Head Position Parameter in Persian: An Optimality Theory Approach

• Main Author: Amir Ghorbanpour
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Allameh Tabataba'i University Press 2015-10-01
• Series: ̒Ilm-i Zabān
• Subjects: Head position parameter; Syntactic phrases; Optimality Theory; Persian language
• Online Access: http://ls.atu.ac.ir/article_3110_8cd4f726d55836483bbff3342bce54b0.pdf

The present study aims at exploring head position in Persian syntactic phrases within the Optimality Theory framework. Making use of syntactic alignment constraints proposed by Grimshaw (2002), which is alternatively notated in this paper as Align-Left/Right(X, XP) (McCarthy, 2008), the study seeks to arrive at a consistent ranking of the relevant constraints being active in Persian with respect to the relative position of heads and complements within phrases. Bearing in mind the non-uniformity of head position across Persian syntactic phrases, it is concluded that the general constraint Align-Left (X, XP) is highly active and determinant in most of the syntactic structures in the language; also, the exceptions of head-finality, i.e. verb phrases and the direct object case marker ‘rā’, are accounted for by more specific, higher-ranked constraints of opposite value. These higher-ranked constraints are Align-Right(V, VP) and Align-Right(K, KP) respectively.