A Typological Study of Clitics in Persian

زبانشناسی و گویش های خراسان

Article 5, Volume 5, Issue 8, April 2013, Pages 103-130   

Document Type: علمی - پژ‍وهشی

DOI: 10.22067/lj.v5i8.34489

Authors

Mohammad Amin Sorahi^* ; Batoul Alinezhad

Abstract

In linguistics morphology, clitics are considered as a set of special units which cannot be categorized under free or bound morphemes, and therefore, seriously question the traditional view of dividing morphemes into the two groups of free and bound morphemes. Clitics represent some characteristics of words and simultaneously, possess some important properties of the bound morphemes as well. The study of clitics covers a wide domain including morphology and syntax. The present study aims to investigate the morphological structure of clitics in Persian based on a set of universal parameters. In doing so, the typological models of Aikhenvald (2003), Bickel and Nichols (2007), and Klavans (1985) were used. The results of the present study show that the proposed model of Aikhenvald was proved to be a scientific instrument for distinguishing Persian clitics from non-clitic units.

Keywords

clitics; enclitics; affix; Typology; Persian