). جایگاه ساختاری «چرا» در زبان فارسی. پژوهش‌های زبان‌شناسی، 6 (2)، 89-105.
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