A Critical Response to “Persian Vowel Harmony Without Exceptionality: A Reply to Jam”

Document Type : Book Review

Author

Associate Professor, Department of English, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran.

Abstract

Critiquing research papers is an essential component of scholarly advancement, provided that it is undertaken meticulously, considering the relevant theoretical framework and adhering to professional and ethical decorum to avoid disrespecting researchers’ academic credibility. This rejoinder constitutes a response to the critique by Pirhayati (2025) concerning the present author’s paper entitled “Vowel Harmony in Persian,” published in Lingua in 2020. The issues that the critic discusses include comments on vowel harmony in the Persian imperative structures, particularly exceptionality, constraint rankings, prenasal raising, and the phonological representation of English loanwords in Persian, as well as some additional criticisms. The purpose of this rejoinder is to address all criticisms raised in that critique, providing detailed and scholarly responses to each point—with explicit reference to the topics discussed by the critic—in order to clarify the analyses presented in Jam (2020) and to dispel potential ambiguities

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